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The Build Test Release working group (BTR) could use core committer (“write”) access to particular branches. Specifically, it would be beneficial to grant access to the branch “open-release/lilac.master” in 36 repos to the BTR so they could manage the Lilac Open edX release (and subsequent releases) without edX, Inc intervention. Cutting edX, Inc out of the BTR process means the community can be self-service on all named release issues, including porting bugfixes, security patches, and releasing point releases.
Specifics:
BTR needs to create release branches (twice per year, in all repos)
BTR needs to create tags on the release branches (3-5 times per release, in all repos)
BTR needs to cherry-pick/merge fixes to release branches (dozens of times per release, mostly in just a few repos)
Technical Limitations
GitHub does not allow granting access to a repo’s branch to someone who does not already have access to that repo. That is, only someone who already has write access to a repo can have write access to a particular branch.
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