jorisvandenbossche commented on code in PR #40552:
URL: https://github.com/apache/arrow/pull/40552#discussion_r1526311801


##########
docs/source/developers/release.rst:
##########
@@ -92,15 +92,52 @@ Ensure a major version milestone for a follow up release is 
created on GitHub. T
 automatically be used by our merge script as the new version for issues closed 
when
 the maintenance branch is created.
 
+Patch Releases
+==============
+
+We usually create patch releases once a major breaking issue has been 
identified.
+Issues that are identified as major breaking issues can be security fixes, 
broken packages
+for specific builds and others.
+
+Any developer can ask for a patch release to be generated sending an email to 
the
+`Arrow development mailing-list <https://arrow.apache.org/community/>`__ with 
the reason
+of why a new release is necessary.
+If there is consensus and there is a Release Manager willing to take the 
effort to create
+the release a patch release can be created.
+
+Committers can tag issues that should be included on the next patch release 
using the
+`backport-candidate` label. Is the responsability of the author or the 
committer to add the
+label to the issue to help the Release Manager identify the issues that should 
be backported.
+
+If a specific issue is identified as the reason to create a patch release the 
Release Manager
+should validate that, at least, this issue is correctly tagged and included in 
the patch release.
+
+Be sure to go through on the following checklist:
+
+#. Create milestone
+#. Create maintenance branch
+#. Include issue that was requested as requiring new patch release
+#. Add new milestone to issues with `backport-candidate` label
+#. cherry-pick issues into maintenance branch
+
 Creating a Release Candidate
 ============================
 
 These are the different steps that are required to create a Release Candidate.
 
-For the initial Release Candidate, we will create a maintenance branch from 
main.
+For the initial Release Candidate on a major release, we will create a 
maintenance
+branch from main.
+
 Follow up Release Candidates will update the maintenance branch by 
cherry-picking
 specific commits.
 
+For the the initial Release Candidate for a minor or a patch release we will 
create
+a maintenance branch from the previous corresponding release. For example,

Review Comment:
   > BTW what I've done is to describe the process that all our scripts and 
archery use at the moment.
   
   Yes, certainly! I was just wondering
   
   > I suppose the only reason to not reuse the branch is if in the future we 
backport fixes to previous releases and we do minor and patch releases we would 
want to have separate maintenance branches for those. In example, we want to 
have a `15.1.0` and `15.0.1`.
   
   With the current type of releases we make, I would expect the backport 
branch to be something like maint-15.0.x (and so you can still create one for 
maint-15.1.x later if needed)



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