MaintNotes: clarify evolution of topics

Junio C Hamano committed Feb 24, 2017 at 11:06 UTC 5f48018058e9e32c6fb07c4383a04fe716f99742
1 file changed +9 -2
MaintNotes
+9 -2
@@ -148,7 +148,7 @@ named with three dotted decimal digits (e.g. "1.8.5"), but recently we
148 switched the versioning scheme and "feature releases" are named with
149 three-dotted decimal digits that ends with ".0" (e.g. "1.9.0").
150
151 -The last such release was 2.11 done on Nov 29th, 2016. You can expect
151 +The last such release was 2.12 done on Feb 24th, 2017. You can expect
152 that the tip of the "master" branch is always more stable than any of
153 the released versions.
154
@@ -162,7 +162,7 @@ four dotted decimal, named after the feature release they are updates
162 to (e.g. "1.8.5.1" was the first maintenance release for "1.8.5"
163 feature release). These days, maintenance releases are named by
164 incrementing the last digit of three-dotted decimal name (e.g. "2.11.1"
165 -is the first maintenance release for the "2.11" series).
165 +was the first maintenance release for the "2.11" series).
166
167 New features never go to the 'maint' branch. This branch is also
168 merged into "master" to propagate the fixes forward as needed.
@@ -206,6 +206,13 @@ usually will not be either. After a feature release is made from
206 "master", however, "next" will be rebuilt from the tip of "master"
207 using the topics that didn't make the cut in the feature release.
208
209 +A natural consequence of how "next" and "pu" bundles topics together
210 +is that until a topic is merged to "next", updates to it is expected
211 +by replacing the patch(es) in the topic with an improved version,
212 +and once a topic is merged to "next", updates to it needs to come as
213 +incremental patches, pointing out what was wrong in the previous
214 +patches and how the problem was corrected.
215 +
216 Note that being in "next" is not a guarantee to appear in the next
217 release, nor even in any future release. There were cases that topics
218 needed reverting a few commits in them before graduating to "master",