Index: doc/src/sgml/release.sgml
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RCS file: /cvsroot/pgsql/doc/src/sgml/release.sgml,v
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  <appendix id="release">
   <title>Release Notes</title>
  
+  <sect1 id="release-introduction">
+   <title>Introduction</title>
+ 
+   <para>
+    The release notes contain the significant changes in each PostgreSQL
+    release, with major features and migration issues often listed at the
+    top.  The release notes do not contain changes that affect only a few
+    users or changes that are internal and therefore not user-visible.  For
+    example, the optimizer is improved in almost every release, but the
+    improvements are usually observed by users as simply faster queries.
+   </para>
+ 
+   <para>
+    A complete list of changes for each release can be obtained by
+    viewing the <link linkend="cvs">CVS</> logs for each release.  The <ulink
+    url="http://archives.postgresql.org/pgsql-committers/">committers email
+    list</ulink> contains all source code changes as well.   There is also
+    a <ulink url="http://developer.postgresql.org/cvsweb.cgi/pgsql/">web
+    interface</ulink> that shows changes to specific files.
+    <!-- we need a file containing the CVS logs for each release, and something
+    like the SVN web interface that groups commits but has branches -->
+   </para>
+ 
+   <para>
+    The name appearing next to each item represents the major developer for
+    that item.  Of course all changes involve community discussion and patch
+    review so each item is truly a community effort.
+   </para>
+ 
+  </sect1>
+ 
   <sect1 id="release-8-3">
    <title>Release 8.3</title>