[Development] Qt branches & proposal how to continue with those

[Paolo Angelelli]

On Mon, 29 Jan 2018 10:31:14 +0100
Giuseppe D'Angelo <giuseppe.dangelo at kdab.com> wrote:

> On 29/01/18 07:59, Jani Heikkinen wrote:
> > We have currently really many branches open:
> > - 5.6
> > - 5.9
> > - 5.10
> > - 5.10.1
> > - 5.11
> > - dev
> > 
> > In my opinion this is too much to handle effectively, especially because there is many branches in stable mode (see http://code.qt.io/cgit/meta/quips.git/tree/quip-0005.rst). Currently '5.6' is in 'strict' mode and  '5.9', 5.10' & '5.11' are in stable... I think we need to change that to be able to work efficiently & get releases out.   
> 
> Could you please elaborate, what's the problem at the moment when you
> say that it's "too much" to handle? Is it a matter that branches have
> become different enough that merges don't apply any longer? Is it a
> matter of bandwidth for the releasing team having to produce releases
> from several branches?
> 
> > 
> > So I am proposing following changes starting from 1st Feb 2018:
> > 
> > - '5.6' will move in 'very strict' mode   
> 
> Which by the way is already the case, in practice. E.g. there have been
> ~20-30 patches landing in qtbase/5.6, with over half being fixes for
> flaky autotests.
> 
> > - '5.9' will move in 'strict' mode. So no direct submissions anymore, just cherry picks from stable  
> 
> This was also proposed a few days ago (to change in 'strict' mode after
> 5.11 branching is completed). I have mixed feelings about that, in the
> sense that in 6 months from now noone will be doing the cherry-picks
> because of the extra work, thus leaving bugs in 5.9 in the name of
> stability, but somehow breaks the LTS promise.

+1
This will also introduce extra work in patching 5.9 (every change that has to go to 5.9 has to be pushed twice, due to no more forward merges)

> 
> > - '5.10' will be closed and Qt 5.10.1 will be the final release from Qt 5.10 series (5.6 and 5.9 are LTS branches so we shouldn't keep Qt 5.10 active too long)  
> 
> I don't agree, 5.10 releases should be done on a regular basis until
> 5.11.1 is out (Yes, .1, many users don't upgrade to .0 versions...)

+1 here too
Closing 5.10 before 5.11 isn't even released, and actually after just 2 months of releasing, also doesn't seem good marketing material for the project..

> 
> My 2 cents,