title: GitFlow: when to delete or freeze feature/release branches?
body: <p>Learning GitFlow and have some concerns that I haven't found answers to in any of the docs/articles I've read.</p>
  
  <p>Per GitFlow, after the <code>release</code> branch has passed QA in some testing/staging environemnt, a production release occurs and the <code>release</code> branch gets merged into <code>master</code> (where it is also tagged w/ a version number) as well as <em>back</em> into <code>develop</code>.</p>
  
  <p>I <em>believe</em> we ONLY need to merge back into <code>develop</code> IF bugs cropped up during the QA process that required changes being made directly to the <code>release</code> branch. <strong>Yes?</strong> I assume if <code>release</code> contains nothing new on it that we don't need to merge it with <code>develop</code> again, right?!</p>
  
  <p>I assume this also implies that when changes <em>are</em> made to <code>release</code> during testing/QA, that if they don't get merged back into <code>develop</code>, that we open ourselves up to regressions, <strong>right</strong>? Meaning that if the <code>develop</code> branch never gets the changes added to it that QA requested during testing, that if the <code>release</code> branch gets blown away, those changes are lost.</p>
  
  <p>I'm also unsure of what GitFlow prescribes for actually "<em>closing</em>" branches (both feature branches and <code>release</code> branch alike). After they are merged in, are feature branches deleted? Or somehow frozen for further revision? After merging into <code>master</code>/<code>develop</code> is <code>release</code> supposed to be deleted or frozen as well?</p>