We have a nice script in NetBeans to generate changelogs (in text and HTML
format) for all changes between IDE builds. For example, between Build33 and
Build34 it will list all checkins, grouped properly according to atomic commits,
prominently showing author, module(s) affected, file(s) affected, revision(s)
created, and log comment. This is really useful to look at. Currently we are
generating them between every build and plan to send them to an alias on
netbeans.org (if we are not already).

The information is all available in CVS but is not easily retrievable except
using this script or a similar one; cvs history and cvs log give you some info
but it needs heavy processing before it is comprehensible. Also sometimes you
want to check historical versions of it, or across multiple builds, or on a
branch, etc.; and it is not too nice to archive these files as they are
generated.

So I suggest a servlet (WebMacro script? Perl CGI based on the current Perl
script?) to live somewhere on the site (or a feature of CVSweb?) which would
generate and display such logs interactively. For example: you click a link off
the home page or some developer's resources link; it shows an intro screen
explaining the feature, and providing two scrolling listboxes (uniselect): one
for "from" tag, one for "to" tag, as stored in CVS (CVSROOT/valtags, or all tags
on some well-known file present in every build, e.g.
core/src/org/netbeans/Main.java). Ideally there would be some JavaScript so that
if you select ${foo}build_${x} as the from tag, it would look for and autoselect
${foo}build_${x+1} as the to tag (e.g. Build33 -> Build34). Click on submit (a
GET request so result is bookmarkable); the servlet (etc.) would generate the
proper changelog as HTML and display it to you. (Or maybe options to generate
downloadable, i.e. unbranded, HTML or text logs suitable for mailing.)