1 This document describes the release process used by GNU Emacs.
5 Each release cycle will be split into two periods.
7 ** Phase one: development
9 The first phase of the release schedule is the "heads-down" working
10 period for new features, on the `master' branch and several feature
13 ** Phase two: bugfixes
15 Shortly before this phase, Emacs developers will be devoted to
16 figuring out what features to include in the next release and what
17 features to defer to a later release.
19 At the beginning of this phase, a release branch called "emacs-NN"
20 ("NN" represents the major version number of the new Emacs release)
21 will be cut from `master'.
23 This phase is spent fixing bugs and eliminating undocumented new
24 features on the "emacs-NN" branch.
26 In parallel to this phase, `master' can receive new features, to be
27 released in the next release cycle. From time to time, the master
28 branches merges bugfix commits from the "emacs-NN" branch.
30 * RELEASE-CRITICAL BUGS
32 Emacs uses the "blocking bug(s)" feature of Debbugs for bugs need to
33 be addressed in the next release.
35 Currently, bug#19759 is the tracking bug for release of 25.1. Say
36 bug#123 needs to be fixed for Emacs 25.1. Send a message to
37 control@debbugs.gnu.org that says:
41 Change "block" to "unblock" to unblock the bug.
43 * TO BE DONE SHORTLY BEFORE RELEASE
45 ** Make sure the Copyright date reflects the current year in the source
46 files. See `admin/notes/years' for information about maintaining
47 copyright years for GNU Emacs.
49 ** Make sure the necessary sources and scripts for any generated files
50 are included in the source tarfile. (They don't need to be installed,
51 so eg admin/ is fine.)
54 Check for node names using problematic characters:
55 find doc -name '*.texi' -exec grep '^@node[^,]*[:.()]' {} +
56 Sadly makeinfo does not warn about such characters.
58 Check for major new features added since the last release (e.g. new
59 lisp files), and add the relevant authors to the Acknowledgments in
60 doc/emacs/ack.texi and emacs.texi.
62 Check cross-references between the manuals (eg from emacs to elisp)
63 are correct. You can use something like the following in the info
64 directory in the Emacs build tree:
66 emacs -Q --eval "(progn (require 'info) (setq Info-directory-list '(\".\")))" \
67 -f info-xref-check-all
69 Setting Info-directory-list avoids having system info pages confuse
70 things. References to external manuals will be flagged as
71 uncheckable. You should still check these, and also that each
72 external manual has an appropriate redirect in the file manual/.htaccess
73 in the web pages repository. E.g.:
74 Redirect /software/emacs/manual/html_mono/automake.html /software/automake/manual/automake.html
75 Redirect /software/emacs/manual/html_node/automake/ /software/automake/manual/html_node/
77 Another tool you can use to check links is gnu.org's linc.py:
78 http://www.gnu.org/server/source/
80 You run this something like:
82 cd /path/to/cvs/emacs-www
83 linc.py -o /path/to/output-dir --url http://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/ .
85 Be warned that it is really, really slow (as in, can take ~ a full day
86 to check the manual/ directory). It is probably best to run it on a
87 single directory at a time from eg manual/html_node. It is very
88 inefficient, but may reveal a few things that info-xref does not.
91 make emacs.dvi, elisp.dvi, and deal with any errors (undefined
92 references etc) in the output. Break any overfull lines.
93 Underfull hboxes are not serious, but it can be nice to get rid of
94 them if a simple rephrasing or rearrangement will work.
96 Update the master menu and detailed menu (eg the antinews version).
97 The command texinfo-multiple-files-update can do this, but you
98 probably want to apply the results selectively (eg the current master
99 menu has better line-breaks than the automatic version). It includes
100 the menu-entry name (if there is one) as well as the node name - using
101 only the latter looks better. Also, it doesn't seem to handle nested
102 includes, so will miss edebug.texi etc.
104 Check for widow and orphan lines in the printed manual; make sure all
105 the pages really look ok in the manual as formatted. Orphans/widows
106 are cases where the first/last line of a paragraph is on its own at
107 the end/start of a page, or where the last word in a paragraph is on
108 its own at the start of a line. It looks better if you reword/respace
109 things to avoid these. (AFAIK, there is no way to find these except
110 paging through the whole manual.) This should be the very last thing
111 you do, since any change can alter the layout.
112 (Actually, there is probably little point in trying to do this.
113 It's only really relevant if printed versions of the manuals are going
114 to be published. End-users are not likely to print out all 1000+
115 pages of the manuals, and even if they do, the resulting page breaks
116 depend on what paper and font size they use. This also means that if
117 you _are_ going to do this, it should be done with the paper and font
118 size that the GNU Press are going to use when they print the manuals.
119 I think this is different to what you get if you just use eg 'make
120 emacs.pdf' (e.g., enable "smallbook").
122 ** Check the keybindings in the refcards are correct, and add any new ones.
123 What paper size are the English versions supposed to be on?
124 On Debian testing, the packages texlive-lang-czechslovak and
125 texlive-lang-polish will let you generate the cs-* and sk-* pdfs.
126 (You may need texlive-lang-cyrillic, texlive-lang-german for others.)
127 The Makefile rules did not work for me, I had to use something like:
128 csplain -output-format=pdf cs-refcard
130 ** Ask maintainers of refcard translations to update them.
132 Emacs 22 translators:
134 LANG Translator Status
143 ** For a major release, add a "New in Emacs XX" section to faq.texi.
145 ** Remove temporary +++/--- lines in NEWS.
147 ** Try to reorder NEWS: most important things first, related items together.
149 ** Consider bumping customize-changed-options-previous-release.
151 ** cusver-check from admin.el can help find new defcustoms missing
154 ** Add a line to etc/HISTORY for the release version number and date.
158 ** Check for modes which bind M-s that conflicts with a new global binding M-s
159 and change key bindings where necessary. The current list of modes:
161 1. Gnus binds 'M-s' to 'gnus-summary-search-article-forward'.
163 2. Minibuffer binds 'M-s' to 'next-matching-history-element'
164 (not useful any more since C-s can now search in the history).
166 3. 'center-line' in Text mode was already moved to the text formatting
167 keymap as 'M-o M-s' (thus this binding is not necessary any more
168 in 'nroff-mode-map' too and can be removed now from the nroff mode
169 because it can now use the global key binding 'M-o M-s' 'center-line').
171 4. PCL-CVS binds 'M-s' to 'cvs-status', and log-edit-mode binds it to
172 'log-edit-comment-search-forward'. Perhaps search commands
173 on the global key binding 'M-s' are useless in these modes.
175 5. Rmail binds '\es' to 'rmail-search'/'rmail-summary-search'.
180 ** Check the Emacs Tutorial.
182 The first line of every tutorial must begin with text ending in a
183 period (".", ASCII 0x2E) saying "Emacs Tutorial" in the respective
184 language. This should be followed by "See end for copying conditions",
185 likewise in the respective language.
187 After each file name, on the same line or the following line, come the
188 names of the people who have checked it.
191 ----------------------------------
204 TUTORIAL.nl Pieter Schoenmakers
210 TUTORIAL.sl Primoz PETERLIN
211 TUTORIAL.sv Mats Lidell
270 ** Check the Lisp manual.
305 numbers.texi Paul Eggert (24.4)
324 For Emacs's versioning scheme, see `admin/notes/versioning'.
326 For instructions to create pretest or release tarballs, announcements,
327 etc., see `admin/make-tarball.txt'.