> How are Alpha components and higher level libraries which may add small > features within a maintenance release going to be marked with that status? > Somehow/somewhere within the code itself, as just as some kind of external > reference?
I think we'd mark alpha features as such in the java/scaladoc. This is what scala does with experimental features. Higher level libraries are anything that isn't Spark core. Maybe we can formalize this more somehow. We might be able to annotate the new features as experimental if they end up in a patch release. This could make it more clear. > > I would strongly encourage that developers submitting pull requests include > within the description of that PR whether you intend the contribution to be > mergeable at the maintenance level, minor level, or major level. That will > help those of us doing code reviews and merges decide where the code should > go and how closely to scrutinize the PR for changes that are not compatible > with the intended release level. I'd say the default is the minor level. If contributors know it should be added in a maintenance release, it's great if they say so. However I'd say this is also responsibility with the committers, since individual contributors may not know. It will probably be a while before major level patches are being merged :P
