Is it important to have release notes bundled with software downloads?

[Lynn-Marie]

The HPE networking business unit has been having a number of discussions about potentially removing the release notes from the software download bundles on the My Networking portal (www.hpe.com/networking/software).

Advantages:
1) It would allow us to get software to the web more quickly post-release
2) It would allow us to make any edits to the release notes needed to correct issues and provide the most accurate content possible
3) We post the MD5 checksums for the download file itself, and the download file is currently a zip of release notes plus software. We are hearing from some of our customers that although our software is digitally signed, they would like the MD5 checksum from the software file itself (.swi file) and not the .zip file.

Disadvantages?
Do our customers rely heavily on the release note zipped in with the software? There is a link to the release notes on the download pages, and on the manuals pages. Is that enough?

We would love to hear from you, so please feel free to weigh in!

Kind regards,

Lynn-Marie
Total Customer Experience and Quality Lifecycle Engineer

[Dave Harrold]

I woud say no.  They are available as a separate download link on the software download page and also available on the manuals page.  I always forget they are in the download zip file and download the release notes separately.

[MichaelM55]

Well, on H3C homepage, software and release notes are seperated, aswell. I do not have any problems with this. So, yes. Do it.