Release guide

In this article, we describe how we handle OpenWalnut releases. This might be informative for you but is also a checklist for us. We begin with describing the organizational part. In the second section, we list the technical work for actually doing the release.

Organizational

1. All: decide for feature freeze

2. All: define feature set

3. Project Manager: decide feasibility of features

4. Project Manager: assign features to developers

5. Project Manager: define fuzzy deadline

   • defines release month, exact date not reasonable

6. Release Manager: summarize feature set in Roadmap (website)

7. All: create tickets for features or assign existing tickets to target version

8. All: work on the tickets

9. Release Manager: check for progress & ensure progress

10. Release Manager: responsible for release

11. Release Manager: finally, build (technically) the release

    • Packaging, upload and so on

After Release:

1. Release Manager: assign bug reports to developers using tickets
2. All: fix bugs, do not add features
3. Release Manager: decide for bug fix release, start at second step

Technical

1. Release Manager: create a branch for the release.

   • The branch is named "OpenWalnut_MAJOR.MINOR"
   • The branch is named with MAJOR.MINOR and does NOT include the patch number.
     • The 1.2.5 branch is an exception from the rule.

2. All: work on assigned tickets in branch only

   • Merge these to default regularly
   • Accidental commits to default are patched into release branch

3. Release Manager: prepare source in release branch

   • Change version info in VERSION file
   • Change version info on doc/core/doxygenConfig and doc/developer/doxygenConfig
   • Modify version info in tools/release/owrelease
   • Update the distribution package specific changelog files
     • for DEB packages, use "dch" to add a changelog entry
   • No further changes needed as the build&pack scripts manage the remaining things

4. Release Manager: on release, set a tag to release branch head revision

   • The tag is named "Release_MAJOR.MINOR.PATCH"

5. Release Manager: use owrelease, owpack and owrelease for release packaging (source:tools/release/)

6. Release Manager: upload src and binary packages, update NeuroDebian package

   • Use http://static.openwalnut.org/download for this
   • Add release to releases.html for Debian DEHS in download directory

7. Release Manager: update documentation

   • Write ReleaseNotes
   • Update Getting_OpenWalnut page

8. Release Manager: make some advertisement

   • Add a News-entry
   • Announce on mailing lists (openwalnut, openwalnut-dev)

After Release:

1. All: fixes for bugs in the release branch
2. All: no adding of features in release branch
3. Release Manager: for bug fix release, add tag with incremented patch number
   • named "Release_MAJOR.MINOR.1" in branch "OpenWalnut_MAJOR.MINOR"