[Mageia-discuss] Unhelpful update changelogs

Wed Jan 4 19:46:40 CET 2012

On 04/01/12 18:12, Wolfgang Bornath wrote:
+> 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.
+>
+
+I very much agree with you Wolfgang, as Manuel pointed out there is a 
+bug to do just that.
+
+There is nothing I can personally do to make the necessary changes so I 
+was attempting to answer the question that was asked. That would be 
+something you'd have to take up on the dev mailing list!
+
+Claire
+