[Releasing] rethinking the branching scheme

[Thiago Macieira]

Em qui 20 fev 2014, às 19:22:30, Oswald Buddenhagen escreveu:
> ehh, no.
> the problem with creating old/ branches is that one has to find the last
> sha1 before a downmerge. this would be a non-issue if created a new
> branch for every release instead of continuously recycling the same
> branches.

Finding it is not difficult, if we freeze stable before the merge. Freeze it for 
5 days if necessary.

Steps are (D = feature freeze date):

* D - 7 days: put up warnings in Gerrit that stable is freezing & send email 
  to announce list
* D - 5 days: freeze stable
	* create old/5.x branch from stable
* Between D - 5 days and D: merge stable upwards to dev
* D to D + 2 days: fast-forward stable to dev
	* and unfreeze stable
	* remove notices and send email to announce list
	* bump version number in dev

The same applies to the stable→release situation too, with the difference that 
usually nothing was added to the release branch since the last upwards merge. 
So the only difference is that the "merge release upwards to stable" is easy 
and the process doesn't have to take 5 days.

-- 
Thiago Macieira - thiago.macieira (AT) intel.com
  Software Architect - Intel Open Source Technology Center