>What about the following idea: allow community-approved feature backports to *latest GA* (with a brief window allowing backports to 2 GA branches) and tier releases as follows:
Makes sense to me. We can define a policy, such as initiating a thread, similar to "VOTE," and requiring three binding votes and no vetoes, etc. Initially, we can be more conservative by increasing the binding vote count from 3 to 5 or even higher; that way, everyone will have a chance to provide an opinion, yet it remains structured enough so that only community-intended features get backported. Jaydeep On Wed, Oct 8, 2025 at 7:59 AM Štefan Miklošovič <[email protected]> wrote: > > > On Wed, Oct 8, 2025 at 2:53 PM Josh McKenzie <[email protected]> wrote: > >> Thanks for the discussion - it looks like we agree on the problem and the >> trade‑offs involved. >> >> Maintaining an extra branch would add toil: we’d have to merge bug fixes, >> run CI (including upgrade tests), and extend the already lengthy upstream >> path. A simpler alternative is to relax our backport restrictions on GA >> branches. >> > > Yes, this would mean CEP-37 would go to 5.0.x, for example. I do not have > a problem with that in general, I am just not sure if we can "abuse" a > patch release for this kind of addition. It would really have to be > "non-disruptive as much as possible". This would be in line with what Jeff > / Jeremiah / myself were suggesting as well. We would not need to introduce > a new branch, upgrade paths would be tested as they are now, bug fixes > would be added too ... > > Looking forward to the opinions of other people. > > >> >> What about the following idea: allow community-approved feature backports >> to *latest GA* (with a brief window allowing backports to 2 GA branches) >> and tier releases as follows: >> >> *When a new release is cut:* >> >> - New release / Latest GA (6.0): stabilizing (backports accepted) >> - Middle GA (5.0): backports accepted >> - Oldest GA (4.1): stable >> >> *When the new release stabilizes:* >> >> - Latest GA (6.0): backports accepted >> - Middle GA (5.0): stable >> - Oldest GA (4.1): stable >> >> This approach gives users a clear choice - stable, backport‑enabled, or a >> temporary stabilizing branch - without adding CI overhead. >> >> On Wed, Oct 8, 2025, at 5:42 AM, Štefan Miklošovič wrote: >> >> Hi Dinesh, >> >> thanks for reassuring that this branch would be really just for crucial >> functionality where benefits justify the backport. I would be more willing >> to entertain that idea but I still think that once people see 5.1 is up >> they will want to support their case and there will be a lot of pressure to >> backport this and that. Not all CEPs / features will make it. We need to be >> very selective. There will be a lot of "massaging" around what can go in >> and what not and the expectations would need to be set from the very >> beginning and followed. >> >> However, I am not still quite sure how that would work in general, >> reading Josh email here: >> >> "The branch would selectively accept non‑disruptive improvements that >> meet criteria we define together." >> >> Once people are on 5.1, they will want to have all the bug fixes in >> there as well. So instead of merging from 4.0 to 4.1, 5.0 and trunk, we >> will be doing 4.0. 4.1, 5.0, 5.1 and trunk? >> >> If the answer is yes, then we will have just another branch we need to >> fully maintain. >> >> If the answer is no, as in we will skip 5.1 on merges from 4.0 to trunk, >> then I think this will be met with disappointment and questions as to why >> we are not patching 5.1 as well. >> >> Basically we go all in and maintain 5.1 with all the patches from lower >> branches or we just maintain and backport important features but then ... >> who is going to use it like that - without receiving bug fixes. >> >> >> >> On Wed, Oct 8, 2025 at 9:46 AM Dinesh Joshi <[email protected]> wrote: >> >> Stefan, Sam – your concerns are absolutely valid and have come up in >> various discussions. >> >> Here's the reality though – many large operators of Cassandra are >> maintaining backports of various features. The proposal here is to try and >> allow these contributors to maintain them in the community instead of >> internally. This is a limited time pilot to see if this model could work. >> >> When we "open the flood gates" then the existence of a backporting branch >> will be the justification of anything they want to see there because they >> do not want to upgrade. >> >> >> Stefan — nobody is talking about “opening the floodgates” here. The >> expectation is that small, self contained features could be back ported on >> a case by case basis. Let’s engage on the criteria that makes sense. >> >> On the subject of avoiding backports and using it as a tool to “force” >> people to upgrade, I’d like to point out that if upgrades were easier we >> would not be having this