Sharpened Forking Inside Git

Atlassian has announced Stash 2.4 as an update to its on-premise Git repository management system for enterprise developer teams.

This release adds support for forking distributed development workflow practices popularized in open source development, along with per-repository permissions.

Stash 2.4 helps development teams set up distributed code collaboration workflows that offer open source-style development flexibility with the security permission control.

Atlassian's Giancarlo Lionetti says that development teams can now replicate the benefits of an open source model with the security they need to maintain control and accountability. "The new features in Stash 2.4 include fork support so that any user can fork a project through Stash, insulating code from the original author to unwanted changes or errors. The original author can receive feedback or improvements in the form of pull requests."

Personal repositories also feature here so that developers now have the freedom to innovate and store their private snippets of work, kick-start their own project, contribute a bug fix for a project they are not a member of, or add a feature to a common component maintained by a small group in an organization.

Stash accommodates any Git development workflow an enterprise development team may choose. Enterprise teams building software can now set up controls or permissions at the project, repository, or branch level, increasing both development and administrative flexibility.

For example, with repository permissions, administrators can restrict access to specific repositories for new developers or contractors, permitting them only to view a repository or fork the code (make a copy on the server-side) to work on it separately without risk to the master repository. Through a pull request, these restricted developers then ask for permission to contribute. Stash enables developers to "innovate and create code" within the requirements established by the team lead or repository manager.