[Mageia-discuss] Unhelpful update changelogs

Wed Jan 4 19:44:02 CET 2012

Am 04.01.2012 19:12, schrieb Wolfgang Bornath:
+> 2012/1/4 Claire Robinson <eeeemail at gmail.com>:
+>> On 04/01/12 17:04, Antoine Pitrou wrote:
+>>>
+>>> Hello,
+>>>
+>>> Not sure I'm missing something, but when there's a software upgrade
+>>> available (either in rpmdrake, or in the update manager), say today's
+>>> Pidgin:
+>>>
+>>>         Version : 2.10.1-1.mga1
+>>>         Version actuellement installée : 2.10.0-1.1.mga1
+>>>
+>>> the changelog doesn't display specifically the changes for that update:
+>>>
+>>>        * dim. 11 déc. 2011 13:00:00 CET fwang<fwang>  2.10.1-1.mga1
+>>>
+>>>         + Revision: 180554
+>>>         - new version 2.10.1
+>>>           fix CVE-2011-3594: UTF-8 validating incoming messages before
+>>>          passing them to glib or libpurple Fix a memory leak when
+>>>          admitting UTF-8 text with a non-UTF-8 primary encoding Fix
+>>>          crashes and memory leaks when receiving malformed voice and
+>>>          video requests
+>>>           + dmorgan<dmorgan>
+>>>             - New version 2.10.0
+>>>
+>>>         * mar. 29 mars 2011 14:00:00 CEST dams<dams>  2.7.11-1.mga1
+>>>         [etc.]
+>>>
+>>> How am I supposed to know what changed between 2.10.0-1.1.mga1 (the
+>>> installed version) and 2.10.1-1.mga1 (the proposed upgrade)? This
+>>> happens with many/most packages, btw, not just Pidgin.
+>>>
+>>> (would be useful, wouldn't it ? :-))
+>>>
+>>> Thanks
+>>>
+>>> Antoine.
+>>>
+>>>
+>> There is a more detailed advisory written for each update but it currently
+>> isn't shown in MageiaUpdate.
+>>
+>> You can subscribe to the Updates Announce mailing list
+> This is surely an option for the experienced user, as are the other
+> options you show.
+>
+> But what about the average (even unexperienced or new) users? You
+> would not suggest to them to join a mailing list to be able to know
+> what an update of a package will change in his system? Imagine the
+> poor guy, getting 20+ packages for update and now trying to find them
+> one by one in the mailing list. This way you educate them to stop
+> caring about changes, just do the update.
+>
+> OTOH if the updates are displayed by the update system in order by
+> their reason for update (security first, then bug fix, then version
+> upgrade (which we seldomly do)) and a click on the package reveils the
+> details, you will educate them to become curious and interested -
+> can't remember which distro I saw that, maybe suse or ubuntu.
+>
+> I know that this means work, it's a reasonable suggestion nevertheless.
+>
+Maybe you missed Manuel's second mail, it's just that the infrastructure
+for displaying the advisory and the type of update (which worked the way
+you describe it on Mandriva, differing between security, bugfix and pure
+version update, color-coded in red, yellow and green in the update applet, IIRC)
+is still missing Please see: https://bugs.mageia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=2223
+