gitflow and branch naming conventions

[Martin Krizek]

----- Original Message -----
> From: "Kamil Paral" <kparal at redhat.com>
> To: "Fedora QA Development" <qa-devel at lists.fedoraproject.org>
> Sent: Friday, January 24, 2014 4:03:40 PM
> Subject: gitflow and branch naming conventions
> 
> So, we're going the gitflow way [1][2]. However, when I looked at our
> bitbucket repositories today, only the libtaskotron branch uses 'develop'
> branch, all other projects use only 'master' branch - even taskotron-trigger
> or task-rpmlint. Does it mean we use gitflow only for libtaskotron? Or is it
> a repo author's choice? I'm a bit afraid it's going to be chaos - you'll
> need to inspect available branches every time to decide against which branch
> to base a patch or into which branch to commit.
> 
> I wonder, could we use gitflow but drop the idea of misusing 'master' branch
> name for something else than usual?
> 
> Because that's the main grievance I have against gitflow, otherwise it's a
> neat workflow. I believe gitflow should have never used master for something
> else, it should have used 'stable' branch instead for stable releases (i.e.
> 'gitflow/master' should have been 'traditional/stable' and 'gitflow/develop'
> should have been 'traditional/master'). All the tools (and most of the
> users) expect 'master' to be the main development branch. Git init creates
> master by default. Git clone checks out master by default. Github/Bitbucket
> displays master by default. Arcanist merges to master by default. Users
> clone and send patches against master by default. Usually you can adjust the
> tools, but what's the benefit? Why all the mess? I simply don't get it.
> (Also notice people criticizing it under one of the most famous blogposts
> [3] and offering the same suggestions as I do).
> 

I am not against the idea but just a note, we'd need to change this for 
projects that have been using gitflow/develop style branch (blockerbugs) as well.

Thanks,
Martin

> So, if we use gitflow with traditional master meaning, and stable branch for
> stable releases, I see it as a win-win. Regardless whether that particular
> repo uses gitflow or not, you known what branch to work with automatically.
> You don't need to change configuration in your tools. Everything works, and
> you get the benefits.
> 
> If you have installed the gitflow RPM package (it adds the "git flow"
> subcommand), it asks you initially what naming conventions you like to use.
> So if you like that tool, there's no problem using it with the traditional
> 'master' meaning.
> 
> [1] https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/User:Tflink/taskotron_contribution_guide
> [2] http://nvie.com/posts/a-successful-git-branching-model/
> [3] http://jeffkreeftmeijer.com/2010/why-arent-you-using-git-flow/
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