[Development] Proposal: New branch model

[Kari Oikarinen]

On 24.1.2019 15.15, Jedrzej Nowacki wrote:
> Last, but not least. The release branches are already in cherry-pick mode, so
> again it is not different, amount of conflicts is the same, true one needs to
> solve them earlier,  but on the other hand you can prepare the conflict
> resolution in parallel, while waiting for the integration. In your example you
> picked an easy target, but try the same with 5.13 and case of a fix targeting
> LTS. With the current model you need one merge (5.12 -> 5.13) and then one
> cherry-pick (5.13 -> 5.13.x). Of course you could cherry-pick from LTS
> directly to the release branch, but then you are acknowledge that merges are
> hurting us in terms of release speed.

Our release branches aren't in cherry-pick mode. If you have a blocker fix for
5.12.1 right now, it should be submitted into 5.12.1. The changes will reach
5.12 by a merge that will be done later. Based on a quick look qtbase 5.12.1 had
only one cherry-pick since the downmerge, so cherry-picking into release
branches is an exception, not the rule.

The rest of the paragraph talks about a situation where we will have two stable
branches alive at the same time. Typically we don't, because once 5.x+1 is
created, 5.x is closed. But 5.12 is an LTS version, so it will still stay open.
But at what point (under current process) would be switch it to cherry-pick only
mode? I don't remember when it happened for 5.9. It could be when 5.13 is
created and then there would be no release blocked by waiting for a merge.

-- 
Kari