From 0a0dcda79b7d261008e1e132347eb5f5b50b4b50 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: Rajat Dhasmana <rajatdhasmana@gmail.com>
Date: Wed, 15 Sep 2021 12:47:28 -0400
Subject: [PATCH] Add section regarding releasing stable branches

This patch adds a section with guidelines regarding releasing stable
branches.

Change-Id: Id8d86f78cb35c679df330b5132f7704cb87e07bb
---
 doc/source/stable-branches.rst | 18 +++++++++++++++++-
 1 file changed, 17 insertions(+), 1 deletion(-)

diff --git a/doc/source/stable-branches.rst b/doc/source/stable-branches.rst
index bb527fe..5a23877 100644
--- a/doc/source/stable-branches.rst
+++ b/doc/source/stable-branches.rst
@@ -402,7 +402,7 @@ https://review.opendev.org/686292/
    are not valid anymore in the target branch, then remove those lines.
 
 Change-Ids
-----------
+~~~~~~~~~~
 When cherry-picking a commit, keep the original :code:`Change-Id` and gerrit
 will show a separate review for the stable branch while still allowing you to
 use the Change-Id to see all the reviews associated with it. `See this change
@@ -414,6 +414,22 @@ as an example. <https://review.openstack.org/#/q/Ic5082b74a362ded8b35cbc75cf178f
    avoid that by moving conflicts above the paragraph with :code:`Change-Id`
    line or removing empty lines to make a single paragraph.
 
+Releases
+--------
+
+For stable releases, branches should be released in the same order as of
+backporting fixes. For example, to release a branch :code:`N-1`, we should
+first release the branch N and continue in the same sequence of releasing
+:code:`N`, :code:`N-1`, :code:`N-2` and so on.
+
+It is not required to release all stable branches together but to avoid
+conflict, we should only release branch :code:`N-1` with changes already
+released with branch :code:`N` release and should avoid having the case
+where an older branch release contain fixes that does not exist in a recent
+branch release.
+There can be exceptions to this case but it is the preferred way of releasing
+stable branches.
+
 Email Notifications
 -------------------
 If you want to be notified of new stable patches you can create a watch on the