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A comprehensive analysis of challenges and strategies for software release notes on GitHub

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Abstract

Release notes (RNs) refer to the technical documentation that offers users, developers, and other stakeholders comprehensive information about the changes and updates of a new software version. Producing high-quality RNs can be challenging, and it remains unknown what issues developers commonly encounter and what effective strategies can be adopted to mitigate them. To bridge this knowledge gap, we conduct a manual analysis of 1,529 latest RN-related issues in the GitHub issue tracker by using multiple rounds of open coding and construct 1) a comprehensive taxonomy of RN-related issues with four dimensions validated through three semi-structured interviews; 2) an effective framework with eight categories of strategies to overcome these challenges. The four dimensions of RN-related issues revealed by the taxonomy and the corresponding strategies from the framework include: 1) Content (419, 25.47%): RN producers tend to overlook information rather than include inaccurate details, especially for breaking changes. To address this, effective completeness validations are recommended, such as managing Pull Requests, issues, and commits related to RNs; 2) Presentation (150, 9.12%): inadequate layout may bury important information and lead to end users’ confusion, which can be mitigated by employing a hierarchical structure, standardized format, rendering RNs, and folding techniques; 3) Accessibility (303, 18.42%): many users find RNs inaccessible due to link deterioration, insufficient notification, and obfuscated RN locations. This can be alleviated by adopting appropriate locations and channels (such as project websites) and standardizing link management.; 4) Production (773, 46.99%): despite the high demand from RN producers, automating and standardizing the RN production process remains challenging. Developers resolve this problem by using some mature tools on GitHub (like Release Drafter). Additionally, offering guidance, clarifying responsibilities, and distributing workloads are effective in improving collaboration within the team. Mechanisms for distributing and verifying RNs are also selected to enhance synchronization management. Our taxonomy provides a comprehensive blueprint to improve RN production in practice and also reveals interesting future research directions.

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Data Availability

A replication package includes all supplementary materials, which can be found at https://figshare.com/s/b86957f784a8c872c042. This package includes:

– An Excel spreadsheet contains the complete issues and all of our analysis of the RN-related issues;

– The scripts we used to collect, analyze, and visualize the data;

– A markdown contains the practitioner-oriented checklist for producing a high-quality RN.

Notes

  1. Throughout this paper, we use the term “user” to refer to anyone reading or referring to RNs for their tasks, including internal developers, downstream developers, and software end users.

  2. https://github.com/vue-leaflet/Vue2Leaflet/issues/663

  3. https://wiki.mozilla.org/Release_Management/Release_Notes

  4. In this paper, the term “RN-related issues” refers to the issues proposed by developers in the GitHub issue tracker system for software release notes.

  5. https://www.gharchive.org

  6. https://www.conventionalcommits.org/

  7. https://wiki.mozilla.org/Release_Management/Release_Notes

  8. https://docs.openstack.org/project-team-guide/release-management.html#how-to-add-new-release-notes

  9. https://github.com/semantic-release/semantic-release

  10. https://github.com/release-it/release-it

  11. https://github.com/release-drafter/release-drafter

  12. https://github.com/angular/angular.js/blob/master/DEVELOPERS.md#commits

  13. https://docs.github.com/en/issues/tracking-your-work-with-issues/about-issues

  14. An IssueEvent can refer to any activity associated with issues, e.g., creating an issue and commenting on an issue. https://docs.github.com/en/rest/issues/events

  15. The long tail distributions of most metrics are expected and common in mining software repository datasets (He et al. 2021; Zhang et al. 2019b).

  16. https://docs.github.com/en/account-and-profile/setting-up-and-managing-your-account-on-github/managing-personal-account-settings/permission-levels-for-a-personal-account-repository

  17. We exclude issues whose status is open and whose duration time is over one year in order to avoid bias introduced by forgetting to close and inactivity.

  18. We do not assign more because inspecting, comprehending, and labeling issues takes significant time and energy, which they lack to label more.

  19. Considering a large number of leaf nodes, we only plot left nodes whose issue number is greater than 30, which cover all four dimensions and account for 82.54% of issues in our dataset.

