Versioning of the CM Enterprise Architect files

[AchillesDougalis]

Problem definition - the CM files .QEAPX are binary and cannot be versioned properly in GitHub.

Current approach: pure Git – This method forces us to use Trunk based development, which requires:
Code freeze e.g., no new code changes or updates to the CM file are allowed to be introduced into the project, during release periods. Maintaining different EA files in different branches in the epo-conceptual-model repository.

Requires re-implementation of the work done for fixes after the public review. To mitigate this, good documentation practices are followed such as GitHub issues updates, and keep meeting minutes, so that it is easy to re-implement any release changes in the trunk after the lift of the code freeze.

The creators of the Enterprise Architect software have their own cloud-based infrastructure, which allows having servers as repositories of EA files with version control. However, usually such solutions are expensive, and experimental.

To further investigate if it is worth adopting such a cloud-based infrastructure for the CM files, or come up with another solution.