[WG: Sakai QA] 2.7.0 release branch created

[Anthony Whyte]

In anticipation of tagging sakai-2.7.0-rc01 I have created the sakai-2.7.0 "release" branch from which release candidates and the final release will be generated.  I branched last night from 2.7.x at r77815.

https://source.sakaiproject.org/svn/sakai/branches/sakai-2.7.0/

Non-indie project pom files <version> values have been updated from 2.7-SNAPSHOT to 2.7.0 so the maintenance and release branches have already begun to diverge (though trivially).  

IMPACT: 2.7.x branch

The 2.7.x maintenance branch is now available to support fixes intended for Sakai 2.7.1.  Quite likely, however, we will refrain from merging fixes to 2.7.x for a short time unless they address regressions found in sakai-2.7.0-rc01 once it is tagged and made available to QA.  I am not suggesting here that we freeze the branch only that our current (limited) branch manager resources will focus merging 2.7.0-related fixes.

IMPACT: Developers

Work can commence on addressing 2.7-related tickets that are targeted for post-2.7.0 maintenance releases.  Otherwise, the impact is minimal unless a 2.7.0 issue in the code you oversee.

IMPACT: Branch Managers

If a regression ticket is lodged against sakai-2.7.0-rc01the fix will need to be applied to BOTH the 2.7.x and 2.7.0 branches.  

IMPACT: Indie Projects (basiclti, msgcntr, profile2, samigo, sitestats, etc.)

The advent of the 2.7.0 release branch bears on indie projects only indirectly since each indie team oversees its own maintenance branch from which releases deployed with 2.7.0 are generated (i.e., tags, binaries) using the Maven release plugin.  Indie branch management is a team prerogative but think it a safe assumption that teams will restrict branch merging to only those fixes required to address a regression found in the final round of QA testing.  

Cheers,

Anthony