Clone this repo:
  1. bb07e6f Bump version to 2.1.8 (20108) by Borjan Tchakaloff · 6 years ago master
  2. f295b38 Add NOTICE and MODULE_LICENSE_APACHE2 files by Teemu Hukkanen · 6 years ago
  3. ddb727b Clarify the development flow by Borjan Tchakaloff · 7 years ago
  4. 31aae1c Bump version to 2.1.7 (20107) by Borjan Tchakaloff · 7 years ago
  5. 16c5370 Merge branch 'fix_CHK-51' into 'master' by Maarten Derks · 7 years ago

Fairphone Checkup

An Android app that allows end users to test the features of their Fairphone 2.

If you are looking for build artifacts, please have a look at the prebuilts branch.

Versioning scheme

The app version (a.k.a. version code) is an integer based on the following scheme:

  • <major version><minor version><revision>

The rules are as follows:

  • The major version uses two digits
  • The minor version uses two digits, padded with a zero if necessary
  • The revision uses two digits, padded with a zero if necessary
  • The major version should be bumped when backward compatibility is broken
  • The minor version should be bumped when introducing new features
  • The revision should be bumped when one or more hotfixes are ready to be deployed

The visible app version (a.k.a. version name) is a string based on the version code, with the following scheme:

  • <major version>.<minor version>.<revision>

Note: The version code features leading zeroes between numbers so that it matches the full pattern, the version name does not. A release with a version code of “10203” is named “1.2.3”.

Development flow

The master branch

The master branch is the up-to-date development branch. It should always be buildable.

Only completed feature branches that will lead to a new (major or minor) release, as well as cherry-picks of hotfixes to be integrated forward, can be merged into the master branch.

Developing features

New features are implemented in dedicated branches that are coming from and merged back into master when complete.

They are named after the issue ID they are solving. No feature should be implemented without a logged issue backing it.

Note: A feature branch must not be merged into a release branch. The release branch scope is restricted to bug fixing (hotfix).

Releasing

When master is ready to be released, a new commit is created with either the major or the minor version increased (cf. versioning scheme).

Increasing the version must happen in master. That commit represents the new release.

Each release is tagged following the release-<major>.<minor>.0 scheme and a new release branch release-X.Y is created from there. The release branch scope is strictly limited to hotfixing.

New release branches release-X.Y begin at the release commit release-X.Y.0 from master.

Note: The revision number cannot be bumped in master as it is only applicable to hotfixes, and those do not happen in master but in release branches.

FIXME: The release tags should be signed off by a Fairphone developer.

Fixing releases

Bug fixing is relative to an identified release, it happens on a specific release branch. We only consider hotfixes, design flaws and higher level considerations should be handled as new features. A hotfix is usually a single commit.

If the hotfix can be applied to master or other release branches, the hotfix is cherry-picked whenever possible to keep the relationship to the original commit. Note that the version number is not bumped on master when integrating a fix.

The current release revision Z is eventually bumped with a new commit, and a new release (release-X.Y.Z+1) is created.

Distribution

Releasing a new version happens at the code level. We now use a prebuilt approach to have a shared release between the different operating system flavours running on the Fairphone 2. This approach also allows for OTA updates through app markets.

The prebuilts branch versions the official build artifacts from a named release (in the form of prebuilts-X.Y.Z), signed with the widely known Fairphone key. They match a source code release (release-X.Y.Z) (from the master branch).

Updates to prebuilts take the form of prebuilts-X.Y.Z-MR_N_ where N is a natural number denoting the update number. Such updates can only happen if the change is limited to the build system. If a source code change is needed, its version cannot be maintained and thus a new release is required.

Note: There is only one release supported at a given time, hence using a single branch to version the prebuilts artifacts is not an issue.