Hi Christoph, On Tue, 2018-06-05 at 12:37 +0200, Christoph M. Becker wrote: > Hi! > > README.RELEASE_PROCESS[1] states in the “Rolling a non stable release > (alpha/beta/RC)” section[2]: > > > 4. Checkout the release branch for this release (e.g., PHP-5.4.2) > > from > > the main branch. > > However, it seems that the PHP-x.y.z release branch is usually only > cut > shortly before GA[3]. You can always use a release branch as an intermediate place to prepare a release, it's only about your way of work and situation. For example you could fork the release from the today's latest master, but want to revert one revision. Or, you could fork the release branch from a particular revision, not the latest. You can reset that PHP-x.y.z branch at any point or apply some extra patches to it, as you own it. Usually there is a release branch, where everything like versions, news and so on gets prepared and from which a tag is created then.
> Furthermore, the “Forking a new release branch” > section states that the PHP-x.y branch is supposed to be cut shortly > before the first beta release[4]. > PHP-x.y is a development branch. When it is branched off, it gets integrated into the git workflow and the regular fixes need to be merged there. Till then, master is used as a dev branch so it needs to be semi blocked for huge changes, features not planned for 7.3 would have to hold on. It's again at RMs consideration, whether the dev to be forked earlier or later. The approximation to create a dev branch before beta is given, because in the alpha phase some is per se unstable. Beta is usually the feature freeze, no new features should flow in. Until the PHP-x.y branch is created, there are less branches to merge, so that's the advantage of creating it at a later point. Perhaps we need more clearance in that doc yet. Please lets check, if you have any suggestions so we can formalize the process better. Regards Anatol
