[PATCH] doc: document release procedure

[Jim Meyering]

Hello,

Since I'm hoping to make a release soon,
it'd be good to document the procedure I will follow.
The following is what I use for coreutils, gzip, diffutils, idutils,
parted, cppi and one or two other projects, so I'm hoping it will
work for grep, too:

>From 10ab6fb6f239eaef102e71140d425bbca91b12dc Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: Jim Meyering <address@hidden>
Date: Thu, 4 Mar 2010 18:01:21 +0100
Subject: [PATCH] doc: document release procedure

* README-release: New file.
---
 README-release |   86 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
 1 files changed, 86 insertions(+), 0 deletions(-)
 create mode 100644 README-release

diff --git a/README-release b/README-release
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..4471977
--- /dev/null
+++ b/README-release
@@ -0,0 +1,86 @@
+Here are most of the steps we (maintainers) follow when making a release.
+
+* start from a clean, up-to-date git directory.
+
+    git checkout master; git pull
+
+* Run ./configure && make maintainer-clean
+
+* Ensure that the desired versions of autoconf, automake, etc.
+  are in your PATH.  See the buildreq list in bootstrap.conf for
+  the complete list.
+
+* Ensure that you're on "master" with no uncommitted diffs.
+  This should produce no output: git checkout master; git diff
+
+* Run bootstrap one last time.  This downloads any new translations:
+
+    ./bootstrap
+
+* Pre-release testing:
+  Ensure that make check syntax-check succeeds.
+
+* Run "make distcheck"
+
+* Set the date, version number, and release type [stable/alpha/beta] on
+  line 3 of NEWS, commit that, and tag the release by running e.g.,
+
+    build-aux/do-release-commit-and-tag 2.6 stable
+
+* Run the following to create release tarballs.  Your choice selects the
+  corresponding upload-to destination in the emitted gnupload command.
+  The different destinations are specified in cfg.mk.  See the definitions
+  of gnu_ftp_host-{alpha,beta,stable}.
+
+    # "TYPE" must be stable, beta or alpha
+    make TYPE
+
+* Test the tarball.  copy it to a few odd-ball systems and ensure that
+  it builds and passes all tests.
+
+* While that's happening, write the release announcement that you will
+  soon post.
+
+Once all the builds and tests have passed,
+
+* Run the gnupload command that was suggested by your "make stable" run above.
+
+* Wait a few minutes (maybe up to 30?) and then use the release URLs to
+  download all tarball/signature pairs and use gpg --verify to ensure
+  that they're all valid.
+
+* Push the NEWS-updating changes and the new tag:
+
+    v=$(cat .prev-version)
+    git push origin master tag v$v
+
+* Send the gpg-signed announcement mail, e.g.,
+
+    To: address@hidden
+    Cc: address@hidden, address@hidden
+    Subject: grep-2.6 released [stable]
+
+* Announce it on Savannah, too:
+  From here:
+    https://savannah.gnu.org/projects/grep/
+  click on the "submit news", then write something like the following:
+  (If there is no such button, then enable "News" for the project via
+   the Main -> "Select Features" menu item, or via this link:
+   https://savannah.gnu.org/project/admin/editgroupfeatures.php?group=grep)
+
+    Subject: grep-2.6 released [stable]
+
+    +verbatim+
+    ...paste the announcement here...
+    -verbatim-
+
+  Then go here to approve it:
+    https://savannah.gnu.org/news/approve.php?group=grep
+
+* After each non-alpha release, update the on-line manual accessible via
+
+    http://www.gnu.org/software/grep/manual/
+
+  by running this:
+
+    build-aux/gnu-web-doc-update
--
1.7.0.1.475.gaf89b