Re: [ovirt-devel] [vdsm][maintainership] proposal for a new stable branch policy

Recently Milan, Petr and me discussed the state of ovirt.4.2, considering that release 4.2.2 is still pending and this prevents merging of patches in the sub-branch ovirt-4.2. We agreed we could improve the handling of the stable branch(es), in order to make the process smoother and more predictable. Currently, we avoid doing Z- branches (e.g. ovirt-4.2.2, ovirt-4.2.3...) as much as we can, to avoid the hassle of double-backporting patches to stable branch. However, if a release hits unexpected delay, this policy causes different hassles: the Y-branch (ovirt-4.2, ovirt-4.3) is effectively locked, so patches already queued and ready for next releases can't be merged and need to wait. The new proposed policy is the following: - we will keep working exactly as now until we hit a certain RC version. We choosed RC3, a rule of thumb made out of experience.

- if RC3 is final, everyone's happy and things resume as usual - if RC3 is NOT final, we will branch out at RC3 -- from that moment on, patches for next version could be accepted on the Y-branch -- stabilization of the late Z version will continue on the Z-branch -- patches will be backported twice Example using made up numbers - We just released ovirt 4.3.1 - We are working on the ovirt-4.3 branch - The last tag is v4.30.10, from ovirt-4.3 branch - We accept patches for ovirt 4.3.2 on the ovirt-4.3 branch - We keep collecting patches, until we tag v4.30.11 (oVirt 4.3.2 RC 1). Tag is made from ovirt-4.3 branch. - Same for tags 4.30.12 - oVirt 4.3.2 RC 2 and 4.30.13 - oVirt 4.3.2 RC 3. Both tags are made from ovirt-4.3 branch. - Damn, RC3 is not final. We branch out ovirt-4.3.2 form branch ovirt-4.3 from the same commit pointed by tag 4.30.13 - Next tags (4.30.13.1) for ovirt 4.3.2 will be taken from the ovirt-4.3.2 branch I believe this approach will make predictable for everyone if and when the branch will be made, so when the patches could be merged and where. The only drawback I can see - and that I realized while writing the example - is the version number which can be awkward: v4.30.11 -> 4.3.2 RC1 v4.30.12 -> 4.3.2 RC2 v4.30.13 -> 4.3.2 RC3 v4.30.13.1 -> 4.3.2 RC4 ?!?! v4.30.13.5 -> 4.3.2 RC5 ?!?!

Perhaps we should move to four versions digit? So we could have v4.30.11.0 -> 4.3.2 RC1 v4.30.11.1 -> 4.3.2 RC2 v4.30.11.2 -> 4.3.2 RC3 v4.30.11.3 -> 4.3.2 RC4 v4.30.11.4 -> 4.3.2 RC5 I don't see any real drawback in using 4-digit versions by default, besides a minor increase in complexity, which is balanced by more predictable and consistent versions. Plus, we already had 4-digit versions in Vdsm, so packaging should work just fine. Please share your thoughts,

So the main question to ask, if you do want to keep above scheme, is: Do you expect, in above example, to have to tag/build vdsm for 4.3.3 before 4.3.2 is released?