On 31/08/2007, Simetrical Simetrical+wikilist@gmail.com wrote:
Perhaps it would be better to branch earlier so things don't get reverted solely for the reason of being shortly before release. People could commit non-major changes to both branch and trunk, and relatively major/untested things to trunk only (or, if they're lazy, everything to trunk only). Usually we only have a branch up for a few days, but revert things on the basis of being before a release for a couple of weeks beforehand at least, and in the last one or two cases for over a month beforehand.
This would certainly be something to consider, given that I don't anticipate the overall workload for those involved reducing in future around Wikimania time, and given that Wikimania is likely to always be held at times which coincide with a release.
I'd discourage actually allowing people without sufficient experience (and personally, I wouldn't, full stop) from merging to the release branch without the direct permission of the release manager, simply because silly little things do slip through, and break stuff.
But of course, our release manager has way too much to do already.
I dare say it's no hardship to create a branch in advance, especially if it cuts down or eases the later workload.
Rob Church