Bar for release notes

[Joseph D. Darcy]

Hello,

On 7/3/2023 1:15 AM, David Holmes wrote:
> On 3/07/2023 5:55 pm, - wrote:
>> Hi CSR group,
>> Just curious, what is usually the condition for the requirement of a 
>> release note for CSR changes? Is it usually related to behavior 
>> changes to frequently-used APIs, and how large would a change be to 
>> require such a note?
>
> There are no hard and fast rules here, it is very subjective and often 
> happens because the CSR review process raises a request to add a 
> Release Note.
>
> To me it is mainly a matter of how noticeable any change in behaviour, 
> or change in API would be. Consider the number of changes in any given 
> release of OpenJDk compared to the number of release notes - not many 
> changes get release notes. That said a change doesn't have to be large 
> to warrant a release note, it just has to be quite noticeable to 
> anyone using the affected bit of code.
>
A few rough statistics for context: there are about 2,400 bug 
fixes/enhancements in a JDK feature release and about 150 CSRs.

The items which get release notes may or may not have a corresponding 
CSR and, as David notes, one of the outcomes of CSR review is "please 
write a release note."

Subjectively, if a change could be sufficiently surprising to users and 
isn't otherwise documented (as with a JEP, etc.), then the change should 
have a release note.

HTH,

-Joe