Improving release notes and technical overview content

Registered by Kate Stewart

Our release notes and technical overview could use a bit of tuning. Part of this is to be clear on the goals they are serving. Session is for discussion of the goals, and ways we can approach better, more automated generation of the content for them.
(Leveraging blueprints completion notes, etc.)

Blueprint information

Status:
Started
Approver:
Kate Stewart
Priority:
High
Drafter:
None
Direction:
Approved
Assignee:
Kate Stewart
Definition:
Approved
Series goal:
Accepted for quantal
Implementation:
Beta Available
Milestone target:
milestone icon ubuntu-12.10-beta-1
Started by
Kate Stewart

Related branches

Sprints

Whiteboard

Changes made in 12.04 Release Notes
   - 1 page --> split up to page per product. Permitted more targetted information, LTS extensions where appropriate.
   - Thank yous added.

Would like to look at how we can continue to polish/make useful.

Points for discussion:
- release note content should be able to be auto extracted from completed feature blueprints. "Release Notes" on whiteboard, or "Release Notes" in WIKI template section.

- Multiple templates for the blueprints, would like to standardize on some sections so we can get automation/tracking happening a bit better (see above comments).
[1] https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UETeam/Blueprints/Template (obsolete - deleted 5/4)
[2] https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UETeam/Blueprints/Example (obsolete - deleted 5/4)
[3] https://wiki.ubuntu.com/SpecSpec
[4] https://wiki.ubuntu.com/SpecTemplate
[5] https://wiki.ubuntu.com/FullSpecTemplate

- Clarity on purpose of Technical Overview vs. Release Notes. Some disagreement during cycle, lets make sure we're all on the same page.

- Use of topics to group features that need to go in release notes, by product ?

- Do we want to look at extending release notes for different audiences:
   - End User, System Administrator, Developer...
   Good examples:
   http://library.gnome.org/misc/release-notes/3.2/
      - What's new for users, what's new for developers; and translations.
   http://docs.fedoraproject.org/en-US/Fedora/16/html/Release_Notes/index.html

(?)

Work Items

Work items:
[kate.stewart] Cross-check and publish mechanism for non-canonical people to have their work items listed in status.ubuntu.com https://launchpad.net/~ubuntu-community-contributors/+joinb: DONE
[arosales] Create a neutralized version of the release notes template that is to go into the whiteboard: DONE
[kate.stewart] start discussion on ubuntu-devel of 1 WIKI template to rule them all, and include antonio's in discussion.: INPROGRESS
[kate.stewart] work with those interested to create topics (to link features together) for auto generation to release notes pages.: DONE
[ursinha] Look into launchpad API to figure out how to automate expiring old blueprints. Ones targetted to recent releases but not delivered can be pinged for retarget/expire/abandoned. Really old ones, especially those never targetted, or those untouched in a long time, can be expired most likely. : POSTPONED
[kate.stewart] circulate for feedback, get release note feature from whiteboard template to product manifest leads for buy in, and then to ubuntu-devel to explain what what we're experimenting with.: DONE
[kate.stewart] help community teams set up topics that they want to track in status.ubuntu.com: DONE
[alanbell] Prefill the etherpad with the templated story of what's going into the whiteboard using the new release notes format (for R UDS): TODO

Dependency tree

* Blueprints in grey have been implemented.