-*-text-*- This is a checklist for making Guile releases. It's specific to the FSF's development environment; please don't put it in the distribution. Maybe we should name Guile releases after entertaining poisons: absinthe, etc. However, the first release containing the module system should be called Godot: "This is the one you've been waiting for." Platforms for test builds: SunOS (gcc and pcc) --- galapas.ai.mit.edu Solaris (gcc and SUN cc) --- saturn.ai.mit.edu NetBSD (gcc) --- repo-man.ai.mit.edu (use /home/repo/jimb) HP/UX (gcc, HP cc) --- nutrimat.gnu.ai.mit.edu These gentlemen have kindly offered to do pre-release testing: Tom Tromey : alphaev5-unknown-linux-gnu hppa1.1-hp-hpux10.20 hppa1.1-hp-hpux11.00 mips-sgi-irix5.3 powerpc-ibm-aix4.2.0.0 powerpc-unknown-linux-gnu sparc-sun-solaris2.6 i686-pc-linux-gnu mips-sgi-irix6.3 sparc-sun-sunos4.1.4 Ian Grant : alpha-dec-osf4.0e Julian Satchell : dec-mips-ultrix Perry Metzger NetBSD Release Checklists =================================================== There are basically three phases to doing a release: * "BRANCHING": Creating a stable development branch in CVS. * "SPIFFING": Updating NEWS, README, INSTALL. Running tests. Getting people to try builds on various machines. Getting everything straightened up. * "PUNTING": Updating the version numbers. Tagging the sources. Asking the FSF to put the disty on ftp.gnu.org. Posting announcements. The "Spiffing" phase you might go through several times as you discover problems. The "Branching" and "Punting" phases you do only once. Branching checklist: * Announce when you're about to make the branch so that you have a greater chance of people holding off on edits during the short period while you're branching. * Make sure you're on the main trunk (see HACKING), and then create the branch-root tag. i.e. -r branch-root_release-1-6. (Add the exact command here next time I do it.) * Now create the branch with the branch tag. i.e. -r branch_release-1-6. (Add exact command here next time I do it.) * Change the version numbers in GUILE-VERSION and README on the main branch to reflect the new unstable version i.e. 1.7.0, if you're currently creating the 1.6.X branch. Spiffing checklist: * Make sure you're working on the stable branch (see HACKING for details). Note that after following the branch checklist above, you won't necessarily be. * Check for files that have changed a lot, but do not have up-to-date copyright notices. This can be as simple as doing: grep 'Copyright' * | grep -v 1999 and looking for files you know you've worked on a lot. * Make sure NEWS, INSTALL, AUTHORS and THANKS and the docs are up to date: + Scan the ChangeLogs for user-visible changes, marked with an asterisk at the left margin. + Update NEWS and the Texinfo documentation as appropriate. + Remove the user-visible markers from the log entries once they're documented. + Check for any [[incomplete]] sections of NEWS. + Fact-check INSTALL. + Make sure AUTHORS and THANKS are up-to-date (see also TODO). + Remove finished items from TODO (those marked w/ "+"). * Make sure the downloading addresses and filenames in README are current. (But don't bump the version number yet. We do that below.) * Check that the versions of aclocal, automake, autoconf, and autoheader in your PATH match those given in HACKING. Note that the `make dist' process always invokes these tools, even when all the generated files are up to date. Make specifically sure that the files in libltdl are generated using the same tools as the rest. * Rebuild all generated files in the source tree: + run ./autogen.sh * Verify that Guile builds and runs in your working directory. * Run a "make check". * Commit all changes to the CVS repository. * Build a test distribution. + update GUILE-VERSION each time you make a test distribution. For example, just before the 1.6.0 release, we went through some number of 1.5.X test releases. + BEFORE doing 'make dist', configure the source tree for build in the same tree with configuration options --enable-maintainer-mode --enable-debug-malloc --with-threads. + Make sure that readline was enabled correctly. + Build the tree. (If the above steps are not done, the dependencies won't be properly included in the generated Makefile.in files.) + Then do 'make dist'. + Check that the dependencies in guile-readline/Makefile look OK. (We currently use a kludge which edits the dependencies generated by automake so that Guile can be built in a directory separate from the source tree also with non-GNU make programs.) * Give the test disty to various people to try. Here's what you should do: + Unset GUILE_LOAD_PATH. + Remove automake and autoconf from your path, or turn off their execute bits, or something. (Users must be able to build the disty without installing those tools.) + Configure, make, and install. + Make sure LD_LIBRARY_PATH doesn't include anything unnecessary. + Run the test suite on the installed version. + You might try the example code in the doc directory. Once you've got a disty that seems pretty solid: * Make sure the shared library libtool versioning numbers are correct, but first make sure you understand "Libtool's versioning system" in the libtool info pages. Guile is going to be versioning it's shared libraries independently, so follow the libtool rules for choosing version numbers, but make sure to keep in mind that not everyone is as good about this as they should be. If a library even changes the layout of a data structure that's part of it's API in a backward incompatible way, even if that data structure is handled as an opaque object in the API, that library is probably no longer compatible with previous versions. A canonical ugly problem is this. Imagine you have libfoo and libbar that both are linked against libbaz. Now imagine that you create a libwhatever that uses both libfoo and libbar. What you don't want to have happen is libfoo and libbar to be linked against different versions of libbaz that produce incompatible instances of the "same" data structure, and then have libwhatever get one version of this data structure from libbaz via libfoo, and pass it back to a different version of libbaz via libbar, a version of libbaz that can't handle the newer/older struct from the other libbaz. * In general, there will be a number of libraries in guile that will have to be versioned, and it would be best if the people who know the most about the individual libs decide what the apropriate CURRENT, REVISION, and AGE numbers for each one are. In general, though, you have to be conservative. If no one is sure that the libs are still compatible, then you *must* make the appropriate changes under the assumption that they're not. Getting this wrong is very BAD(TM). * Make the final update to the version numbers in GUILE-VERSION and README. (There are many places in README that need updating!). See HACKING for more information on how the version numbers are to be chosen. * Reformat the names in THANKS. * Do a `cvs -z3 update -Pd' of the whole tree, to look for any stray uncommitted or accidental changes. * Commit your changes. * Make one last test distribution. Punting checklist: * Add "Guile N.M released." entry to the top-level ChangeLog, and commit it. * Tag the entire source tree with a tag of the form "release_X-Y-Z", i.e for release 1.6.0, use release_1-6-0 * Do a 'make dist'. * Put the distribution up for FTP somewhere, and send mail to ftp-upload@gnu.org, asking them to put it on prep. * Send an announcement message to gnu-announce@gnu.org. Put a brief summary of the changes in this release first, then "Obtaining Guile", "Thanks", "About This Distribution," and "Nightly Snapshots." If I remember correctly, the moderator will delay it until the distribution appears on ftp.gnu.org. The announcement text should be mostly taken from Guile's README file. * Notify freshmeat.net, although they're probably watching anyway. (They got the 1.3 release just fine.) I have no idea if www.bowerbird.com.au will be something anyone refers to, but Guile does have an entry there.