  20. https://github.com/cesanta/mongoose/issues/1271

  21. https://github.com/coq/coq/issues/7058/#issuecomment-375720879

  22. https://github.com/NuGet/docs.microsoft.com-nuget/issues/2410

  23. https://github.com/keras-team/keras/issues/11517

  24. https://github.com/numpy/numpy/issues/17977

  25. https://github.com/Azure/azure-sdk/issues/1873

  26. https://github.com/cwarwicker/moodle-tool_ribbons/issues/3

  27. https://github.com/nushell/nushell/issues/3238

  28. https://github.com/babel/babel/issues/12961

  29. https://github.com/MicrosoftEdge/WebView2Feedback/issues/882

  30. https://github.com/bitwarden/web/issues/766

  31. https://github.com/nathanwoulfe/Plumber-2/issues/64

  32. https://github.com/bigcommerce/cornerstone/issues/1990

  33. https://github.com/microsoft/vscode/issues/138720

  34. https://github.com/microsoft/vscode-docs/issues/5000

  35. https://github.com/vaadin/platform/issues/2178

  36. https://github.com/EOSIO/eos/issues/9903

  37. https://github.com/electron/electron/issues/28375

  38. https://github.com/MicrosoftDocs/OfficeDocs-OfficeUpdates/issues/300

  39. https://github.com/hazelcast/cloud-docs/issues/18

  40. https://github.com/microsoft/appcenter/issues/2207

  41. https://github.com/hedgedoc/hedgedoc.github.io/issues/59

  42. https://github.com/dotnet/SqlClient/issues/1123

  43. https://github.com/HOKGroup/HOK-Revit-Addins/issues/194

  44. https://github.com/newrelic/docs-website/issues/758

  45. https://github.com/sublimehq/sublimes_merge/issues/1097

  46. https://github.com/cpriest/SnapLinksPlus/issues/287

  47. https://github.com/facebookexperimental/Recoil/issues/916

  48. https://github.com/hashicorp/terraform-ls/issues/533

  49. https://github.com/getsentry/sentry-laravel/issues/260

  50. https://github.com/rayokota/kcache/issues/79

  51. https://github.com/common-workflow-language/cwlviewer/issues/328#issuecomment-823410828

  52. https://github.com/common-workflow-language/cwlviewer/issues/328

  53. https://github.com/dask/fastparquet/issues/544

  54. https://github.com/dtolnay/semver/issues/87

  55. https://github.com/negomi/react-burger-menu/issues/432

  56. https://docs.github.com/en/repositories/releasing-projects-on-github/about-releases

  57. https://github.com/decred/dcrwallet/issues/1966

  58. https://github.com/wellcomecollection/wellcomecollection.org/issues/5236

  59. https://github.com/italia/spid-compliant-certificates-python/issues/6

  60. https://github.com/eclipse/rdf4j/issues/2784

  61. https://github.com/cpriest/SnapLinksPlus/issues/287

  62. https://github.com/opensearch-project/OpenSearch/issues/789

  63. https://github.com/rfennell/ReleaseNotesAction/issues/131

  64. https://github.com/kubernetes/release/issues/1354

  65. https://github.com/renovatebot/renovate/issues/8605

  66. https://github.com/stephend017/snake-charmer/issues/27

  67. https://github.com/cockroachdb/cockroach/issues/42163

  68. https://github.com/chef/automate/issues/2141

  69. https://github.com/saltstack/salt/issues/54752

  70. https://github.com/gohugoio/hugo/pull/83

  71. https://github.com/gitpod-io/gitpod/issues/714

  72. https://github.com/microsoft/azure-pipelines-tasks/issues/11922

  73. https://github.com/digidem/mapeo-mobile/issues/581

  74. https://github.com/BlueWallet/BlueWallet/issues/3145

  75. https://github.com/istio/istio/issues/31816

  76. https://github.com/DataDog/dd-trace-py/issues/2000

  77. https://github.com/layer5io/meshery/issues/2907

  78. https://github.com/PSBicep/PSBicep/issues/103

  79. https://github.com/corgibytes/freshli-lib/pull/301/files

  80. https://github.com/zammad/zammad-helm/issues/99

  81. https://github.com/corgibytes/freshli-lib/pull/279/files

  82. https://github.com/waifu-motivator/wmp-env-action/issues/29

  83. https://github.com/pytorch/vision/issues/3351

  84. https://github.com/mantidproject/mantidimaging/pull/798

  85. https://github.com/newrelic/docs-website/issues/2127

  86. https://github.com/rotki/rotki/issues/2527

  87. https://github.com/3drepo/3drepo.io/issues/2502

  88. https://github.com/decred/dcrwallet/issues/1966

  89. https://github.com/decred/dcrwallet/issues/1966

  90. https://docs.openstack.org/reno/latest/

  91. https://github.com/newrelic/docs-website/issues/2127

  92. https://github.com/alteryx/woodwork/issues/808

  93. https://github.com/chef/chef-workstation-app/issues/302

  94. https://github.com/cdr/code-server/issues/3193

  95. https://github.com/Python-Practice-Discord/template_python_discord_bot/issues/1

  96. https://github.com/wabarc/wayback/issues/48

  97. Most automation tools primarily focus on automating RN generation, while there are also several tools recommended to assist RN management. In the following strategies, we will introduce other tools according to their goals.

