dbus/maint/release-checklist.md

dbus release checklist

To make a release of D-Bus, do the following:

• check out a fresh copy from Git

• verify that the libtool versioning/library soname in meson.build is changed if it needs to be, or not changed if not

  • CMake takes the version number from meson.build and so should not need updating

• update the file NEWS based on the git history

• verify that the version number of dbus-specification.xml is changed if it needs to be; if changes have been made, update the release date in that file

• update the AUTHORS file with ninja -C ${builddir} maintainer-update-authors if necessary

• the version number in meson.build should have major.minor.micro, even if micro is 0, i.e. "1.0.0" and "1.2.0" not "1.0"/"1.2"; the micro version should be even for releases, and odd for intermediate snapshots

  • CMake takes the version number from meson.build and so should not need updating

• When ready to release, git commit -a. This is the version of the tree that corresponds exactly to the released tarball.

• meson dist -C ${builddir) (this is the equivalent of Autotools make distcheck)

• if meson dist failed, fix it, commit, retry until successful

• tag the tree with git tag -s -m 'Released X.Y.Z' dbus-X.Y.Z where X.Y.Z is the version of the release. If you can't sign then simply created an unsigned annotated tag: git tag -a -m 'Released X.Y.Z' dbus-X.Y.Z.

• bump the version number up in meson.build again (so the micro version is odd), and commit it. Make sure you do this after tagging the previous release! The idea is that git has a newer version number than anything released. Similarly, bump the version number of dbus-specification.xml and set the release date to "(not finalized)".

• push your changes and the tag to the central repository with git push --atomic origin main dbus-X.Y dbus-X.Y.Z

• scp your tarball to freedesktop.org server and copy it to dbus.freedesktop.org:/srv/dbus.freedesktop.org/www/releases/dbus/. This should be possible if you're in group "dbus"

• Update the online documentation with ninja -C ${builddir} maintainer-upload-docs.

• If doc/busconfig.dtd and/or doc/introspect.dtd have changed, send a merge request to xdg-specs similar to https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/xdg/xdg-specs/90 to get the new version published

• post to dbus@lists.freedesktop.org announcing the release.

Making a ".0" stable release

We create a branch for each stable release. The branch name should be dbus-X.Y which is a branch that has releases versioned X.Y.Z; changes on a stable branch should be limited to significant bug fixes.

Because we won't make minor changes like keeping up with the latest deprecations on a stable branch, stable branches should turn off the gcc warning for deprecated declarations (e.g. see commit 76a68867).

Be extra-careful not to merge main (or any branch based on main) into a stable branch.

To branch:

git branch dbus-X.Y

and upload the branch tag to the server:

git push origin dbus-X.Y

To develop in this branch:

git checkout dbus-X.Y

After starting a new stable branch:

• update the wiki page https://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/dbus by adding the new release under the Download heading