Binary releases are a convenience for end users. The branch will always
be more up-to-date than a binary release.
Adrian Crum
Sandglass Software
www.sandglass-software.com
On 10/27/2014 8:14 PM, Taher Alkhateeb wrote:
Hi Jacques,
Thank you for your valuable input below and it was good to go through the
links. It seem there is no ambiguity in the release _mechanism_ and how it
works. However, I am trying to understand _purpose_ with the specific context
of OFBiz .
Let me try to ask another way: Why would I pull 13.07.01 instead of pulling the
latest revision of the 13.07 branch when working for a new project for example?
When would it make since to go for the 13.07.XX instead of just the latest
revision given that you already indicated that the whole branch is considered
stable?
Taher Alkhateeb
----- Original Message -----
From: "Jacques Le Roux" <[email protected]>
To: [email protected]
Sent: Monday, 27 October, 2014 1:20:18 PM
Subject: Re: Understanding release and branch differences
Le 27/10/2014 08:31, Taher Alkhateeb a écrit :
Hi everyone,
I would like to understand the exact difference between branch and release
strategies or guidelines. I am wondering about questions like:
- What is the difference between 12.04 and 12.04.03 for example
R12.04 is a branch in the project. From time to time a release is produced from
this branch, until the branch is no longer supported.
Here supported means that bug fixes are no longer backported from the trunk to
this branch
- How long do you maintain each release of a branch
We don't maintain releases, they are frozen when packaged. We maintain branches
as explained above
Most of the time it's around 3 years, for instance the R11.04 branch is no
longer supported
This is explained a bit at https://ofbiz.apache.org/download.html
Did you read it? If yes, what did you miss there (apart the end of support
dates)
BTW on this subject you might be interested by these discussions
http://markmail.org/message/rwvvvkvd56sw2lfb
http://markmail.org/message/ta2b6tlyidvaeaap
- What should happen to production environments when a new release of a
branch is issued. Should the vendor upgrade to the new release?
That's indeed a possibility, or you can select the patches to apply manually in
your custom project, maybe easier if you want to pick only bug fixes
and few new features.
- Is there a risk of pulling directly from the branch vs release? stability
issues?
Not at all, only the trunk receives new features. Once created the releases
branches receives only bug fixes.
In some exceptional cases, when there is total consensus in the dev community,
some new features are applied to fresh new branches.
- How many releases are there per branch? What tests should they pass to be
considered releases?
For the number of releases per branch, it depends on the branch (for instance when a
vulnerability is fixed a release is "immediately" packaged),
normally it's around 5 or 6.
They pass the CI tests which run at (for instance)
http://ci.apache.org/builders/ofbiz-branch13
You might have a look at all the results of the tests there
http://ci.apache.org/projects/ofbiz/logs/
Also before the package is officialy released, a vote is done and people
participating are testing the releases in their environment, not only CI tests.
HTH
Jacques
I appreciate your insights into this issue.
Taher Alkhateeb