  98. https://github.com/cake-contrib/Cake.Recipe

  99. https://github.com/github-tools/github-release-notes

  100. https://github.com/twisted/towncrier

  101. Cake.recipe is exclusively deployed across multiple projects but only within their organization and with 74 stars.

  102. https://github.blog/2021-10-04-beta-github-releases-improving-release-experience/

  103. https://github.com/cockroachdb/cockroach/issues/57898

  104. https://github.com/EOSIO/eos/issues/9903

  105. https://www.github.com/elastic/security-docs/issues/564

  106. https://github.com/NuGet/NuGetGallery/issues/8889

  107. https://github.com/charleskorn/kaml/issues/138

  108. https://github.com/bigcommerce/cornerstone/issues/1990

  109. https://github.com/mr-ice/maptool-macros/issues/112

  110. https://github.com/StyleGuides/WritingStyleGuide/issues/268

  111. https://github.com/prisma/prisma/issues/5913#issuecomment-788326709

  112. https://github.com/vaadin/platform/issues/2178

  113. https://github.com/chef/automate/issues/2141

  114. https://github.com/shipwright-io/build/pull/771

  115. https://github.com/pytorch/vision/issues/3351

  116. https://github.com/athensresearch/athens/issues/642

  117. https://docs.github.com/en/issues/using-labels-and-milestones-to-track-work/about-milestones

  118. https://github.com/kubernetes-sigs/multi-tenancy/issues/916

  119. https://github.com/elastic/observability-docs/issues/703

  120. https://github.com/govuk-react/govuk-react/issues/507

  121. https://github.com/kubernetes/test-infra/issues/9098

  122. https://github.com/kubernetes/release/issues/1889

  123. https://github.com/KurtBestor/Hitomi-Downloader/issues/3561

  124. https://github.com/edmcouncil/fibo/issues/964

  125. https://github.com/sympy/sympy/wiki/Writing-Release-Notes

  126. https://github.com/3drepo/3drepo.io/issues/2502

  127. https://github.com/semanticarts/gist/issues/422

  128. https://github.com/mantidproject/mantid/issues/31371

  129. https://github.com/opensearch-project/opensearch-build/issues/698

  130. https://github.com/cockroachdb/docs/issues/10963

  131. https://github.com/newrelic/docs-website/issues/2127

  132. https://github.com/wabarc/wayback/issues/48

  133. https://github.com/newrelic/node-newrelic/issues/590

  134. https://github.com/appleboy/telegram-action

  135. https://github.com/marketplace/actions/upload-files-to-a-github-release

  136. https://github.com/kubernetes/test-infra/issues/18309

  137. https://github.com/USAJOBS-temp/openoppstasks/issues/376

  138. https://github.com/girder/cookiecutter-girder-4/issues/45

  139. https://github.com/microsoft/ApplicationInsights-Java/issues/1682

  140. https://github.com/Dynatrace/dynatrace-configuration-as-code/issues/5

  141. https://github.com/executablebooks/github-activity/issues/58

  142. https://github.com/release-drafter/release-drafter/issues/844

  143. https://github.com/rfennell/ReleaseNotesAction/issues/131

  144. https://github.com/kubernetes/release/issues/1354

  145. https://github.com/dzcode-io/dzcode.io/issues/389

  146. https://github.com/dzcode-io/dzcode.io/issues/389

  147. https://github.com/cookpad/terraform-aws-eks/issues/183

  148. https://github.com/lightningnetwork/lnd/issues/6091

  149. https://github.com/jazzband/django-redis/issues/535

  150. https://github.com/semantic-release/cli

  151. https://github.com/executablebooks/github-activity/issues/58

  152. https://github.com/electron/electron/issues/28375

  153. https://github.com/EOSIO/eos/issues/9903

  154. https://github.com/charleskorn/kaml/issues/138

  155. https://camel.apache.org/blog/2021/06/Camel311-Whatsnew/

  156. https://camel.apache.org/releases/release-3.11.0/

  157. https://support.atlassian.com/jira-cloud-administration/docs/create-release-notes/

  158. https://endoflife.date/libreoffice

  159. https://github.com/hedgedoc/ hedgedoc/pull/1114/files

  160. https://home.snafu.de/tilman/xenulink.html.

  161. https://html-link-validator.en.softonic.com/

  162. https://www.bigcommerce.com/ecommerce-answers/what-google-webmaster-tools/

  163. https://github.com/opentelekomcloud/terraform-provider-opentelekomcloud/pull/1164

  164. https://docs.openstack.org/project-team-guide/release-management.html#how-to-add-new-release-notes

  165. https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/project/releases/

  166. https://support.atlassian.com/jira-cloud-administration/docs/create-release-notes/

  167. https://github.com/pytorch/pytorch/releases

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Acknowledgements

This work is supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China Grant 61825201 and 62332001.

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Correspondence to Jianyu Wu.

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Communicated by: Venera Arnaoudova, Sonia Haiduc, Gabriele Bavota

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Wu, J., He, H., Gao, K. et al. A comprehensive analysis of challenges and strategies for software release notes on GitHub. Empir Software Eng 29, 104 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10664-024-10486-0

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