RFC: Handling of NEWS with N active branches

[Martin Pool]

2009/8/31 Robert Collins <robertc at robertcollins.net>:
> So, we have two branches:
> 2.0
> bzr.dev aka 2.1-at-the-moment.
>
> I think we should duplicate NEWS entries - once for each active branch
> they are merged into.
>
> Why?
>
> Because merging 2.0 to bzr.dev *doesn't actually release the fix'.
>
> And in 3 or 4 months time, a fix done for 2.0 and merged to bzr.dev will
> be many pages apart, and the ordering in the NEWS file will make it even
> harder to tell what it means for 'something fixed in 2.0.1' unless we
> sort NEWS chronologically, not numerically.

That does seem to make sense.

It does mean that somebody merging 2.0 to bzr.dev will need to: work
out what NEWS items are new, and then copy them up into the
as-yet-unreleased section at the top.

There are other things we'd like to do, but they could be done separately

 * more easily pull data (eg the release notes) out of NEWS
 * avoid conflicts merging it, or items landing in the wrong section

> In dev
> 2.1b3
> 2.0.2  <===
> 2.1b2
> 2.0.1  <===
> 2.1b1
> 2.0
> 1.18.1
>
> Thats not (IMO) as clear as having the NEWSworthy changes *in 2.1b1* be
> *in 2.1b1*.
>
> -Rob
>



-- 
Martin <http://launchpad.net/~mbp/>