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). See Release Testing

Preparing the source

You have to update the versions in all relevant files. There is a script, tools/update-version.pl meant to help you with this. It will generate/update the following files:
- base/internal_version.h
- dists/macosx/Info.plist
- dists/redhat/scummvm.spec
- dists/scummvm.rc
In addition, review the following files for version and copyright year updates:
- README
- NEWS
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 script toolsdist-scummvm.sh, 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 (and as template for news items on other sites).
Update documentation page to link to the new README.
Update link to release notes (on downloads.php) to point to the correct new release notes in the SF.net FRS.
Update / notify various sites:
- Create a SF.net news item (Ender, Fingolfin, Sev, ...)
- Freshmeat (Ender, Fingolfin, ...)
- Versiontracker.com (Fingolfin)
- Update heise software directory (Fingolfin)
- ... more ?
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