Document process for PRs with breaking changes (#5953)

* Document process for PRs with breaking changes * ticket reference * Update CONTRIBUTING.md Co-authored-by: Xuanwo <[email protected]> --------- Co-authored-by: Xuanwo <[email protected]>
apache · Jun 26, 2024 · e5604aa · e5604aa
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diff --git a/CONTRIBUTING.md b/CONTRIBUTING.md
@@ -126,6 +126,16 @@ PR be sure to run the following and check for lint issues:
 cargo +stable fmt --all -- --check
 ```
 
+## Breaking Changes
+
+Our [release schedule] allows breaking API changes only in major releases.
+This means that if your PR has a breaking API change, it should be marked as
+`api-change` and it will not be merged until development opens for the next
+major release. See [this ticket] for details.
+
+[release schedule]: README.md#release-versioning-and-schedule
+[this ticket]: https://github.com/apache/arrow-rs/issues/5907
+
 ## Clippy Lints
 
 We use `clippy` for checking lints during development, and CI runs `clippy` checks.

diff --git a/README.md b/README.md
@@ -57,6 +57,12 @@ Starting June 2024, we plan to release new major versions with potentially
 breaking API changes at most once a quarter, and release incremental minor versions in
 the intervening months. See [this ticket] for more details.
 
+To keep our maintenance burden down, we do regularly scheduled releases (major
+and minor) from the `master` branch. How we handle PRs with breaking API changes
+is described in the [contributing] guide.
+
+[contributing]: CONTRIBUTING.md#breaking-changes
+
 For example:
 
 | Approximate Date | Version  | Notes                                   |