release notes file

[Rodney W. Grimes]

> On June 23, 2019 12:18:18 PM PDT, Mark Johnston <markj at freebsd.org> wrote:
> >Hi,
> >
> >Today we add a Relnotes tag to commits that warrant a release note.
> >My impression is that it doesn't work so well: if a committer forgets
> >or doesn't know to add one there's no way to amend the commit message
> >(same for MFCs), and a commit message isn't a convenient place to write
> >the text of a release note.  I would like to propose adding a top-level
> >RELNOTES file instead, which like UPDATING would document notes for
> >specific commits.  It would be truncated every time the head branch is
> >forked, and changes to it would be MFCed.  This fixes the
> >above-mentioned problems and would hopefully reduce the amount of time
> >needed by re@ to compile release notes.
> >
> >For example:
> >
> >Index: RELNOTES
> >===================================================================
> >--- RELNOTES	(nonexistent)
> >+++ RELNOTES	(working copy)
> >@@ -0,0 +1,8 @@
> >+Release notes for FreeBSD 13.0.
> >+
> >+r349286:
> >+	swapon(8) can now erase a swap device immediately before
> >+	enabling it, similar to newfs(8)'s -E option.  This behaviour
> >+	can be specified by adding -E to swapon(8)'s command-line
> >+	parameters, or by adding the "trimonce" option to a swap
> >+	device's /etc/fstab entry.
> >
> >What do folks think?
> >_______________________________________________
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> 
> There should also be a Makefile target to install it into /etc for people who do not install sources.

For those that did not install src's there is the formal Release Notes,
which is what is condensed from this.  Though the idea of a Makefile
entry to populate /etc with a version of this for snapshots and other
such things is an idea worth considering.

> Cy Schubert <Cy.Schubert at cschubert.com>
-- 
Rod Grimes                                                 rgrimes at freebsd.org