The "state changes" license condition wording is too vague

[beantaco]

The wording of the license condition "state changes" is too vague.
https://choosealicense.com/appendix/#document-changes

State changes
Changes made to the licensed material must be documented.

Does this mean anyone who modifies material must provide a diff from an unmodified version, provide a list of each change, or simply state when the most recent change was made? My reading of this made me (incorrectly) believe anyone who modifies code must maintain a list of changes made to the code, thereby causing development overhead.

Digging deeper, my understanding is GPLv3 section 5.a requires anyone who makes a modification to state that they had done so and give a relevant date. The wording "state changes" doesn't seem to fit with this requirement. It's not the changes that require documentation but the fact that changes were made (with author and date).

5. Conveying Modified Source Versions.

You may convey a work based on the Program, or the modifications to
produce it from the Program, in the form of source code under the
terms of section 4, provided that you also meet all of these
conditions:

a) The work must carry prominent notices stating that you modified
it, and giving a relevant date.

I don't have good knowledge of licenses, but I don't know of any license that requires detailing what changes were made.

I propose one of the following changes to wording of the "state changes" condition:

• Rename the condition to "self-attribute changes" or "mark changes" or whatever is more accurate than "state changes". (Appropriate if there are no licenses that requires detailing changes.)
• For each license that has the "state changes" condition, add clarification about this condition. (Similar to the "same license" condition which may be for file or library.)

[mlinksva]

I take "state" and "documented" to be general rather than vague 😆 but happy to consider other language that doesn't imply detailing changes.

IIRC the GPLv3 requirement is similar in spirit to most other licenses with this condition, with the exception of Artistic-2.0, LPPL-1.3c, and maybe Vim.