Ansible branches and release workflow

Branch workflow for a major release
===================================

We have a main branch called devel that's for developing the next version of
ansible.  Almost all commits land here first and then are cherry-picked to
older release branches if necessary.

If a release involves a huge change to the code we may create alphas and betas
otherwise our first tarball of the next release is a release candidate.
Whichever it is, we create a new branch from devel called stable-X.Y at this
time.  If we're having an Alpha and Beta cycle we freely cherry-pick from
devel to stable-X.Y if we feel the commit belongs in the next release.

Once we make the release candidate we change the rules slightly.  Along with
the release candidate we make a branch named tmp-holding-branch-post-X.Y.0.
Then we only cherry-pick commits that we consider essential for the next
release to stable-X.Y.  All other commits that we feel should eventually end
up in X.Y.1 or beyond are cherry-picked to tmp-holding-branch-post-X.Y.0.

After the release of ansible-X.Y we rebase tmp-holding-branch-post-X.Y.0 onto
the current stable-X.Y branch, use git merge --ff-only to merge it onto the
tip of stable-X.Y, and then delete tmp-holding-branch-post-X.Y.0.

Branch workflow for bugfix releases
===================================

During development of a bugfix release we continue to commit first to devel.
During this time we cherry-pick any commits we think belong in the bugfix
release to the stable-X.Y branch that we had at the end of the major release
cycle.  We do **not** create a new branch for the X.Y.Z release.

At some point we create a release candidate for the X.Y.Z release.  At this
point we create a branch named tmp-holding-branch-post-X.Y.Z.  We then have
a choice when cherry-picking a bugfix from devel to this release.  If we feel
the commit needs to go into this bugfix release (and should trigger a new
release candidate) we cherry-pick it to the stable-X.Y branch.  If we feel
that the commit can wait until the next bugfix release, X.Y.(Z + 1), we
cherry-pick it to the tmp-holding-branch-post-X.Y.Z instead.

Once ansible-X.Y.Z is released we rebase tmp-holding-branch-post-X.Y.Z onto
the current stable-X.Y branch, use git merge --ff-only to merge it onto the
tip of stable-X.Y, and then delete tmp-holding-branch-post-X.Y.Z.

Playbook to perform releases
============================

TODO: github repository where this lives.

TODO: Any caveats for using playbook, information that needs to be filled in
manually or choices that need to be made?