[Python-apps-team] Bug#666549: mercurial: Please remove the latest NEWS.Debian entry

[Jonathan Nieder]

Hi,

Javi Merino wrote:
> On Sat, Mar 31, 2012 at 07:52:02PM +0300, Adrian Bunk wrote:

>> mercurial (2.1.1-1) unstable; urgency=low
>>
>>   - pull return code now matches its pre-2.1 behavior
[...]
>> It is completely pointless that people upgrading from 1.6.4-1
>> in squeeze will see this entry.
>
> On the other hand, people upgrading from 2.1 wheezy will see it and
> they may want to know about it.

A few thoughts from my end.  I have no horse in this race.

 - When I read the message, I'm mystified.  How did the pull return
   code behave before 2.1?  Is this 2.1 the same as Debian mercurial
   2.1-1, or maybe this note was copied from upstream and the change
   might have been cherry-picked to Debian sooner or later?  Does this
   only affect the "hg pull" command or others, too?  Why am I being
   told about it?  Should I be worried and cancel the upgrade, or is
   this a benign change?

   If I were a sysadmin who does not use mercurial but keeps it
   installed for the sake of others, I would be even more mystified.

   So a NEWS.Debian entry should be very explicit.  I haven't looked
   into what the change is actually about, so details in the
   following example are made up and wrong.

	Prior to version 2.1-1, the return code from the "hg pull"
	command when there are no changes to get was <such and such>.
	This was changed to <such and such> in version 2.1-1 for <such
	and such reason>, but now that change has been backed out and
	scripts designed for older versions will work again.

	If you have written scripts relying on the 2.1 behavior, please
	adjust them.

   That way if I were such a sysadmin I would know to include a note
   about this in a quick announcement about the upgrade and that there
   is nothing else required of me.

 - If you don't expect many people to have to adjust scripts, then
   changelog.Debian is a better place.

 - It's too bad there's no way to communicate to apt-listchanges
   "Don't show this message unless the user is upgrading from version
   x or newer".

Hope that helps,
Jonathan