Wireshark-dev: Re: [Wireshark-dev] What about backporting fixes to older releases with the new

From: Gerald Combs <gerald@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Tue, 08 Apr 2014 17:40:09 -0700
On 4/2/14 4:25 AM, Bálint Réczey wrote:
> Hi Gerald & All,
> 
> 2014-04-01 2:41 GMT+02:00 Pascal Quantin <pascal.quantin@xxxxxxxxx>:
>> 2014-03-31 23:17 GMT+02:00 Gerald Combs <gerald@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>:
>>
>>> On 3/27/14 10:13 PM, Anders Broman wrote:
>>>> Hi,
>>>> How do we handle backports in the new work flow with git? The submitter
>>>> of a patch could help
>>>> by submitting the backport once the patch has been accepted. But what do
>>>> we do in the case
>>>> when this isn't happening? The core developer accepting the patch might
>>>> not have the time/don't want
>>>> the extra work of making a backport.
>>>
>>> Prior to the Git migration the Roadmap page was effectively a dumping
>>> ground for merge conflicts. I'd end up processing the queue a day or so
>>> before each release which didn't leave much time for testing or
>>> validation. I would very much like to avoid going back to that.
>>>
>>> If there aren't any merge conflicts you can cherry-pick a change using
>>> several methods:
>>>
>>> - "git cherry-pick"
>>> - The "Cherry Pick To" button in Gerrit's web interface
>>> - The "gerrit-cherry-pick" script:
>>>    https://code.wireshark.org/review/Documentation/cmd-cherry-pick.html
>>> - git-review's "-x" flag
>>>
>>> For each cherry-pick the release notes need to be updated with any bug
>>> fixes, protocol updates and (if needed) an advisory. This can be done by
>>> amending or with a separate commit. I don't think this is documented
>>> anywhere but I can add instructions to the wiki and/or the Developer's
>>> Guide.
>>>
>>> If there are merge conflicts someone needs to decide if the backport is
>>> worth the effort of resolving the conflict. Again, I would prefer that
>>> this happens as early as possible.
>>
>>
>> Hi Gerald,
>>
>> what about using the old wiki page to list the bigfixes candidates for
>> backport but not done yet? This could help (temporarily) people not
>> confident yet with the new backport procedure (even if git cherry pick
>> command makes it much less error prone than subversion).
>> BTW sorry for not updating the release notes with my backports (it was not
>> documented afaik).
> I think this partial resurrection of the old wiki page would be a wise
> idea. It also listed the expected date of next release which would be
> still useful.

Done. (I wasn't intending to kill the RoadMap page entirely. No one
updated it after the 1.10.6 / 1.8.13 releases.)

> IMO it would be better to update the documentation when right before
> the release instead of with every commit because it would make
> cherry-picking changes easier (like master -> master-1.10 ->
> master-1.8, etc).

There goes my plans for laziness. :)