bug#19113: Generate a ChangeLog file from commit logs

[Eli Zaretskii]

> Date: Fri, 05 Dec 2014 20:42:14 -0800
> From: Paul Eggert <eggert@cs.ucla.edu>
> Cc: 19113@debbugs.gnu.org
> 
> >> 5) Will I be able to mark a portion of a log to be excluded from the
> >> generated ChangeLog?
> >
> > I don't think so, but I don't see why that would be a problem.
> 
> We could add that capability to gitlog-to-changelog, if needed.  It shouldn't 
> be 
> hard.  I'm hoping it's not needed that much.

Glenn is right saying that we generally don't make ChangeLog entries
for some files in etc/, notably NEWS.  It's not a catastrophe, but it
would be a pity to see each change in NEWS to generate a trivial
ChangeLog entry.  So if this isn't hard to add to gitlog-to-changelog,
I suggest doing that.

> > I think by and large it doesn't: it's too complicated to be of regular use.
> > And since it only fixes the ChangeLog but not the "git log" output, its
> > usefulness is rather limited.
> 
> That's correct.  It's mainly intended to correct serious errors, e.g., 
> misattribution.  To help give a feel for it, of the 3329 commits to GNU 
> coreutils master since it began generating ChangeLogs automatically, only 7 
> have 
> been corrected in coreutils' build-aux/git-log-fix file.

I don't see a problem here: the feature already exists, and its
usefulness will have to be determined by our willingness to fix the
errors.