Re: [platform-releng-dev] [platform-dev] 4.15 maintenance branch

[Andrey Loskutov <loskutov@xxxxxx>]

Mickael,
I'm not questioning the new release cadence, I honestly don't want to touch this topic here.

I also do not want to start discussing which politically correct way do we explain it to the people why do we have a maintenance branch. We have the maintenance branch already, just check git repositories, and nobody complained / explained this to anyone.

Also I plan to start backportimg patches *anyway*, so it was also not a question if I would do it or not.

I only want to know if the work I would do on a private branch is of interest for someone else, and if I should spend some more effort to publish it on an official branch instead on the private one, and what are rules to do so. 

The second question regarding the SDK build is of course more "public" one, but it is not that important for me, I only wanted to know if there is interest for that.

For the promises about quality - well, our official 4.12 build is definitely of lower quality compared with my private one, but I've also already managed to create regressions while backporting regression fixes :). So what, there's no guarantee for quality in today's world, I believe this is what the young developers learn in the school, reading monthly security bulletins on insecure mobile phones. It's all only "best effort". 


Am 27. Februar 2020 21:17:57 MEZ schrieb Mickael Istria <mistria@xxxxxxxxxx>:
>Hi Andrey,
>
>I think it's a very strategic and tactical discussion to have for the
>sustainability of the project, and the ability of adopters to produce
>added
>value on top of it.
>
>IMO, the new cadence really helps the project to move forward, and that
>it
>particularly achieved by 2 things:
>1. we release more frequently so contributors are more enthusiast as
>they
>get their added value delivered sooner
>2. we basically dropped the maintenance branch and all the additional
>development/releng cost.
>
>So what your suggest is currently going the other way of item 2.
>If you wish to take care of item 2 fully, I think it's fine as it
>increases
>the value offered by the project.
>But it IMO becomes an issue if this decision affects the project as a
>whole
>or more contributors who are not interested in maintenance branch. The
>agreement nowadays seems to be that the level of effort current
>contributors are willing to put into maintenance branch is lower than
>the
>necessary effort to handle maintenance branches correctly. However, if
>your
>involvement puts the balance in the opposite site, I don't think the
>project should refrain you from doing maintenance branches.
>But then, there is only one issue remaining: what "SLA" do we put on
>such
>maintenance branch? Can we state that we support them? Or can we state
>that
>they are supported with lower effort and expectations? Or can we state
>that
>you are the only one supporting them?... It's a bit complex to clarify
>what's the exact offering to the broader community and what are the
>commitments that go with it.
>
>It's not an easy topic ;)

--
Kind regards,
Andrey Loskutov

https://www.eclipse.org/user/aloskutov
Спасение утопающих - дело рук самих утопающих