On Wed, 15 Sep 2021, Paul Koning via Gcc wrote: > Some questions about developer branches: > > 1. Who may create one? Who may write to them? > 2. Are they required to be listed in https://gcc.gnu.org/git.html ? I > notice it mentioned a whole pile of them, most of which don't seem to > exist.
A devel/ branch (one in refs/heads/devel/) is a shared development branch, which may be created by anyone with write access (who can decide how it will work in terms of patch approvals etc.), should be documented in git.html, and will not accept non-fast-forward pushes or branch deletion. A user branch (in refs/users/<username>/heads/) is a personal development branch, which may be created by that user (sourceware username), may not necessarily be documented in git.html, and can have non-fast-forward pushes or branch deletion (it's up to that user to decide the rules for that branch, including for non-fast-forward pushes). Likewise a vendor branch (in refs/vendors/<vendor>/heads/). All branches are subject to the same legal requirements (copyright assignment or DCO for code committed there). Some basic commit message checks apply to all commits on all branches, but not the ones on ChangeLog entries (it's up to you if you want to have ChangeLog entries in commit messages on a development branch). Many of the branches listed in git.html are old ones that were put in refs/dead/heads/ on conversion from SVN to git because they had not been active recently at that time. Such branches ought to be moved to the Inactive section if not already there. We don't have a documented process for moving a refs/heads/devel/ branch to refs/dead/heads/ after it's dead - that's something that can only be done with direct repository manipulation (git update-ref) on the server, it's not allowed as a push by the hooks, and should preferably be followed by git repack --window=1250 --depth=250 -b -AdFfi (on the server, takes a long time and over 100 GB of memory) because of how the delta islands configuration separates out the data for refs/dead/. -- Joseph S. Myers jos...@codesourcery.com
