From e2fe969879201922bb74c76413f8f9d27c1c7213 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: erikarn Date: Wed, 27 Mar 2013 14:53:18 -0700 Subject: [PATCH] Created BranchPolicy (markdown) --- BranchPolicy.md | 22 ++++++++++++++++++++++ 1 file changed, 22 insertions(+) create mode 100644 BranchPolicy.md diff --git a/BranchPolicy.md b/BranchPolicy.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..35d5387 --- /dev/null +++ b/BranchPolicy.md @@ -0,0 +1,22 @@ +# Branching? Why would we even support branching? + +Why would there even be branching? Surely development can just happen in master and everyone can just upgrade! + +So, to be clear: + +* Active development is going to happen on master - not branches; +* But over time the firmware API is going to change, requiring ath9k_htc driver changes; +* Branches exist purely so developers and operating system maintainers who wish to use a given release can use said given release; and +* If external companies wish to ship a given version of firmware (and thus API) but include basic bugfixes to users, they may wish to backport bug fixes and improvements to a release branch. + +Thus - a branch will be tagged for each firmware release. If developers, companies, OS distributions, etc wish to maintain a given version of ath9k_htc and firmware on their project then they're very welcome to - but they'll have to put in the effort to backport fixes/improvements without braking the firmware API. + +The branch exists so that these developers/companies/distributions can participate in a centralised way. Hopefully we don't end up with the situation where each OS vendor creates a fork of the firmware and maintains it themselves - hopefully they will push patches into the release branch so everyone can benefit. + +The branch rules: + +* The version number won't change in a branch (although it may be time a revision ID was included in the version information pushed back up to the host); +* The firmware API and behaviour must not change along a branch; +* A branch update must not require an ath9k_htc driver update to function. It may go hand-in-hand with some vendor patches to ath9k_htc to fix some particular issue, but the firmware must still function on the latest version of ath9k_htc which is paired with the branch version. + +If not - the branches themselves will just stay what they are - indicators of when things were released. \ No newline at end of file -- 2.25.1