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