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A major release consists of large fixes/features/improvements that are so substantial in scope or so significantly depart from the behavior/appearance of past releases that they cannot be included in a patch or minor release. A major release is free to break compatibility, but must provide a documented migration path for any affected feature that isn't being entirely dropped.
Branch Names
The code and documentation for each release of Apache Guacamole involves three repositories (guacamole-client, guacamole-server, and guacamole-manual), each of which use the branching scheme described here. The fourth Apache Guacamole repository, guacamole-website, houses only the website and is not relevant to the branching scheme we use for the code and documentation of each release.
We use a set of three branches to maintain the code/documentation for current and upcoming releases:
| Branch Name | Description |
|---|---|
patch | Receives only bug fixes and minor improvements. Changes to this branch can be released more quickly via patch releases, but must not require any substantial changes to documentation or established application behavior. After changes have been merged to the patch branch, the patch branch is merged back to main , and the main branch is merged to next . In extreme cases, changes to patch may need to be reimplemented against next . |
main | Receives essentially any changes except huge changes that would reasonably require a full version bump (ie: moving from 1.x all the way to 2.x). Examples of changes that should not go here include compatibility-breaking migrations away from established frameworks and rewrites of the user interface. After changes have been merged to the main branch, the patch branch is merged back to main , and the main branch is merged to next . In extreme cases, changes to patch may need to be reimplemented against next . |
next | Receives any changes that are too large in size or effect to be considered for |
When the scope of a release is frozen to allow the code/documentation to be finalized prior to release, an additional staging branch will be created for that release:
| Branch Name | Description |
|---|---|
staging/X.Y.Z | Receives only changes related to release "X.Y.Z". At the time this branch is created, all issues related to that release are already associated with that release in JIRA using the "Fix version/s" field. |
Merging Changes
Depending on the branch receiving a change, that branch may need to be additionally merged to other branches to ensure a consistent line of development.
Changes to staging/X.Y.Z
When a change for an upcoming release is merged to that release's staging branch, the staging branch needs to be merged back to the base branch that originated that release (ie: If it's a patch release, merge back to patch. If it's a minor release, merge back to main, etc.). The suggested commit messages for these merges are:
- If X.Y.Z is a patch release: "Merge X.Y.Z changes back to patch."
- If X.Y.Z is a minor release: "Merge X.Y.Z changes back to minor."
- If X.Y.Z is a major release: "Merge X.Y.Z changes back to next."
Once those changes have been merged back, follow the same procedures shown below as would be followed if those changes were merged by a direct PR against that branch.
Changes to patch
When a change is merged to patch, the patch branch must be merged back to main, and then the main branch must be merged to next. The suggested commit messages for these merges are:
- "Merge changes from patch branch back to main."
- "Merge changes from main branch to next."
Changes to main
When a change is merged to main, the main branch must be merged to next. The suggested commit message for this merge is:
- "Merge changes from main branch to next."
Changes to next
Do nothing. Changes to next do not get merged to other branches.