[Ktechlab-devel] About code branches in repositories

[Zoltan Padrah]

 Hi,

as part of the ongoing migration to KDE infrastructure, I had to
rewrite some git history in KTechLab's source code repository. Thus
now there are 2 versions of the practically same code content. I want
to clear the situation and start the discussion about source code
strategy.


The following branches have existed before the migration to KDE git,
on github [1]:

* master - the initial porting effort to KDE 4, the kdevplatform based
version; currently stalled
* master-0.3 - the mirrored trunk of SVN
* port-0.3-kde4-v1 - the new porting effort, migrating the last 0.3
release to KDE4
+ tags for releases (v0.3.7, v0.3.8)

[1] https://github.com/ktechlab/ktechlab/


After the migration, I've created several new branches from the
exiting branches; these are hosted at KDE, for now. Location at [2].

[2] https://quickgit.kde.org/?p=scratch%2Fpadrah%2Fktechlab.git

* kde/master-0.4 <- from master
* kde/master-0.3 <- from master-0.3
* kde/port-0.3.8-kde4-v1 <- from port-0.3.8-kde4-v1
* kde/v0.3.7 <- tag v0.3.7
* kde/v0.3.8 <- tag v0.3.8


I have pushed these branches to github, with the kde/ prefix.


For the future, I would like to continue developing on the kde/*
branches (as content), but not necessarily with the same names, or
with kde/ prefixes. As a long-term solution, I would like to have the
following branches:

* master ==~ from kde/port-0.3.8-kde4-v1
* master-0.4 == kde/master-0.4
* master-0.3 == kde/master-0.3
... other branches/tags without kde/ prefix

I do not want to cause breakage for the people who might be pulling
ktechlab from github, so now I'm asking opinions, about what and how
should be done.

I don't know how antisocial is to (1) rename public branches, and (2)
have the same branch with different content later on. I assume that
(2) can annoy a lot of people.


I think that one step would be to move every branch from github to
some prefix, like pre-kde/* .

Next, the kde/* branches could be copied out from the kde/* prefix,
but I think it would be useful to have a little different names than
the original ones, just to signal people that some significant changes
have been performed.
Or just announce the branch-content replacement, and force-push everything...
What do you think?


Another related topic:

For short-term, I want to consider kde/port-0.3.8-kde4-v1 as current
master, and create usable releases from it.


For longer-term, I want to merge master-0.3 (mostly fixes from Alan)
to the master branch. Probably I will do it in pieces, because it is a
lot of divergence in history.


I do not have specific plans yet for the master-0.4 branch. I think it
is a good idea to keep it in a working state; for long term it should
be a good starting point when polishing the microcontroller IDE. Will
see how things will evolve.


Have fun,

 Zoltan