There are a lot of things to check before doing a release :)

Release naming scheme

We will just increment version numbers. All version below the feature level of original buzz will be named 0.X, afterwards 1.X and so on. When a new release is planned, we will release versions named Z.X-rcY. These release candidates are for people who like to test a new version. It is likely to have bugs though. Only when the version is considered as stable, it will be re-released as Z.X.

We don't use the odd-even number scheme where odd release numbers such as 0.3 denote development versions. Development versions can be obtained from the source code repository.

Pre-Releases

update and spellcheck files: README, NEWS
in buzztard, bump BT_RELEASE_YEAR, BT_RELEASE_DATE for ./docs/version.entities.in
src/ui/edit/about-dialog.c
- copy NEWS into dialog
- check year for copyright
check translations: cd po; intltool-update -r
touch po/ChangeLog
make dist or GNOME_DISABLE_CRASH_DIALOG=1 make distcheck
upload tarball to www.buzztard.org/files/
sent email:

to coordinator@translationproject.org
subject buzztard-0.4.pot
body http://files.buzztard.org/buzztard-X.Y.Z.tar.gz

upload API docs

Stable Release checklist

update translations

 cd po && for file in *.po; do wget -O$file http://translationproject.org/latest/buzztard/$file; done
 cd po && for file in *.po; do curl http://translationproject.org/latest/buzztard/$file >$file; done

run unit tests
make dist or GNOME_DISABLE_CRASH_DIALOG=1 make distcheck
tag repository:

  # for each module
  git tag -a RELEASE_0_3 -m"release: 0.3"
  git push origin RELEASE_0_3

upload source tarballs
announce new version:
- mailing lists: linux-audio-dev@lists.linuxaudio.org, gnome-announce-list@gnome.org, (gnome-multimedia@gnome.org), gstreamer-devel@lists.sourceforge.net, buzztard-devel@lists.sourceforge.net, buzztard-user@lists.sourceforge.net
  - template from 0.3.0, 0.4.0
- advogato blog
- sf.net news
- freshmeat.net
- gnomefiles.org
- buzzupdate
- linuxmusicians
- wikipedia
bump version number in configure.ac files
bump dependencies
add release marker to ChangeLog: === release 0.3.0 === and commit