ORM Branching

Describes the paradigm used for branching within the ORM project

The Branches

main is where we do "latest stable" development. Which specific release family this targets is dependent upon the "critical mass" discussion in THe Process.
"Dedicated release branches" (5.6, 6.0, 6.1, 6.2, …) represent previous, no longer supported releases. Branched for posterity.
PR branches for new features, improvements, disruptive bugfixes, etc target main
PR branches for performance improvements, security fixes and bugfixes target the affected minor branches (which could be main for a short period of time)

Process (using 6.3 → 6.4 as an example):

As mentioned, all new features, improvements, disruptive bugfixes, etc. are developed on topic branches (PR) against main. Based on sprint planning, these will be given a priority and target a particular major/minor release.
Once we have critical mass for topic branches targeting 6.4:
main will be branched as 6.3 and a 6.3.x release will be done.
The finished topic branches will be integrated into main and a 6.4.0 Alpha (or Beta or CR)[1] release will be done.
A bot will cherry-pick changes made to the latest "dedicated release branch" (here, 6.3) and create a PR against main (on the assumption that these changes might be needed there as well). TBD if we want to auto-apply these PRs on successful build.
PRs against older "dedicated release branches", will first be rebased to the latest stable branch and applied. We’ll decide between 6.3 and main based mostly on ; if 6.3, the bot will pick it up.

[1] Historically I am not a huge fan of a full Alpha/Beta/CR cycle for minor releases, usually just doing CRs. But open to convincing otherwise.