New sense for the OED: "release notes"

[Hugo]

I noticed the OED used the term "release notes" for this month's update:

[Begin]
Deputy Chief Editors Philip Durkin and Edmund Weiner have written our
release notes which delve a little deeper into the entries that have been
revised
[End]

http://public.oed.com/the-oed-today/recent-updates-to-the-oed/march-2014-update/

(And also did in December 2013:
http://public.oed.com/the-oed-today/recent-updates-to-the-oed/december-2013-update/
)

I'm familiar with it from the world of software, where they're a document
accompanying a new release. Often brief, not necessarily thoroughly
documenting but summarising the release. This is a similar sense to how the
OED used it.

I looked it up in the OED, and they only have an earlier sense:

[Begin]
release note   n. a note authorizing the release or discharge of something;
spec. (Aeronaut.) a document releasing (part of) an aircraft as fit for
service.
[End]

Cites from 1839 to 2007. The software-type sense is related but distinct --
the newer release notes don't authorise anything, just summarise it.

(The plural "notes" for a single release suggest they're not the definitive
authorisation of a release.)

A quick search for an early use of the newer term turns up this June 1975
(first printing July 1973) document by Digital Equipment Corporation, that
contains release notes in chapter 5 (page 67):

[Begin]
RELEASE NOTES AND RESTRICTIONS
[End]

http://bitsavers.trailing-edge.com/www.computer.museum.uq.edu.au/RT-11/DEC-11-ORCPA-E-D%20Getting%20Starting%20With%20RT-11%20(V02B).pdf

I'm certain earlier examples can be found.

Hugo

PS My first new-sense submission to the OED :)

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