Re: Question about release notes

["Susan W. Gallagher" <sgallagher -at- EXPERSOFT -dot- COM>]

At 01:05 PM 7/8/97 -0400, Julie F. Hesselgesser wrote:
>Are there any standards or rules about what constitutes release notes?

About the only rule about release notes is that they accomodate your
users and your product. After that, pretty much anything goes. 'Round
here, release notes cover:

        * Known problems and work-arounds
        * Fixed problems
        * Additions to product functionality
        * Additions to product documentation

Release notes are cumulative -- for example, in the fixed problems
section, there are separate subheadings for each "dot" release so
users can easily scan to find out what's changed for just this time
or for the whole time since the user and reference manual were last
printed. For each major (i.e., "dot zero") release, the info from
the release notes gets tucked into the user and reference books and
the process begins again. For major upgrades (2.0, 3.0, etc.),
release notes begin with "what's new in this release" and the process
starts all over again. Usually, 1.0 releases don't need release notes.

A separate readme.txt file covers last minute stuff.


-Sue Gallagher               http://pw1.netcom.com/~gscale/susanwg/
sgallagher -at- expersoft -dot- com     http://www.expersoft.com

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