[Django]-Dealing with legacy django project in new localized projects

Start by decoupling the components where possible, and convert the legacy code to (portable) apps if not the case already, and the legacy code should not live under the main project tree.

Any new features should be well documented and decoupled apps or generic libraries themselves, even if they override/interact/depend or even monkeypatch the legacy code. You want most of your project to live outside of the main project itself, and installable via pip as if they were 3rd party apps.

The main project tree should be not much more than the project main project templates, an urls.py, settings.py, any configuration/deployment templates and a fabfile, and any core apps that will be rarely customized.

Every localized customization should just be either “customization” apps themselves, or small tweaks to main project (that should be made in a reproducible way via fab, or any provider of your choice)

Needless to say, if every team can commit to the core project, a good git/hg workflow is essential, and use a central CI server with a good test suite.