[Python-Dev] Documenting branch policy (original) (raw)

Barry Warsaw barry at python.org
Tue Sep 9 13:14:11 EDT 2003

On Tue, 2003-09-09 at 05:26, Jack Jansen wrote:

On 8-sep-03, at 15:18, Barry Warsaw wrote:

>>

Every release up to and including the final release for a new major

>> Python version is accompanied by a release branches. > > There's even some debate about these (I've caught up with the thread, > so > I know you've withdrawn this change). I've been backing off the use of > release branches because they create more complexity in a world where > none of us have much time to deal with it. They served me well for the MacPython-OS9 releases. But as 2.3 is going to be the last of those anyway I could live without them, I guess. Although: they'd still be useful in case of unforeseen problems with a distribution that are not code-related. Think of things like the Windows installer turning out to be broken on certain machine, so you want to build the installer again (but not Python itself).

That's a good point. Release branches are probably overkill for alpha/beta/rc releases, but probably make sense for final releases. We actually did create one for 2.3, but I screwed up when I named it and that caused a tiny bit of pain in moving to the maintenance branch. OTOH, for a final release, maybe release branch == maintenance branch.

-Barry

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