Release Guidelines

All next steps described at this page should be mirrored in release tickets step-by-step

Search previously created ticket with task about next version release (create if ticket not found) and follow by steps while preparing for the release:

• for stable: ​search tickets with 'stable-candidate' keyword and in 'testing' stage, then apply commits to stable branch from all found tickets;
• download translations from Transifex.net by command ​tx pull --all (see before: how to set up local tx-repository)
• store translations in git repo by following commands:

  cp -f $TX_REPO/<master|stable>/*.po $GIT_REPO/po
  cd $GIT_REPO/po
  ./strip-location.sh *.po
  git add *.po
  git commit -s -m 'Updated translations from Transifex'
  git push origin <master|*-stable>
  

• create new NEWS wiki page for next version with empty template. Template may be copied from current NEWS wiki page (without list of tasks and bugreports);
• add content of current NEWS wiki page to the doc/NEWS file in git repo. Save it in git by following commands:

  git add doc/NEWS
  git ci -s -m 'Updated doc/NEWS file'
  git push origin <master|*-stable>
  

• create new tag in git by command (see before: how to set up your gpg key for signing releases?)

  git tag -s <version>
  # for master branch keep 'Release' comment; for stable keep 'Stable release' comment
  git push origin <version>
  

• new version in Trac;
• new milestone in Trac (not needed for stable branch);
• create tar.(bz2|xz) package files:

  ./autogen.sh stop
  mkdir dist; cd dist; ../configure && make dist-bzip2 && make dist-xz
  

• make checksums for archives:

  sha256sum mc-*tar.* > sha256.sum
  

• upload source packages and checksums to the special upload area;
• developers should download tarballs, verify checksums, compile and locally install. If everything is ok than developers keep votes in ticket;
• upload source packages and checksums to ​http://www.midnight-commander.org/downloads;
• update Wiki start page with latest release number;
• write an announcement: list user visible changes (bugs and features);
• close current milestone (no needed for stable branch);
• create new ticket (type=task, component=adm) for the next release;
• close ticket for release.

Notes:

• Cleanup branch should be named as XXXX_cleanup; where XXXX it's a number of current release ticket.
• The cleanup branch should be created by demand and should be voted and merged to main branch ASAP. Don't keep the cleanup branch in development stage longer that it needed.
• Activity around cleanup branch should occur in release ticket.
• Cleanup branch should be deleted after merging to main branch. Cleanup branch may be recreated with same name with any count of times.
• Cleanup branch shouldn't be merged to main branch in a week before release