====== Development Process ======

===== Terminology =====

This process will use the 'work item' as a generic terminology for features or bugs.


===== Principles =====

  * Treat each other with respect and value diversity of contributors.
  * Shipping is what unlocks the value of the checkins we make.  Release often.
  * Focus on building the best bug tracker, make use of services like http://github.com and http://travisci.com rather than hosting or building your own.
  * Integrate MantisBT with products users use, rather than providing our own clones.
  * Focus on productivity of the team, rather than just the individual contributor's productivity.
  * Do your best to provide design and code review within a reasonable time frame.
  * Don't lick too many cookies!  Focus on few things and make solid progress.  Otherwise, you just are blocking others.
  * Do not get tunnel visioned into your own priorities.
  * Encourage the community to contribute to the project.
  * For non-trivial changes, use public branches and get early feedback.
  * Use feature branches, rather than "person" or "team" branches.  Feature branches are easier to review and integrate compared to a branch that has N tangled features.
  * Avoid big bang huge contributions.
  * Think twice before making changes that make merge between branches expensive.  Such changes may not be necessary or may need to be timed to reduce merging overhead on developers.
  * Checkin rights can be earned and lost based on following our principles and process.

===== Planning a Work Item =====

  * For trivial work items:
    * Link to or open an issue if you want the work to reflect in the release change log.
  * For non-trivial work items:
    * Work should be related to an existing MantisBT issue, if no one exists, create one.
    * Describe the suggested work in the issue.
    * If you need immediate feedback from the core developers, email the dev mailing list with a pointer to your issue.  The feedback should be captured directly in the issue rather than the mailing list.
  * A work item should include a complete change.  A checkin should never require follow up work to get to the shippable bar.
  * Communicate early what you are working on to avoid duplication, major rework, etc.


===== Targeting a Work Item to Releases =====

  * All work items are expected to be done in 'master' development branch.
  * Work items should be ported to the appropriate release / stable branches. On principle, only bug fixes should be backported, to avoid introduction of regressions in the stable branches.
  * Targeted branches should be identified during planning stage of a work item and is considered part of the discussion.


===== Implementing a Work Item =====

  * Implement work item in a branch on your [[http://www.github.com/mantisbt/mantisbt/fork|own Github fork of MantisBT]].
  * Remember to include any corresponding changes to the manual.
  * When ready, submit a pull request including a description of the changes

===== Reviewing a Work Item =====

  * Developers should code review the change within 7 days.  Developers can work on other features in parallel, so this shouldn't block them.
  * There should be at least 2 sign-offs at checkin time. Even with the sign-offs, the waiting time has to be served.
  * A developer can request vote or DL discussion if there is no agreement on the pull request.
  * Continuous integration system (Travis) must green light the pull request in github.
  * If a fix is needed for a release or there are urgency, the author can email the developers DL with the reasoning.

===== Integrating a Work Item =====

  * Whenever history is not important, use cherry-pick to integrate the pull request rather than "github's merge" to avoid the extra merge commit that happens in such case.
  * When the history is important, use the "github merge" button.
  * Make sure the change shows up as developed by original author and signed-off by the core developer.


===== Release and Branch Management =====

  * Support latest stable branch.
  * Support branch that is in stabilization mode (e.g. release candidates).
  * Developers will actively develop on master, but won't support customer instances on it.  Customers are encouraged to use stable or release candidates for production, but not nightly builds.
  * Goal is to fork for a major release every 6 months.
  * Goal is to release a minor release every 2 months including targeted fixes.
  * Security fixes can trigger immediate releases for stable branches.


===== Changing external libraries =====


Adding or removing an external library should be discussed first on the developer mailing list.

The following must be considered when reviewing an external library
  * Technical fit
  * License compatibility
  * Recent development activity
  * Community size/support

Changing versions of a library does not need to be discussed, unless there are major changes in the review criteria, e.g. change of license