gstreamer/docs/random/release

GStreamer Release Policies (or: why we should become a country and pass laws)
--------------------------

Development Period
------------------
Development period is marked by having a fourth (nano) version number of 1.
During development anything goes short of wiping the tree.
Just try doing a few basic things :
- make sure it builds for you !
- check what you're about to commit with cvs -Q diff -r
- preferably, keep an anonymous checkout around as well so you can
  immediately update and check if your changes work in a clean tree as well

Prerelease Period
-----------------
After a bit of development, people want a new release.  This generally happens
when :
- core developers get anxious to apply massive changes to the core bound
  to break everything
- a few important plugins decide, as if by magic, to work again (avi, mad, ...)
- Uraeus and thomasvs get tired of the general laziness

Also, this should only be allowed after passing a few sanity checks :
- make distcheck should pass
- rpms should build
- FIXME: should debs be built here ? If so, how ?

At this time, we need to do a few prereleases for general checking by all
interested developers.  To minimize the impact on the rest of the core hacking,
we create a new CVS branch which will go through the pre-releases and finally
contain the definitive tarball for that version.

TODO :
  - Decide on the next version number (major, minor or micro upgrade ?)
  - Create branch; with 0.3.3 as an example, tag is BRANCH-RELEASE-0_3_3
      cvs tag BRANCH-RELEASE-0_3_3-ROOT
      cvs tag -b BRANCH-RELEASE-0_3_3
      cvs update -r BRANCH-RELEASE-0_3_3
  - Set the nano to 2 (in configure.ac, AS_VERSION)
  - Do all updates/patches/changes for the release tarball in this branch
  - Think of a good codename for the release
  - create a new version dir in www/releases
  - Start updating the release notes on the www cvs tree
  - depending on how the API has changed update the libtool versioning
    in configure.ac, AS_LIBTOOL 
    (Look at the libtool info page about versioning for guidelines)
  - FIXME: autotools have latest config.{guess,sub}
           This is needed in order to support newer platforms.
           On Debian install the autotools-dev package to get these.
           Someone please add some more useful info here on how to do this
  - while (IS_PRERELEASE)
    {
      - increase the nano number (starting with 2)
      - check out a fresh anonymous copy
        cvs -d:pserver:anonymous@cvs.gstreamer.sf.net:/cvsroot/gstreamer \
            co -rBRANCH-RELEASE-0_3_3 gstreamer
      - make distcheck, rpm build should pass, from a FRESH cvs tree
      - media tests should be done
      - source tarball should be installed and tested
      - rpms should be installed and tested
      - put up tarball for a day
    }


Release Period
--------------
When we're satisfied with the prereleases, it's time to make the final tarball.
It's very important that the tarball we put out is fully checked, works as
planned, and generally is generated only ONCE by someone with a relatively
clean (and reference) system.  We don't want to put out more than one tarball
with the same name.

TODO :
  - give the latest prerelease another good testing
  - proofread the release notes (notice.php) and the index (index.php)
  - change the symlinks on the website :
    - change the releases/current symbolic link to point to the new release dir
    - change the releases/cvs symlink to point to the next release dir
  - run www-update.sh on sourceforge
  - make a text copy of the release notes to be included in the tarball :
    lynx -dump http://gstreamer.net/releases/current/notice.php?clean=1 > RELEASE
  - update web site docs
    - release-specific docs should go in CVS
    - change docs/current symlink
  - remove the nano version number in configure.ac, AS_VERSION
  - FIXME: run a build and generate devhelp stuff
  - tag tree
    - policy is at http://gstreamer.net/dev/cvs.php
    - decide on a tag name : RELEASE_(VERSION)_(CODE)
    - tag; for example for 0.3.3 :
           cvs tag RELEASE-0_3_3-GUADECBYFOOT
  - add tag codename in www/dev/cvs.php
  - roll the tarball, build rpms
  - FIXME: update status table cvs status and then click on the release link
           http://gstreamer.net/admin.php is the portal to all of this
           where to get the password, what should we do here ?

Post-Release Period
-------------------
Time to bring the new version under the eyes of the public.

TODO :
  - FIXME: should we md5 the tarballs?
  - upload to sourceforge
  - FIXME: announcements
    - gstreamer-{devel, announce} : a simple mail with RELEASE
    - freshmeat
    - linux-audio-dev (if it's a big release) : a simple mail with RELEASE
    - gnome lists (?)
    - lwn (if it's a big release)
  - Kick back, have a party, enjoy people coming in on IRC telling us how
    GStreamer rocks.
  - Later on, if necessary, merge back latest release branch to current dev
    branch (if patches to source were made)
    FIXME: add commands and guide for this

Some various random comments that might or might not make sense :

- Should work:
  * autoconf feature to allow building outside source dir

- Package version policy
  - Use major.minor.micro versioning
  - Before 1.0.0, Update micro until code and API are fairly stable,
    then update minor.
  - After 1.0.0,
    Update major when code and api hit new level of stability or major features.
    Update minor on API changes.
    Update micro on API-compatible changes.