6.3 Release Checklist

Timeline (tentative)

• 2021-05-11 Begin 6.3 Release Process
• 2021-05-18 First Release candidate 6.2.9 on https://alpha.gnu.org/gnu/octave/
• 2020-05-25 Final Release 6.3.0 on https://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/octave/

Please use <strike> </strike> to mark items below as done.

Kick-off

Update gnulib to latest version

Should we make this change for the minor releases? Ugh, NO; Only if absolutely necessary as this could cause significant changes in behavior.

Bugs that should be fixed before the release

https://octave.space/savannah/?Action=get&Format=HTMLCSS&ItemID=56952,57557,59735,60209,59729,60174,60531,60471,60470

Review documentation

The following is all we should need to do for a minor release.

• Grammar check documentation.
• Spell check documentation.
• Verify all formats (Info, HTML, PDF) build correctly.
• Review NEWS for any features which should be announced.

=== Call for translations ===

Is this job normally done for minor releases? NO, not normally done

It not, we can remove this section? YES, I used strikethrough to indicate we don't need to do anything while leaving these comments in place

• Update language translation files (*.ts). (link here when available)
• Create issue report on Savannah as a centralized location for uploading files. (link here when available)
• Call for translations for GUI strings on discourse. (link here when available)
• Collect and push all translated files

make check

• Verify make check is passing on all buildbot combinations of OS and compilers.
• Compiling with -fsanitize=undefined, --enable-address-sanitizer-flags to check for memory leaks. Use other tools cppcheck, etc.

Create new release candidate

• Ensure correct version information.
• Create hg tag in repository with release candidate version number.
• Verify make distcheck passes.
• Verify make dist works.
• Create Windows Installer.
• Upload release candidates.
• Add release candidate version to Savannah bug tracker.
• Announce release candidate to discourse.

Final Release

Update version information

• Ensure correct version information.
• Create hg tag in repository with release version number.
• Update NEWS (final release date).
• Update CITATION (version, year, URL).
• Update org.octave.Octave.appdata.xml (version number and release date).
• Update Savannah bug tracker version info.
• Update Savannah bug tracker: OPEN bugs marked as WON'T FIX should be marked as CONFIRMED (or more appropriate) for the final release.
• Remove release candidate versions from Savannah.

Announce final release

• Octave mailing-lists
• Octave web site (https://hg.octave.org/web-octave)
  • Steps documented in this changeset.
  • Upload documentation (manual HTML + PDF octave.org/doc and version in octave.org/.htaccess, Doxygen octave.org/doxygen, NEWS)
• This wiki
  • Template:Release = 9.2.0
  • Template:Release Date = June 1, 2024
  • Template:Release Year = 2024

Post-Release

• Update version info in configure.ac on stable branch and merge with default version information.

Versioning hints

Read etc/HACKING.md carefully!!

• Update configure.ac:
  • AC_INIT
  • OCTAVE_API_VERSION
  • OCTAVE_MAJOR/MINOR/PATCH_VERSION
  • OCTAVE_RELEASE_DATE
• Update libtool versioning:
  • liboctave/module.mk %canon_reldir%_%canon_reldir%_current
  • libinterp/module.mk %canon_reldir%_liboctinterp_current
  • libgui/module.mk %canon_reldir%_liboctgui_current