HOWTO-Release

How to make a ScummVM release.

This is work in progress and needs to be completed!

Preparations

• Making the release plan
• Telling people about it, making sure everybody knows what is going on

Testing & Branching

• Identify release critical (show stopper) bugs and get people to fix them.
• Identify other important bugs and get people to fix them.
• Get even more people to fix all the other bugs, if possible :-).
• Get people to do lots of testing, possibly by asking for help via a news item.
• Collect all that information (e.g. in the Wiki).

Preparing the source

• You have to update the versions in all relevant files. Currently these are at least
  • README
  • Info.plist
  • scummvm.rc
  • base/main.cpp
  • dists/redhat/scummvm.spec
  • doc/03_05.tex
• Make sure package descriptions are up-to-date:
  • dists/redhat/scummvm.spec
• Make source tarballs, post them in the SF.net FRS.
  • There is a tool, dist-scummvm.sh, in the scummvm module (inside the tools/ directory), which does this automatically.

Binaries

TODO:

• Get porters to make binaries. Note: We have a filename convention, which goes like this: "scummvm-VERSION-PORT.EXTENSION". For example: "scummvm-1.0.0-macosx.dmg".
• Update the website internally, but do not yet put these changes online.

News & Notification

Write a news blurb (or rather multiple to be used in the following). Usually, you want a bit longer one for the website, a list for Versiontracker, something with proper english sentences for Freshmeat, etc....

• Write a news item for our website.
• Update documentation page to link to the new README. (And make sure the README contains a "Release version" line in its header?)
• Create a SF.net news item (Ender, Fingolfin, Sev, ...)
• Update Freshmeat (Ender, Fingolfin, ...)
• Update Versiontracker.com (Fingolfin)
• Put the updated web site online
• In the File Release System, use the "Notify" feature to make sure everybody who's interested in new releases gets a mail