bug#13578: Status: A new versioning scheme for automake releases, and a new branching scheme for the Git repository

[Mathieu Lirzin]

Hello,

As the new maintainer, I would like to change the branch naming
convention to make the life of casual contributors easier.  The issue is
that when someone clone the Automake repository, it defaults to the
"master" branch which is a "not ready to be released" development branch
and not a particularly active one (I mean less active than the other
;)).

Right now we are using this branch naming scheme:

   - micro: for next micro version
   - minor: for next minor version
   - master: for next major version

Given the current state of Automake I consider that the main scenario
for contributing to Automake is either fixing a bug or developping an
additional feature ontop of the current release version (1.15).  As a
consequence the current branching scheme requires newcomers to read
through the HACKING file to understand that they have to base their work
either on the "micro" or "minor" branch.

One solution would be to change the default branch used when cloning the
repository, but that would look weird on its own to have a default not
named "master" given the fact that it is a well accepted default.  As a
consequence I am not considering it.

What I am proposing is the following branch name scheme:

   - master: for the next version to be released (currently a minor version)
   - maint: for the previous releases (major or minor) merged
            from master and their bug fixing commits leading to a micro
            version release.
   - next: for the "not ready to be release" Automake 2.0 that should
           be merged in master when ready (if ever)

My reasoning is that developping a feature branche should be based on
the code that will appear in the next release by default, and in the
case of bugs if someone find one on the previous release it is highly
probable that it is still reproducible in the next coming release unless
it has already been fixed.

Unless there are better suggestions or valid objections proposed in the
following week, I will send a request to the Savannah administrators to
apply the following renaming:

   - master -> next
   - minor -> master
   - micro -> maint

Thanks.

-- 
Mathieu Lirzin
GPG: F2A3 8D7E EB2B 6640 5761  070D 0ADE E100 9460 4D37