module releasing HOWTO ?

[Mark McLoughlin <mark skynet ie>]

Hey,
	So I'm away for the next couple of weeks and Arvind is going to do the
2.3.1 releases for me. I've gotten into a pretty solid routine of "how I
do a release" and I figured it would be useful to write that down for
him. But now I figure it will probably be useful to other people in the
future too.

	I think its pretty generic ... step (4) is specific to gnome-desktop
and is on crack anyway (patches welcome). The NEWS format differs
between modules ... but apart from that its generic.

	One step that other modules do that would be good to add is adding
version markers to the ChangeLogs.

	I've appended it to the mail. Let me know if I've been doing anything
stupid :-)

Good Luck,
Mark.


1) Make sure you're up to date: cvs -z3 update -dP

2) Increment the version number in configure.in e.g. bump

<>
    AM_INIT_AUTOMAKE(gnome-panel, 2.3.1)
<>

3) Update the LT_VERSION string if relevant. There's a comment in
   configure.in that explains how this works:

<>
# Before making a release, the LT_VERSION string should be modified.
# The string is of the form C:R:A.
# - If interfaces have been changed or added, but binary compatibility has
#   been preserved, change to C+1:0:A+1
# - If binary compatibility has been broken (eg removed or changed interfaces)
#   change to C+1:0:0
# - If the interface is the same as the previous version, change to C:R+1:A
                                                                                                             
LIB_PANEL_APPLET_LT_VERSION=0:14:0
AC_SUBST(LIB_PANEL_APPLET_LT_VERSION)
<>

    In most cases you won't need to do anything.

4) In the case of gnome-desktop, update:

<>
GNOME_PLATFORM=2
GNOME_MINOR=3
GNOME_MICRO=1
GNOME_VENDOR="Gnome.Org"
GNOME_DATE="14th March, 2003"
<>

   i.e. here I'm doing a release for GNOME 2.3.1 on the 14th of March.

5) Update the version number at the top of the README file.

6) Add an ChangeLog entry e.g.

<>
2003-03-14  Mark McLoughlin  <mark skynet ie>
                                                                                                             
        * configure.in: Version 2.3.1.
<>

7) Add an entry to the NEWS file. I use a format like

<>
=============
Version 2.3.1
=============

Panel

	* Blah blah blah

Applets

	....

Miscellanous

	....

Translations

	* az(Metin Amiroff), be(Dmitry G. Mastrukov), bg(Alexander Shopov),
	  da(Ole Laursen), eo(Joël Brich), es(Pablo Gonzalo del Campo),
	  .... and zh_TW(Abel Cheung).
<>

    This is the most time consuming part. First, I do something like:

<>
$ cvs -z3 diff -uNp -r GNOME_PANEL_2_3_0 > changes.txt
<>

   to generate a list of changes since the last release. Then you
   should go through each of the ChangeLogs in the diff and come up
   with a bullet point for each significant change and credit the
   person(s) who did the work. Some tips:

     o If several entries relate to the same change only use a single
       bullet point.
     o Try to make the bullet points short and snappy but
       understandable for a general user. That's not always easy.
     o Generate the list of translations from po/ChangeLog. Note,
       that the actual translator isn't always the one with who added
       the ChangeLog entry - try to credit the right person/team. The
       format is "$locale($translator)". Sort alphabetically by
       locale.

8) Do a autogen && make && make install && make distcheck. Fix any
   issues that crop up. Hopefully there are none because they can be a
   right PITA - especially distcheck errors.

9) While that's churning, compose a mail to
   desktop-devel-list gnome org, release-team gnome org and
   gnome-announce-list gnome org  I use the crappy template below:

<>
http://mail.gnome.org/archives/desktop-devel-list/2003-March/msg00331.html
<>

   Just copy the NEWS entries in and change the locations on the ftp
   server.

10) Distcheck finishes:

<>
==================================================
gnome-panel-2.3.1.tar.gz is ready for distribution
==================================================
<>

    Yay !

11) Do a cvs commit. If that fails because someone has committed since
    you last updated, then you'll need to repeat the whole thing
    again. Well, update, add a new NEWS entry, and make distcheck
    again.

12) Tag the release. e.g. cvs tag GNOME_PANEL_2_3_1.

13) Upload the tarball to ftp.gnome.org and install-module the
    tarball. No command-line args are required.

14) Send the mail to the lists.

15) Get yourself a joffee and mutter "I hate doing this fscking crap".