[Development] How to find the most appropriate "Fix Version" tag in Jira

[Blasche Alexander]

Hi,

Some of you might have noticed that I did some global release version clean-ups in Jira. Several people asked me about the rationale behind the changes I did. There is a long explanation below and there is a short recommendation I'd like to give (in case you don't read the entire mail):

Please always use the most appropriate/precise version tag you can find. This means it should be a 5.x.y tag. Only use the 5.x tags when you are not 100% certain. If you miss a 5.x.y Jira tag (where one should exist), please let me know and I'll add it.

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The verion tag 5.5 is not a proper version tag. A bug consumer would not know where to find the fix. Issues should always be set to the most appropriate fix version tag. If you know that git's 5.x branch will later be branched off into 5.x.y then you should set it Jira to 5.x.y. The only case where the 5.x tag makes sense is in a scenario were you don't know whether the 5.x branch will still generate another patch level release. Once it is certain where the a 5.x branch ends up I go through the 5.x release tags and they become the next 5.(x+1).0  (RC|Beta|Alpha)  or 5.x.y release.

This is what happened during the last two day. 5.5 is no more (and meaningless as fixForVersion) and the 5.5->5.6 merge took place. Since the 5.6 branch at the time of the merge results in the 5.6.0RC that's what I set the FixVersion to. There were hundreds of such issues. It is impossible to check and validate each individual issue but the cleanup was necessary. Moving the version to 5.6.0RC may not be the most appropriate release tag but one that is not wrong. It was a compromise between accuracy and the sheer volume of tasks witch such tags.

To avoid this in the future please set a precise patch level tag (5.x.y) if deducible from the current branching situation. For example today's situation would be like this:

    git branch 5.6.0 -> next 5.6.0RC -> 5.6.0 (after RC is out)
    git branch 5.6 -> 5.6.1
    git branch 5.7 -> 5.7.0 Alpha
    git branch dev -> 5.7.0 Alpha (as long as Ossi still merges backwards) -> 5.8.0 Alpha (after last backmerge)

Only if it is not possible then you can set 5.x which will be converted by me once the situation is more obvious. If my bulk change is incorrect and you have better more precise information please feel free to change it.

I hope this helps and thank you for your help.
--
Alex