Bootstrap projects

If baseline relationships are known at the start of development and they do not change much after that, you can use a bootstrap project to configure other projects with a single composite baseline as the foundation baseline.

When you create a composite baseline for a project, the foundation baselines of the integration stream are not affected. After the creation of the composite baseline, the foundation of the stream still contains the baselines of the individual member components. For development streams in the project to appropriately use the composite baseline, you simply recommend just the composite baseline in the integration stream. If all the member baselines remain listed in the foundation of the integration stream, individual developers who have to rebase to the recommended baseline can be confused by multiple baselines being listed.

To reduce the confusion, set up a special project to "bootstrap" the composite baseline for other projects. The bootstrap project includes all of the components in its foundation. You create the composite baseline in the bootstrap project and then create a development project with this initial composite baseline as its foundation.

As a result, in the development project, the integration stream and the development streams have similar foundation sets. The project integrators do not have to keep track of the individual baselines, since the project can start with a single, all-inclusive composite baseline. Developers in the projects that follow are less likely to be confused when they select a baseline during a rebase operation.