[Rails-devel] Release Management for Rails 2.x

[Stefan F. <ste...@we...>]

Hi all,
as there was some discussion and confusion on how release management 
should work I have created the proposal below for Rails release 
management for Rails 2.x. I tried to keep it as simple as possible.

I propose myself as a release manager for Rails 2.x. This implies
that the only one which eventually merges new features and bug-fixes 
into the official branches will be me.

However if you look carefully into the proposal this will require no 
active intervention as I require that the new code is rebased on the 
branch it will be merged into. Thus there will never be any merge 
conflicts, it is merely a kind of giving the "final go".

This is not a bad thing because after the "final go", all other 
developers have to rebase on the new feature changes before they can get 
their stuff in. So the "final go" will always be the chance to identify 
and discuss potential future merge conflicts.

I will write something about Rails 1.x release management later today.

Stefan


Proposal for Rails 2.x Release Management:

Rails release management for Rails 2.x will follow the "Gitflow" Workflow:

https://www.atlassian.com/git/workflows#!workflow-gitflow

There will be two official branches:

** Name conventions:
- Official branches will be called "rails_#_".
- Branches for new features can use any name, except those starting with 
"rails_".
- Branches for bug fixes start with "fix_".

** Official Rails 2 branches
- rails_2_master
- rails_2_develop

** Working on bug fixes:
Create a branch from master, fix the bug, run tests, commit and push.
Finished: Ask to be merged into master by release manager.

** Working on new features:
Create a branch from develop.
Iterate on: Code, rebase on develop, run tests, commit and push.
Finished: Ask to be merged into develop by release manager.

** Optional (later): Release branch
If there is the need, develop will be separated into the long-running
develop branch and a short-running release branch.

** Further Remarks:
- Whitespace issues should be taken care by the .gitattributes file 
settings in the repo.
- I will only merge features that are rebased against the current 
develop branch (so usually "git rebase rails_2_develop")
- You can set git to use rebase for new branches on pull with "git 
config --global branch.autosetuprebase always", or use "git pull --rebase"