[Releasing] [Development] HEADS UP: merge stable into release and dev into stable

[Frederik Gladhorn]

Hello release team,

I have some questions about our merging process here.
To me it all seems a bit chaotic, but maybe I just don't see the big picture.

The branches are listed here:
http://qt-project.org/wiki/Branch-Guidelines

But there is no word of how they are merged when the day comes.
My understanding is that we silently agree that it's best to do fast forward 
merges when merging dev->stable and stable->release which leaves any conflicts 
to be resolved by the opposite direction.

Currently we don't have a clearly agreed set of git sha1s that should be 
merged from dev->stable or stable->release which I find problematic.
We wait for some patches to make it in, allowing some random patches to be 
part of the next merge. To me this seems like we are chasing a moving target.

I think it makes more sense to just set a cut off date and time, e.g. tonight 
and look at the patches that were in at that time.
Instead of trying to merge the tip of the respective branch, I would suggest 
merging the sha1 of the last patch that was in the branch in time.

For patches that should be in but that didn't make it through the integration 
in time, we should imho just re-target the branch that they are then intended 
for.

I was also a bit surprised to learn that the release team depended on merges 
done by me (without me being asked to do these). I generally merge release-
>stable and stable->dev as often as I can without dropping everything else 
that is on my plate. Relying on that for releases doesn't seem like a good 
idea to me.

Greetings,
Frederik



Mandag 17. februar 2014 07.16.12 skrev Heikkinen Jani:
> Hi all,
> 
> It seems we cannot start merge from dev branch to stable at the moment
> because there is still some issues to be solved before that:
> 
> 1.      There seems to be compilation break in dev branch, see 
> https://codereview.qt-project.org/#change,78283. That needs to be solved
> first
> 
> 2.      There is still some merges ongoing from stable to dev branch
> 
> *        https://codereview.qt-project.org/#change,77965
> 
> *        https://codereview.qt-project.org/#change,77972
> 
> *        https://codereview.qt-project.org/#change,77977
> 
> *        https://codereview.qt-project.org/#change,77258
> 
> 3.      Adding qtwebsockets as a submodule is still ongoing, see
> https://codereview.qt-project.org/#change,76844
> 
> 4.      Merge from stable to release needs to be done before merge from dev
> to stable. According to my understanding there isn't any blockers to do
> merge from stable to release. That will be started soon...
> 
> 
> There seems to be also lots of not integrated changes in dev branch at the
> moment but feature freeze date is gone and so on features for 5.3 should be
> "locked". Finalizing new features & 5.3 release continues in stable branch
> after the merge so let's put all effort to fix those remaining merge
> blockers to be able to do the merge as soon as possible.
> 
> Br,
> Jani
> 
> 
> 
> From: development-bounces+jani.heikkinen=digia.com at qt-project.org
> [mailto:development-bounces+jani.heikkinen=digia.com at qt-project.org] On
> Behalf Of Paaso Matti Sent: 11. helmikuuta 2014 11:52
> To: development at qt-project.org
> Cc: releasing at qt-project.org
> Subject: [Development] HEADS UP: merge stable into release and dev into
> stable
> 
> Hi,
> 
> 
> We plan to merge 'dev' branch (5.3) into stable branch on February 17th. 
> And at the same time stable branch (5.2.2) is planned to be merged into
> release branch. This means that:
> 
> 
> 
> -If there is a need for 5.2.2 release, content will be ready in release
> branch.
> 
> -5.3.0 release content will be in stable branch.
> 
> 
> 
> After merge any changes that are required for 5.2.2 need to be pushed to the
> 'release' branch and changes that are required for 5.3 need to be pushed to
> the 'stable' branch.
> 
> So if your changes are not in by that day, please wait until the merge is
> done and re-target it to the correct branch.
> 
> 
> 
> The repositories that will be part of the  merges are:
> 
> - qt5
> - qtactiveqt
> - qtandroidextras
> - qtbase
> - qtconnectivity
> - qtdeclarative
> - qtdoc
> - qtgraphicaleffects
> - qtimageformats
> - qtlocation
> - qtmacextras
> - qtmultimedia
> - qtquick1
> - qtquickcontrols
> - qtscript
> - qtsensors
> - qtserialport
> - qtsvg
> - qttools
> - qttranslations
> - qtwebkit
> - qtwebkit-examples
> - qtwinextras
> - qtxmlpatterns
> - qtx11extras
> 
> Is there a new repositories planned to be included into 5.3.0? If so, stable
> branch for those has to be created if not exist yet.
> 
> [1]
> http://lists.qt-project.org/pipermail/releasing/2014-February/001595.html
> 
> 
> Cheers,
> --
> Matti Paaso
> SW Engineer - Digia, Qt

-- 
Best regards,
Frederik Gladhorn
Senior Software Engineer - Digia, Qt
Visit us on: http://qt.digia.com