How FreeBSD implements Git

Initial repositories

There will be three initial repositories.

The doc repository will contain all the project's documentation.

The src repository will contain the base OS source code.

The ports repository will contain the ports system.

Note: There are discussions about prefixing freebsd- to the front of those.

In addition to these main repositories, a number of specialized repositories exist to coordinate work on things like packages and graphics drivers. These repositories have their own rules and are organized in a way that makes the best sense for the group working on these things. Their organization is beyond the scope of this document.

The `doc` repository

The documentation repository ('doc') is the simplest repository. It has no branches (large scale collaboration projects are done with forks). It has a number of tags that describe the doc tree at various releases.

The doc tree contains the content for the FreeBSD handbook, the web site and different incidental articles about the project and its operation.

The repository uses a 'rebase' model. In this model, there are no merge commits, only curated patches that have been rebased forward to the tip of the tree and are 'fast forward'able and contain no merge commits. Force commits are forbidden.

This may undergo changes after the conversion to asciidoc completes.

The `ports` repository

The ports repository has all the files we use to generate our packages. It's structure is currently being debated.

The `src` repository

The 'src' repository contains all the source code needed to build FreeBSD.

There are four kinds of branches in this repository.

The 'main' branch contains the mainline development of the operating system. This is "FreeBSD CURRENT" and all new work is expected to come in here when ready.

The stable/\* branches are the projects stable, release branches. We create a new one every couple of years and maintain it for a while. Changes that are mature are cherry picked from the main branch into these branches (though sometimes direct commits happen, or the commits need to be tweaked).

The releng/\* branches are branches for the release engineer to create releases for the project.

The vendor/\* branches are vendor branches. These are used to manage importing new software and help track local changes not yet in upstream (or that will never be in upstream).