[asterisk-dev] merge policies, supported branches, API/ABI freeze (was Re: Asterisk 1.6 Release Management Proposal)

[Simon Perreault]

On Saturday October 20 2007 05:16:19 Luigi Rizzo wrote:
> so then trunk must be the other branch where changes (either bugfixes
> or new features) sit for a [short|long] while and are actually
> tested before they get committed.

No. As Russell's plan makes clear, features go into trunk and not into 1.6.x. 
Adding new features to a 1.6.x doesn't make sense since what we want to do is 
stabilize it.

But adding bugfixes to 1.6.x does make sense. It's its only purpose in life: 
to get bugfixes, so that it becomes more stable. So when you have a bugfix, 
you commit it to trunk, then backport it to the current 1.6.x.

It's not the end of the world if the commit to 1.6.x breaks things. That's why 
Russell will be making betaX and rcX releases: so that we find these bugs and 
then fix them. Once 1.6.x is released, no other bugfix goes there. All other 
bugfixes go into 1.6.x+1, which doesn't exist yet so you only commit to 
trunk.

I think that's key to understanding the new plan: once 1.6.x is released, that 
branch is closed. That's very different from the 1.4 branch, where things 
still evolve.