maven-release-plugin : How to better manage cascading releases

[Andrei Pozolotin <an...@gmail.com>]

    Hello, there!

    I am curious : "How to better manage cascading releases"
    for the following use case and what you think about possible solution:

    #################################


        Releasing core bundles and dependent bundles

    Changing the API of a core bundle for an application requires a
    rebuild of everything down the line in order to use the new feature.
    For projects with large numbers of modules (platform, news) this is
    a very lengthy process of splitting the bundles into dependency
    phases, then for each phase, releasing a new version of each bundle,
    updating the next phase's bundles with the newly released versions,
    and then releasing next phase's bundles, etc, etc. This can be a
    multiple hour process with Jenkins, compounded by the fact that you
    can only release one sub-project at a time in a Git repository to
    avoid push conflicts causing the build to fail. This process occurs
    much more frequently than I would have originally assumed. Right now
    I have a bash script that attempts to automate this for news with a
    combination of the maven release and version plugins, but a better
    generic solution would be very welcome.

    *Proposal: Modify Jenkins maven release plugin with the following
    behavior:*

     1.

        Add a "Cascade release dependent projects" checkbox on release page

     2.

        After the release completes, look for jobs that are explicitly
        dependent on the pre-release snapshot version

     3.

        Update these dependent modules with the newly release version,
        and trigger a Maven release on them as well

     4.

        Failing releases should be skipped, and then trigger a build
        failure at the very end, with clearly noted messages as to which
        sub-tree failed so the user can check the logs and manually
        cascade release the subtree

    Step c) would need some cycle detection to support scenarios where B
    and C depend on A, but C also depends on B - both A and B would have
    to be released before C could be released.

    #################################

    Thank you,

    Andrei