Codeline Management

The Cassini project is developed and released based on Yocto’s release branch process. This strategy allows us to make Major, Minor and Point/Patch Releases based on upstream stable branches, reducing the risk of having build and runtime issues.

Yocto Release Process Overview


_images/cassini_rel_yocto_overview.png

The diagram above gives an overview of the Yocto branch and release process:

  • Development happens primarily in the main (or master) branch.

  • The project has a major release roughly every 6 months where a stable release branch is created.

  • Each major release has a codename which is also used to name the stable release branch (e.g. kirkstone, scarthgap).

  • Once a stable branch is created and released, it only receives bug fixes with minor (point) releases on an unscheduled basis.

  • The goal is for users and 3rd parties layers to use these codenamed branches as a means to be compatible with each other.

For a complete description of the Yocto release process, support schedule and other details, see the Yocto Release Process documentation.

Cassini Branch and Release Process


_images/cassini_rel_dev_branches.png

Cassini’s branch and release process is based on the Yocto release process. The following sub-sections describe in more details the branch strategy for Cassini’s development and release process.

Cassini main branch

  • Represented by the green line on the diagram above.

  • The repository’s main branch is meant to be compatible with master or main branches from Poky and 3rd party layers.

  • meta-cassini is not actively developed on this main branch to avoid the instability inherited from Yocto development on the master branch.

  • To reduce the effort required to move Cassini to a new version of Yocto, this main branch is periodically updated with patches from the Cassini development branches .

Cassini development branches

  • Represented by the red line on the diagram above.

  • Cassini uses development branches based/compatible with Yocto stable branches.

  • A development branch in Cassini is setup for each new Yocto release using the name convention <codename>-dev where <codename> comes from target Yocto release.

  • The development branches in Cassini are where fixes, improvements and new features are developed.

  • On a regular basis, code from the development branch is ported over to the main branch to reduce the effort required to move Cassini to a new version of Yocto.

Cassini release branches

  • Represented by the blue line on the diagram above.

  • A new release branch in Cassini is setup for each new Yocto release using the Yocto codename the branch targets.

  • Hot fixes in the release branch are back ported to the development branch.

  • Release branches are currently maintained not much longer than a Yocto release period (~7 months).

Cassini release tags

  • Cassini is tagged using the version format v<Major>.<Minor>.<Patch>.

  • Tags are always applied to commits from the release branch.

  • The first release in a release branch is a Major release.

  • Following releases in a release branch advance the Minor version number.

  • Patch releases are mainly used for hot fixes which are then back ported to the development branch.

  • Both Major and Minor releases may receive fixes, improvements and new features while Patch releases only receive fixes. Poky and 3rd party layers release/stable branches might be updated and pinned.