Teach me: What is backporting?
Can someone teach me something new? Hint of context: https://gitlab.com/gitlab-com/gl-infra/infrastructure/issues/6956#note_182841737
The only reference I can find is here: https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-ce/blob/master/doc/development/ee_features.md#backporting-changes-from-ee-to-ce But this doesn't provide me with enough context to know why this is a process.
To be more specific:
- When there's code specific to EE, why must a backport be created for CE?
- If we are backporting often, why backport at all and simply create one code-base? (Yes I know this is a WIP, but I feel like this is a question that should've been asked prior to the splitting of the codebases, assuming there weren't at some point in time)
- Why instead of backporting, the feature is created in CE such that merge train does its job to shove it into EE?
- Is there the potential for problems to arise due to this separate code base?