This document describes the processes for making and announcing a Bazaar release, and managing the release process. This is just one phase of the overall development cycle, but it's the most complex part. This document gives a checklist you can follow from start to end in one go.
Contents
Download the pqm plugin and install it into your ~/.bazaar/plugins:
bzr branch lp:bzr-pqm ~/.bazaar/plugins/pqm
To start a new release cycle:
When it's time to make the first beta release or release candidate:
Make a local branch for preparing this release. (Only for the first release in a series, otherwise you should already have a branch.)
bzr branch trunk prepare-1.14
Configure pqm-submit for this branch, with a section like this in ~/.bazaar/locations.conf:
[/home/mbp/bzr/prepare-1.14] pqm_email = Canonical PQM <pqm@bazaar-vcs.org> submit_branch = lp:bzr/2.0 public_branch = http://bazaar.example.com/prepare-2.0 submit_to = bazaar@lists.canonical.com smtp_server = mail.example.com:25 Please see <http://doc.bazaar-vcs.org/developers/HACKING.html#an-overview-of-pqm> for more details on PQM
In the release branch, update version_info in ./bzrlib/__init__.py. Double check that ./bzr _script_version matches version_info. Check the output of bzr --version.
For beta releases use:
version_info = (2, 1, 0, 'beta', 1)
For release candidates use:
version_info = (2, 0, 1, 'candidate', 1)
Add the date and release number to ./NEWS
To check that all bugs mentioned in ./NEWS are actually marked as closed in Launchpad, you can run tools/check-newsbugs.py:
./tools/check-newsbugs.py NEWS
(But note there can be some false positives, and this script may be flaky <https://bugs.edge.launchpad.net/bzr/+bug/354985>. Don't let this slow you down too much.)
Summarize into one or two paragraphs what's new in this release.
Commit these changes to the release branch, using a command like:
bzr commit -m "Release 1.14."
The diff before you commit will be something like:
=== modified file 'NEWS' --- NEWS 2008-09-17 23:09:18 +0000 +++ NEWS 2008-09-23 16:14:54 +0000 @@ -4,6 +4,23 @@ .. contents:: +bzr 1.7 2008-09-23 +------------------ + +This release includes many bug fixes and a few performance and feature +improvements. ``bzr rm`` will now scan for missing files and remove them, +like how ``bzr add`` scans for unknown files and adds them. A bit more +polish has been applied to the stacking code. The b-tree indexing code has +been brought in, with an eye on using it in a future repository format. +There are only minor installer changes since bzr-1.7rc2. + bzr 1.7rc2 2008-09-17 --------------------- === modified file 'bzrlib/__init__.py' --- bzrlib/__init__.py 2008-09-16 21:39:28 +0000 +++ bzrlib/__init__.py 2008-09-23 16:14:54 +0000 @@ -41,7 +41,7 @@ # Python version 2.0 is (2, 0, 0, 'final', 0)." Additionally we use a # releaselevel of 'dev' for unreleased under-development code. -version_info = (1, 7, 0, 'candidate', 2) +version_info = (1, 7, 0, 'final', 0) # API compatibility version: bzrlib is currently API compatible with 1.7.
Tag the new release:
bzr tag bzr-1.14
Push those changes to a bzr reposistory that is public and accessible on the Internet. PQM will pull from this repository when it attempts to merge your changes. Then submit those changes to PQM for merge into the appropriate release branch:
bzr push bzr pqm-submit -m "(mbp) prepare 1.14"
When PQM succeeds, pull down the master release branch.
Change into the source directory and run
make dist
This also makes a zip file, which is easier to access on Microsoft Windows.
Now we'll try expanding this tarball and running the test suite to check for packaging problems:
make check-dist-tarball
You may encounter failures while running the test suite caused by your locally installed plugins. Use your own judgment to decide if you can release with these failures. When in doubt, disable the faulty plugins one by one until you get no more failures.
Now you have the beta or releasable product. The next step is making it available to the world.
go to the release
Now that the release is publicly available, tell people about it.
Make an announcement mail.
For release candidates or beta releases, this is sent to the bazaar list only to inform plugin authors and package or installer managers.
Once the installers are available, the mail can be sent to the bazaar-announce list too.
For final releases, it should also be cc'd to info-gnu@gnu.org, python-announce-list@python.org, bug-directory@gnu.org.
In all cases, it is good to set Reply-To: bazaar@lists.canonical.com, so that people who reply to the announcement don't spam other lists.
The announce mail will look something like this:
Subject: bzr x.yy released! <<Summary paragraph from news>> The Bazaar team is happy to announce availability of a new release of the bzr adaptive version control system. Bazaar is part of the GNU system <http://gnu.org/>. Thanks to everyone who contributed patches, suggestions, and feedback. Bazaar is now available for download from http://bazaar-vcs.org/Download as a source tarball; packages for various systems will be available soon. <<NEWS section from this release back to the last major release>>
Feel free to tweak this to your taste.
Make an announcement through <https://launchpad.net/bzr/+announce>
Update the IRC channel topic. Use the /topic command to do this, ensuring the new topic text keeps the project name, web site link, etc.
Announce on http://freshmeat.net/projects/bzr/
This should be done for beta releases, release candidates and final releases. If you do not have a Freshmeat account yet, ask one of the existing admins.
Update http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bazaar_(software) -- this should be done for final releases but not for beta releases or Release Candidates.
Update the python package index: <http://pypi.python.org/pypi/bzr> - best done by running
python setup.py register
Remember to check the results afterwards.
To be able to register the release you must create an account on <http://pypi.python.org/pypi> and have one of the existing owners of the project add you to the group.
Merge the release branch back into the trunk. Check that changes in NEWS were merged into the right sections. If it's not already done, advance the version number in bzr and bzrlib/__init__.py. Submit this back into pqm for bzr.dev.
You should also merge (not pull) the release branch into lp:~bzr/bzr/current, so that branch contains the current released code at any time.