Document process for LTS

[MylesBorins]

So I'm currently keeping an eye out for stuff that will be back ported for LTS. One of the things I think would be great would be clarification of what is acceptable to backport and what isn't.

I've read through the document available at https://github.com/nodejs/lts but afaik it is primarily talking about process.

So here are a list of things that I think make sense to backport, assuming they are non breaking.

• Documentation
• Changes to Tests
• Security Fixes
• Non breaking bug fixes
• Non breaking optimizations

Does this look right? Is there anything I missed?

I also think it would be good to document the process of LTS in the Collaborator Guide, perhaps under landing a commit. It would be really awesome if people were encouraged to let us know in their PR if they think a change could be backported to LTS. I am more than happy to whip up copy assuming we all agree on the high level concepts.

[MylesBorins]

/cc @jasnell

[jasnell]

Yes, that looks right, although I would be careful with optimizations. Experience in the past has shown that even the most basic and seemingly benign optimizations could have an impact on the ecosystem. There should be a compelling reason to make the optimization and additional ecosystem checks should be made.

[MylesBorins]

ok I'll work up some copy and send a PR
and then we can backport that PR :P

[MylesBorins]

Maybe we can work out some sort of automation that cherry picks / backports a change and checks to see that it a) merges clean and b) passes test suite

Let me know if you are into that and I can open another issue to discuss (or possibly make another project)

[rvagg]

Great start @thealphanerd, good to have you helping us focus on this. We did have a discussion at the last TSC meeting about this and one of the things we agreed was that we wouldn't be too premature in locking down rules on how things get done, but instead try and get some work under our belts and figure out the best approach. The first few LTS releases after 4.2.1 are going to be educational for us and then we'll have different challenges further out when the divergence between v4.x and master increases.

[MylesBorins]

My brain is already breaking thinking about how things will work once LTS is supporting two branch's at once...

That being said I think it would be important to educate the community on what LTS is and how they can help. I'll make sure the language is clear about not having hard set rules, and rather focuses on awareness

[MylesBorins]

This landed!