Branching policy proposal

[ayld]

I just wanted to throw in my idea on branch management:

1. Master branch is considered stable.
   • We merge here after testing cycle bla bla and some time before release when all tasks for the next release are done and tested (to a satisfactory level :D).
   • We apply bugfixes, hotfixes and whatever else evil things in here that we find in the current release.
2. NextRelease the branch that we develop the next release in
   • The name is up for discussion :)
   • We code the next release in here and we consider this unstable until we decide otherwise :)
3. Dev branches are free to create by everyone
   • Everyone is free to create branches for whatever reason he sees fit, messing around, trying stuff or just the plain satisfaction of creating branches for no reason. I personally create a branch for each research task since things get pretty messy in there.
   • Everyone can merge his own dev branch to NextRelease when he deems it appropriate (and if his work actually relates to the next release).

So I'd like everyone's toughs on this @Codarama/diet. Also I don't like the NextRelease name so we might have to think of something here :D

[ayld]

OK. Question.

Do we need a NextRelease branch if we have tags ?
I've used them in the past to tag stable points in the master branch.

Later when we have the master branch stable we can add another tag for the release.

This might be better IMHO as we'll have less branches and less complexity in merging.

Thoughts ?

[tishun]

IMHO we should refrain from making things too complicated.

A separate branch is only required when we have two simultaneously build releases (e.g. maintain older release and prepare a new one). I think we should simplify the model to only have static releases and if problems / bugs / etc. occurs we should offer another release.

We could, once we break compatibility, have different branches in case we want to revise the older version. But let's leave this for a darker, sadder time.

For now let's keep branching simple - one main branch (e.g. stable) and as many dev branches as we need.

[ayld]

For now let's keep branching simple - one main branch (e.g. stable) and as many dev branches as we need.

And tags at stable points in master branch, right (just like we currently do it for releases)?

[tishun]

Yep, once we decide to release we tag the candidate and release it.