Changelog vs Commitlog

2010-02-18

One of the things I really like about some software projects is when they provide an actual changelog or release notes. RabbitMQ released 1.7.2 the other day and I asked the developers if they could link to a changelog. They pointed me to this page. Unfortunately this is not exactly what I had in mind. To me, a changelog is a brief overview of the changes in a version that is digestible by the end user. The key factor is that a changelog is not machine-generated but written by a project developer for the project’s users. The RabbitMQ changelog is far too verbose (one entry per commit, along with merge noise).

Here’s a few examples of good changelogs: memcache-client, Java, Nokogiri, Resque, Redis.

Personally I consider a changelog one of the best indicators of a well run OSS project. If you run an OSS project, please consider supplying release notes or a changelog so that other developers can follow your project with ease!

Update: looks like I just missed the changelog for RabbitMQ. Alexis was kind enough to point me to the release notes in the comments.