Wikibase Suite (WBS)

5) Wikibase Extension Release notes process

Date: 2020-11-30

Status

accepted

Context

As we adopt the new release strategy we also want to determine a process for writing and maintaining release notes.

Our release process will still be closely bound to the release branches WMF are using it makes sense to inspect their process for producing and maintaining release notes within the source control system.

For mediawiki/core the release notes are maintained and worked on within the source repository. Each release branch contains a RELEASE_NOTES-N.NN document describing changes that was made to the software up until the point the branch was cut from master. Any backports to these branches also comes with an update to the release notes document.

As a new release branch is cut/created a new template release document is added to the master branch and any previous release notes are merged into a HISTORY document within the repository containing all previous release notes.

Decision

Release notes within the Wikibase MediaWiki extension repository will adopt a similar process to the one being used by the MediaWiki/core developers.

Consequences

• New release branches will contain a release notes document with the same name as the release branch (REL1_35 would contain RELEASE_NOTES-1.35)
• Release notes for the next release RELEASE-NOTES-1.36 will added to the master/main branch of the repository.
• On a new release, the previous release RELEASE-NOTES-1.35 will be removed from the branch and it’s contents added into the HISTORY document for archiving.
• New changes will be documented by the team as they are merged into the master branch.

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