Procedures and policies for releases of QtWebKit

Releases of QtWebKit are cut from WebKit's trunk. Some time before the release a new branch is created and hosted in a Git repository. After the release it becomes a maintenance branch.

Release branch creation

• The release branch is hosted at ​http://gitorious.org/+qtwebkit-developers/webkit/qtwebkit
• It is created off the master branch at ​http://gitorious.org/webkit
• Extra patches can be included in this branch
• Source packages are created from this branch.

Getting changes into the release branch

After the release branch has been created there are two ways to integrate changes:

• The commit is landed in the trunk and then it is cherry-picked into the release branch.
• Time constraints prevent us from landing the patch and we have to include a change before landing it (exceptional patch).

Exceptional patches must satisfy the following criteria before they are included in the release:

• An entry with the attached patch is filed in bugs.webkit.org (using ​http://webkit.org/new-qtwebkit-bug ).
• The patch has a ChangeLog entry.
• Patches that affect the API:
  • A unit test included needs to be included.
  • The API needs to be private, unless there's a concensus that the API is final, reviewed and will land unchanged in the trunk.
• Patches that affect WebCore should have a layout test included, although this is not mandatory.
• At least one WebKit reviewer signs off on the patch and no other reviewer objects.
• The bug is linked from it's corresponding JIRA item at ​http://bugreports.qt.nokia.com/browse/QTWEBKIT

After the release we have to make a concentrated effort in reducing the number of exceptional patches, by reviewing the changes in the bugs that the tracker bug (32653) depends on.

Cherry-picking changes into the release branch

If you'd like to include a patch in the release branch, please consider only fixes that

• fix data corruption
• fix crashes
• fixes a previously broken build
• regression from the last minor release
• documentation changes
• crucial usability issue (after discussion the mailing list)

The separate Backporting Fixes page tracks the changes to include, both changes from the trunk as well as exceptional patches.