--- /dev/null
+From: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
+Date: Wed, 21 Nov 2007 16:32:55 -0800
+Subject: Addendum to "MaintNotes"
+Abstract: Imagine that git development is racing along as usual, when our friendly
+ neighborhood maintainer is struck down by a wayward bus. Out of the
+ hordes of suckers (loyal developers), you have been tricked (chosen) to
+ step up as the new maintainer. This howto will show you "how to" do it.
+
+The maintainer's git time is spent on three activities.
+
+ - Communication (60%)
+
+ Mailing list discussions on general design, fielding user
+ questions, diagnosing bug reports; reviewing, commenting on,
+ suggesting alternatives to, and rejecting patches.
+
+ - Integration (30%)
+
+ Applying new patches from the contributors while spotting and
+ correcting minor mistakes, shuffling the integration and
+ testing branches, pushing the results out, cutting the
+ releases, and making announcements.
+
+ - Own development (10%)
+
+ Scratching my own itch and sending proposed patch series out.
+
+The policy on Integration is informally mentioned in "A Note
+from the maintainer" message, which is periodically posted to
+this mailing list after each feature release is made.
+
+The policy.
+
+ - Feature releases are numbered as vX.Y.Z and are meant to
+ contain bugfixes and enhancements in any area, including
+ functionality, performance and usability, without regression.
+
+ - Maintenance releases are numbered as vX.Y.Z.W and are meant
+ to contain only bugfixes for the corresponding vX.Y.Z feature
+ release and earlier maintenance releases vX.Y.Z.V (V < W).
+
+ - 'master' branch is used to prepare for the next feature
+ release. In other words, at some point, the tip of 'master'
+ branch is tagged with vX.Y.Z.
+
+ - 'maint' branch is used to prepare for the next maintenance
+ release. After the feature release vX.Y.Z is made, the tip
+ of 'maint' branch is set to that release, and bugfixes will
+ accumulate on the branch, and at some point, the tip of the
+ branch is tagged with vX.Y.Z.1, vX.Y.Z.2, and so on.
+
+ - 'next' branch is used to publish changes (both enhancements
+ and fixes) that (1) have worthwhile goal, (2) are in a fairly
+ good shape suitable for everyday use, (3) but have not yet
+ demonstrated to be regression free. New changes are tested
+ in 'next' before merged to 'master'.
+
+ - 'pu' branch is used to publish other proposed changes that do
+ not yet pass the criteria set for 'next'.
+
+ - The tips of 'master', 'maint' and 'next' branches will always
+ fast forward, to allow people to build their own
+ customization on top of them.
+
+ - Usually 'master' contains all of 'maint', 'next' contains all
+ of 'master' and 'pu' contains all of 'next'.
+
+ - The tip of 'master' is meant to be more stable than any
+ tagged releases, and the users are encouraged to follow it.
+
+ - The 'next' branch is where new action takes place, and the
+ users are encouraged to test it so that regressions and bugs
+ are found before new topics are merged to 'master'.
+
+
+A typical git day for the maintainer implements the above policy
+by doing the following:
+
+ - Scan mailing list and #git channel log. Respond with review
+ comments, suggestions etc. Kibitz. Collect potentially
+ usable patches from the mailing list. Patches about a single
+ topic go to one mailbox (I read my mail in Gnus, and type
+ \C-o to save/append messages in files in mbox format).
+
+ - Review the patches in the saved mailboxes. Edit proposed log
+ message for typofixes and clarifications, and add Acks
+ collected from the list. Edit patch to incorporate "Oops,
+ that should have been like this" fixes from the discussion.
+
+ - Classify the collected patches and handle 'master' and
+ 'maint' updates:
+
+ - Obviously correct fixes that pertain to the tip of 'maint'
+ are directly applied to 'maint'.
+
+ - Obviously correct fixes that pertain to the tip of 'master'
+ are directly applied to 'master'.
+
+ This step is done with "git am".
+
+ $ git checkout master ;# or "git checkout maint"
+ $ git am -3 -s mailbox
+ $ make test
+
+ - Merge downwards (maint->master):
+
+ $ git checkout master
+ $ git merge maint
+ $ make test
+
+ - Review the last issue of "What's cooking" message, review the
+ topics scheduled for merging upwards (topic->master and
+ topic->maint), and merge.
+
+ $ git checkout master ;# or "git checkout maint"
+ $ git merge ai/topic ;# or "git merge ai/maint-topic"
+ $ git log -p ORIG_HEAD.. ;# final review
+ $ git diff ORIG_HEAD.. ;# final review
+ $ make test ;# final review
+ $ git branch -d ai/topic ;# or "git branch -d ai/maint-topic"
+
+ - Merge downwards (maint->master) if needed:
+
+ $ git checkout master
+ $ git merge maint
+ $ make test
+
+ - Merge downwards (master->next) if needed:
+
+ $ git checkout next
+ $ git merge master
+ $ make test
+
+ - Handle the remaining patches:
+
+ - Anything unobvious that is applicable to 'master' (in other
+ words, does not depend on anything that is still in 'next'
+ and not in 'master') is applied to a new topic branch that
+ is forked from the tip of 'master'. This includes both
+ enhancements and unobvious fixes to 'master'. A topic
+ branch is named as ai/topic where "ai" is typically
+ author's initial and "topic" is a descriptive name of the
+ topic (in other words, "what's the series is about").
