[ANNOUNCE] Git v2.8.1 (and call-for-help to "make rpmbuild" users)

> If you do not build RPM binary packages from our pristine source,
> you can safely ignore this release and stop reading this message.
> 
> Now that the audience of this message has been limited to a narrow
> target, before I make an announcement, here is a call-for-help to
> you.
> 
> Git v2.8 removed README file and added a corresponding README.md
> file.  The change however did not adjust git.spec.in that still
> referred to README, causing "make rpmbuild" to fail.  The breakage
> was not noticed by anybody who tested v2.8.0-rc0 and later release
> candidates, and ended up in the final v2.8 release, and we saw a
> handful of bug reports on the list after the release happened.
> 
> This maintenance release is to correct this bug for those who run
> "make rpmbuild". It has no other changes.
> 
> It is clear that nobody who relies on being able to "make rpmbuild"
> ever tried any of the 5 release candidate snapshots that happened
> during Feb 26-Mar 28.  We had a whole month and nobody noticed?
> 
> This incident clearly shows that something needs to happen, if
> people want "make rpmbuild" to keep working.  Even though this
> maintenance release may fix this single bug, breakages similar to it
> that only affect "make rpmbuild" users are guaranteed to appear in
> future releases, unless those who can prevent them from happening
> start helping to test at least release candidate snapshots.

> If you do not build RPM binary packages from our pristine source,
> you can safely ignore this release and stop reading this message.
>
> Now that the audience of this message has been limited to a narrow
> target, before I make an announcement, here is a call-for-help to
> you.
>
> Git v2.8 removed README file and added a corresponding README.md
> file.  The change however did not adjust git.spec.in that still
> referred to README, causing "make rpmbuild" to fail.  The breakage
> was not noticed by anybody who tested v2.8.0-rc0 and later release
> candidates, and ended up in the final v2.8 release, and we saw a
> handful of bug reports on the list after the release happened.
>
> This maintenance release is to correct this bug for those who run
> "make rpmbuild". It has no other changes.
>
> It is clear that nobody who relies on being able to "make rpmbuild"
> ever tried any of the 5 release candidate snapshots that happened
> during Feb 26-Mar 28.  We had a whole month and nobody noticed?
>
> This incident clearly shows that something needs to happen, if
> people want "make rpmbuild" to keep working.  Even though this
> maintenance release may fix this single bug, breakages similar to it
> that only affect "make rpmbuild" users are guaranteed to appear in
> future releases, unless those who can prevent them from happening
> start helping to test at least release candidate snapshots.
>
> It is even more preferrable if they can test the tip of 'next'
> branch regularly, in order to prevent such breakages from hitting
> the 'master' branch to be included in the next release, which is
> what the other parts of the system aims at.
>
> The other obvious option is for us to stop pretending that "make
> rpmbuild" does anything useful to do and drop the build target and
> the unmaintained git.spec.in file on which nobody in the active
> development community keeps eyes.  I do not mean this as a threat
> "help us or else"; there is a precedent.  We used to ship our own
> debian/rules and friends for those who wanted to debbuild from the
> source, but the Debian packagers wanted to have their own proper
> ones and ours ended up confusing the users, and we made the world
> a better place by removing our copy.  If "make rpmbuild" people want
> us to take this route, that is also OK for us.
>
> So that's the call for help.  Now to the announcement.

>
> The latest maintenance release Git v2.8.1 is now available at
> the usual places.
>
> The tarballs are found at:
>
>     https://www.kernel.org/pub/software/scm/git/
>
> The following public repositories all have a copy of the 'v2.8.1'
> tag and the 'maint' branch that the tag points at:
>
>   url = https://kernel.googlesource.com/pub/scm/git/git
>   url = git://repo.or.cz/alt-git.git
>   url = git://git.sourceforge.jp/gitroot/git-core/git.git
>   url = git://git-core.git.sourceforge.net/gitroot/git-core/git-core
>   url = https://github.com/gitster/git
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Git v2.8.1 Release Notes
> ========================
>
> Fixes since v2.8
> ----------------
>
>  * "make rpmbuild" target was broken as its input, git.spec.in, was
>    not updated to match a file it describes that has been renamed
>    recently.  This has been fixed.
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Changes since v2.8.0 are as follows:
>
> Junio C Hamano (1):
>       Git 2.8.1
>
> Matthieu Moy (1):
>       git.spec.in: use README.md, not README
>
> --
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