public inbox for bitcoindev@googlegroups.com
 help / color / mirror / Atom feed
From: Jeff Garzik <jgarzik@exmulti.com>
To: Luke-Jr <luke@dashjr.org>
Cc: bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net
Subject: Re: [Bitcoin-development] 0.4.x stable branch
Date: Tue, 20 Sep 2011 15:10:16 -0400	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <CA+8xBpd9wBGLBnfXr=OiLYxVPvxegoi+eMqHFqpQRoaVW1uvKw@mail.gmail.com> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <201109181930.59565.luke@dashjr.org>

This is the way it works for the kernel, the process on which I've
suggested we follow with bitcoin, to a small extent:

- Version X is released.  Linus now begins accepting pull requests
into torvalds/linux.git for X+1 ("merge window opens").  It is
strongly recommended that all pull requests have seen some exposure to
the public via "linux-next", which is a tree-of-trees generated from
pulling the trees of top developers.  linux-next is maintained by
another volunteer, Stephen Rothwell.

- After a week, Linus stops taking pull requests from subsystem
maintainers ("merge window closes").  At this point, a 2.5-month
stabilization and bug fix period begins.  No new features are merged
into torvalds/linux.git, and developers are expected to focus on bug
fixing.  Developers, of course, accept new features and changes into
their own trees and branches.  linux-next publishes these, while the
main torvalds/linux.git remains in bug fix mode.

- Three months after version X is released, version X+1 is released
from torvalds/linux.git top-of-tree, and the process begins anew.

- From time to time, _not_ every version, a Linux "enterprise"
distribution like Red Hat Enterprise Linux (plug plug) or Ubuntu LTS,
will maintain a kernel for a long time, for the benefit of their
customers who need stability over new feature.  Or, the community
simply decides that a kernel should be maintained for a longer period
of time.

In particular, Greg Kroah-Hartman (gregkh) maintains stable trees for
version X-1 and X-2, where he will accept fixes provided that the fix
(or a variant thereof) has been accepted in upstream.

In that case, an employee or volunteer maintains a stable branch of
the kernel.  They "backport" fixes from the main torvalds/linux.git
tree into their own gregkh/stable-2.6.36-linux.git tree.

Thus, we observe a few things that may be applied to bitcoin:

- decentralized operation, where stable branches and bitcoin-next are
not maintained by the core team
- the community decides which versions are important to maintain long term
- the core team may maintain a merge/stabilize/merge/stabilize
workflow, introducing new features without huge negative impact to
existing userbase

-- 
Jeff Garzik
exMULTI, Inc.
jgarzik@exmulti.com



  parent reply	other threads:[~2011-09-20 19:10 UTC|newest]

Thread overview: 10+ messages / expand[flat|nested]  mbox.gz  Atom feed  top
2011-09-18 23:30 [Bitcoin-development] 0.4.x stable branch Luke-Jr
2011-09-19 12:49 ` Gavin Andresen
2011-09-19 13:03   ` Gregory Maxwell
2011-09-19 13:48   ` Amir Taaki
2011-09-19 15:00   ` Luke-Jr
2011-09-19 15:06     ` Gregory Maxwell
2011-09-20  4:41     ` theymos
2011-09-20 19:10 ` Jeff Garzik [this message]
2011-09-20 20:37   ` Luke-Jr
2011-09-21 14:24     ` Alex Waters

Reply instructions:

You may reply publicly to this message via plain-text email
using any one of the following methods:

* Save the following mbox file, import it into your mail client,
  and reply-to-all from there: mbox

  Avoid top-posting and favor interleaved quoting:
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Posting_style#Interleaved_style

* Reply using the --to, --cc, and --in-reply-to
  switches of git-send-email(1):

  git send-email \
    --in-reply-to='CA+8xBpd9wBGLBnfXr=OiLYxVPvxegoi+eMqHFqpQRoaVW1uvKw@mail.gmail.com' \
    --to=jgarzik@exmulti.com \
    --cc=bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net \
    --cc=luke@dashjr.org \
    /path/to/YOUR_REPLY

  https://kernel.org/pub/software/scm/git/docs/git-send-email.html

* If your mail client supports setting the In-Reply-To header
  via mailto: links, try the mailto: link
Be sure your reply has a Subject: header at the top and a blank line before the message body.
This is a public inbox, see mirroring instructions
for how to clone and mirror all data and code used for this inbox