Subject: Re: bug#20403: Format of NEWS (navigating in it)

From: Glenn Morris <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 31 Oct 2019 15:19:40 -0400

>> The change I'd actually like to see is for NEWS to just be a symlink
>> to the appropriate NEWS.xx file, which should exist under that name
>> from the outset of development on version xx.
>
> That'd cause trouble when merging from the release branch.

I think the opposite.

At present, emacs26:etc/NEWS has to get merged to master:etc/NEWS.26.
This is a PITA at every single merge.

If the file was already called NEWS.26 on both branches,
all these merge problems would go away.

(This was previously proposed and rejected in https://debbugs.gnu.org/29366#30)

>  Symlinks complicate VCS operations in general.

Maybe on MS-Windows...

Maybe the etc/NEWS symlink doesn't even need to be versioned.
The build process could construct it based on the version number.