discussion. The simple fact is that upgrades are >> not easy and they are riskier than maintaining backports hence we see this >> pattern. >> >> If the community gets together and makes upgrades easier we will likely >> not have a need for backports. >> >> My suggestion is to engage with “how” this pilot would look like to shape >> it. It is a limited time experiment that might benefit the community. A >> number of contributors have shown interest so ideally we should be open to >> trying it out. >> >> >> >> On Wed, Oct 8, 2025 at 12:12 AM Sam Tunnicliffe <[email protected]> wrote: >> >> I second Štefan's concerns here. The proposal reduces the incentive to >> upgrade or even test trunk, meaning that the things users want to avoid >> (features etc, but also just refactorings/re-implementations) because they >> are as-yet "untrusted" or "unqualified" remain that way for longer. This >> feels pretty antithetical to the direction we've been aiming to travel in, >> toward more regular release cycles. >> >> >> > On 8 Oct 2025, at 06:41, Štefan Miklošovič <[email protected]> >> wrote: >> > >> > This is indeed an interesting idea but please let me share my point of >> view and somehow different opinion on that. >> > >> > I share the questions with Jeff and Jeremiah a lot. I see it similarly >> and they got the point. >> > >> > Before 5.0 was out, we had quite a situation where we officially had to >> take care of 3.0, 3.11, 4.0 and 4.1 at the same time. If a bug was found, >> we had to patch 5 branches at once (trunk as well). That meant 5 CI jobs. >> The patching was an endeavour spanning multiple days, realistically. Once >> 5.0 got out, we officially discontinued 3.0 and 3.11. But what I have been >> experiencing was that this information about not supporting 3.0 / 3.11 was >> spreading very slowly among people / customers and I / we had to repeatedly >> explain to everybody that yes, 3.0 and 3.11 and done. What are they? Done? >> Yes, done. 3.0 and 3.11 are finished. Finished you say? That means no >> patches? Yes, no patches. Aha right ... For real? ... you got it. People >> had to internalize that it is just not going to happen. >> > >> > When we "open the flood gates" then the existence of a backporting >> branch will be the justification of anything they want to see there because >> they do not want to upgrade. Instead of us working towards a more smooth >> upgrade we are burying ourselves with older stuff. That slows adoption of >> new majors a lot. People will not be forced to, there will be way less >> incentive to do that when all the important goodies are backported anyway. >> > >> > I see that "the backports would be non-disruptive but potentially >> higher risk". I do not completely understand what this means in practice. >> Let's say CEP-37. Is that disruptive or not? What's the definition of that? >> To me, correct me if I am wrong, is that something is disruptive if I just >> can not turn it off even if I do not want to use it. Does one _have to_ use >> CEP-37 when it is backported? No. They can just turn it off. So what is >> exactly the risk of introducing it to e.g. 5.0.x ? >> > >> > Also, how are upgrades done? People are going to upgrade from 5.0.x to >> 5.1 and then it will be possible to upgrade to 6.0 from 5.1? This would >> need us to make the pipelines, incorporate this new path into upgrade tests >> and so on ... a lot of work. >> > >> > I think that the current policy - "only bug fixes to older branches" >> might be relaxed a bit instead and leverage already existing upgrade paths >> and infrastructure to test it all instead of creating brand new branches we >> need to take care of. >> > >> > Regards >> > >> > On Mon, Oct 6, 2025 at 6:04 PM Josh McKenzie <[email protected]> >> wrote: >> > Many large‑scale Cassandra users have had to maintain private feature >> back-port forks (e.g., CEP‑37, compaction optimization, etc) for years on >> older branches. That duplication adds risk and pulls time away from >> upstream contributions which came up as a pain point in discussion at CoC >> this year. >> > >> > The proposal we came up with: an official, community‑maintained >> backport branch (e.g. cassandra‑5.1) built on the current GA release that >> we pilot for a year and then decide if we want to make it official. The >> branch would selectively accept non‑disruptive improvements that meet >> criteria we define together. There’s a lot of OSS prior art here (Lucene, >> httpd, Hadoop, Kafka, Linux kernel, etc). >> > >> > Benefits include reduced duplicated effort, a safer middle ground >> between trunk and frozen GA releases, faster delivery of vetted features, >> and community energy going to this branch instead of duplicated on private >> forks. >> > >> > If you’re interested in helping curate or maintain this branch - or >> have thoughts on the idea - please reply and voice your thoughts. >> > >> > ~Josh >> >> >>