+
+ - An unobvious fix meant for 'maint' is applied to a new
+ topic branch that is forked from the tip of 'maint'. The
+ topic is named as ai/maint-topic.
+
+ - Changes that pertain to an existing topic are applied to
+ the branch, but:
+
+ - obviously correct ones are applied first;
+
+ - questionable ones are discarded or applied to near the tip;
+
+ - Replacement patches to an existing topic are accepted only
+ for commits not in 'next'.
+
+ The above except the "replacement" are all done with:
+
+ $ git am -3 -s mailbox
+
+ while patch replacement is often done by:
+
+ $ git format-patch ai/topic~$n..ai/topic ;# export existing
+
+ then replace some parts with the new patch, and reapplying:
+
+ $ git reset --hard ai/topic~$n
+ $ git am -3 -s 000*.txt
+
+ The full test suite is always run for 'maint' and 'master'
+ after patch application; for topic branches the tests are run
+ as time permits.
+
+ - Update "What's cooking" message to review the updates to
+ existing topics, newly added topics and graduated topics.
+
+ This step is helped with Meta/UWC script (where Meta/ contains
+ a checkout of the 'todo' branch).
+
+ - Merge topics to 'next'. For each branch whose tip is not
+ merged to 'next', one of three things can happen:
+
+ - The commits are all next-worthy; merge the topic to next:
+
+ $ git checkout next
+ $ git merge ai/topic ;# or "git merge ai/maint-topic"
+ $ make test
+
+ - The new parts are of mixed quality, but earlier ones are
+ next-worthy; merge the early parts to next:
+
+ $ git checkout next
+ $ git merge ai/topic~2 ;# the tip two are dubious
+ $ make test
+
+ - Nothing is next-worthy; do not do anything.
+
+ - Rebase topics that do not have any commit in next yet. This
+ step is optional but sometimes is worth doing when an old
+ series that is not in next can take advantage of low-level
+ framework change that is merged to 'master' already.
+
+ $ git rebase master ai/topic
+
+ This step is helped with Meta/git-topic.perl script to
+ identify which topic is rebaseable. There also is a
+ pre-rebase hook to make sure that topics that are already in
+ 'next' are not rebased beyond the merged commit.
+
+ - Rebuild "pu" to merge the tips of topics not in 'next'.
+
+ $ git checkout pu
+ $ git reset --hard next
+ $ git merge ai/topic ;# repeat for all remaining topics
+ $ make test
+
+ This step is helped with Meta/PU script
+
+ - Push four integration branches to a private repository at
+ k.org and run "make test" on all of them.
+
+ - Push four integration branches to /pub/scm/git/git.git at
+ k.org. This triggers its post-update hook which:
+
+ (1) runs "git pull" in $HOME/git-doc/ repository to pull
+ 'master' just pushed out;
+
+ (2) runs "make doc" in $HOME/git-doc/, install the generated
+ documentation in staging areas, which are separate
+ repositories that have html and man branches checked
+ out.
+
+ (3) runs "git commit" in the staging areas, and run "git
+ push" back to /pub/scm/git/git.git/ to update the html
+ and man branches.
+
+ (4) installs generated documentation to /pub/software/scm/git/docs/
+ to be viewed from http://www.kernel.org/
+
+ - Fetch html and man branches back from k.org, and push four
+ integration branches and the two documentation branches to
+ repo.or.cz
+
+
+Some observations to be made.
+
+ * Each topic is tested individually, and also together with
+ other topics cooking in 'next'. Until it matures, none part
+ of it is merged to 'master'.
+
+ * A topic already in 'next' can get fixes while still in
+ 'next'. Such a topic will have many merges to 'next' (in
+ other words, "git log --first-parent next" will show many
+ "Merge ai/topic to next" for the same topic.
+
+ * An unobvious fix for 'maint' is cooked in 'next' and then
+ merged to 'master' to make extra sure it is Ok and then
+ merged to 'maint'.
+
+ * Even when 'next' becomes empty (in other words, all topics
+ prove stable and are merged to 'master' and "git diff master
+ next" shows empty), it has tons of merge commits that will
+ never be in 'master'.
+
+ * In principle, "git log --first-parent master..next" should
+ show nothing but merges (in practice, there are fixup commits
+ and reverts that are not merges).
+
+ * Commits near the tip of a topic branch that are not in 'next'
+ are fair game to be discarded, replaced or rewritten.
+ Commits already merged to 'next' will not be.
+
+ * Being in the 'next' branch is not a guarantee for a topic to
+ be included in the next feature release. Being in the
+ 'master' branch typically is.
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