[libvirt] [PATCH 1/3] maint: Stop generating ChangeLog from git

[Andrea Bolognani]

Our ChangeLog is generated by basically redirecting the output
of 'git log' into it so, as can be expected, it has only gotten
bigger as development has progressed. As of today, its size has
reached pretty much comical levels:

  $ du -sk ChangeLog
  11328 ChangeLog

All of that for information *literally nobody* cares about: end
users and distro maintainers have proper release notes lovingly
compiled for them, while developers peruse the history either by
calling 'git log' directly or through their favorite $EDITOR's
git integration.

Replacing the generated ChangeLog with a short message pointing
interested parties to the git repository does not only reduce
the size of the unpacked sources from 259904 KiB to 248576 KiB
(~4% saving): from a quick test on my laptop, doing so reduces
the size of the *compressed* release archive from 15140 KiB to
12364 KiB (~18% saving) and also takes the time needed to run
'make distcheck' down from 4:44 to 4:21 (~8% saving).

Signed-off-by: Andrea Bolognani <abologna at redhat.com>
---
 .gitignore     |  1 -
 ChangeLog      | 15 +++++++++++++++
 Makefile.am    | 14 +-------------
 bootstrap.conf |  4 ++--
 cfg.mk         |  2 +-
 5 files changed, 19 insertions(+), 17 deletions(-)
 create mode 100644 ChangeLog

diff --git a/.gitignore b/.gitignore
index 3223cf1b76..c918ec8226 100644
--- a/.gitignore
+++ b/.gitignore
@@ -37,7 +37,6 @@
 .sc-start-sc_*
 .ycm_extra_conf.py
 /AUTHORS
-/ChangeLog
 /GNUmakefile
 /INSTALL
 /NEWS
diff --git a/ChangeLog b/ChangeLog
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000..55eb05c5ce
--- /dev/null
+++ b/ChangeLog
@@ -0,0 +1,15 @@
+libvirt ChangeLog
+=================
+
+The libvirt project doesn't include a detailed ChangeLog in its release
+archives.
+
+If you're interested in the full list of changes made to libvirt since
+the project was started, you can clone the git repository from
+
+  https://libvirt.org/git/libvirt.git
+
+and browse them locally using your favorite git history viewer or,
+alternatively, browse them online at
+
+  https://libvirt.org/git/?p=libvirt.git;a=log
diff --git a/Makefile.am b/Makefile.am
index 3c06e2619a..ebfcbec07a 100644
--- a/Makefile.am
+++ b/Makefile.am
@@ -79,19 +79,7 @@ check-access:
 
 MAINTAINERCLEANFILES = .git-module-status
 
-dist-hook: gen-ChangeLog gen-AUTHORS
-
-# Generate the ChangeLog file (with all entries since the switch to git)
-# and insert it into the directory we're about to use to create a tarball.
-gen_start_date = 2009-07-04
-.PHONY: gen-ChangeLog
-gen-ChangeLog:
-	$(AM_V_GEN)if test -d .git; then \
-	  $(top_srcdir)/build-aux/gitlog-to-changelog \
-	    --since=$(gen_start_date) > $(distdir)/cl-t; \
-	  rm -f $(distdir)/ChangeLog; \
-	  mv $(distdir)/cl-t $(distdir)/ChangeLog; \
-	fi
+dist-hook: gen-AUTHORS
 
 .PHONY: gen-AUTHORS
 gen-AUTHORS:
diff --git a/bootstrap.conf b/bootstrap.conf
index c2194df80b..b63acffcdb 100644
--- a/bootstrap.conf
+++ b/bootstrap.conf
@@ -176,8 +176,8 @@ xmllint	   -
 xsltproc   -
 "
 
-# Automake requires that ChangeLog and AUTHORS exist.
-touch AUTHORS ChangeLog || exit 1
+# Automake requires that AUTHORS exist.
+touch AUTHORS || exit 1
 
 # Override bootstrap's list - we don't use mdate-sh or texinfo.tex.
 gnulib_extra_files="
diff --git a/cfg.mk b/cfg.mk
index a62d4db13b..8594f64482 100644
--- a/cfg.mk
+++ b/cfg.mk
@@ -1113,7 +1113,7 @@ maint.mk Makefile: _autogen_error
   # though, as it would be quite pointless
   ifeq (2,$(_dry_run_result)$(_clean_requested))
     $(info INFO: running autogen.sh is required, running it now...)
-    $(shell touch $(srcdir)/AUTHORS $(srcdir)/ChangeLog)
+    $(shell touch $(srcdir)/AUTHORS)
 maint.mk Makefile: _autogen
   endif
 endif
-- 
2.20.1