How to perform a release.
-------------------------------------------------
+ 1. Send an email out warning contributors about the forthcoming
+ branch. Set a date for the branch (weekends are better because
+ they are less busy).
+
+ 2. Update the libiberty and config directories and the top level
+ configure files.
+
+ 3. When branch day arrives add markers for the upcoming release to
+ gas, ld, gold and binutils NEWS files. Likewise for all of the
+ ChangeLog files. Add a note of the name of the new branch to
+ binutils/BRANCHES. Commit these changes.
+
+ 4. Create the release branch using:
+
+ git tag -a binutils-2_30-branch [eg for the 2.30 branch...]
+ git push --tags origin binutils-2_30-branch
+
+ 5. Update bfd/configure and bfd/configure.ac on HEAD to indicate
+ snapshot of the following release.
+
+ 6. Rename the current HEAD version entry in Bugzilla, and create a
+ new one. E.g. rename "2.30 (HEAD)" to 2.30, and create "2.31
+ (HEAD)". Go to "Edit products" from the bottom toolbar, click on
+ "binutils", then on "Edit versions". If you don't have
+ permissions to do this, either ask Daniel Berlin to fix your
+ account or ask Daniel Jacobowitz to do it.
+
+ 7. Regenerate various files on both branch and HEAD by configuring
+ with --enable-maintainer-mode. No need to check in changes to
+ the autoconf/automake/etc files, but be sure the .pot files are
+ up to date.
+
+ 8. Create an initial prerelease:
+
+ a. Bump the version on the branch, and check this in.
+
+ b. Create a source tarball:
+
+ git clean -f -d -x
+ CFLAGS="-O -g0" ./src-release.sh -b binutils
+ rm -rf $release_dir/proto-toplev
+ rm $release_dir/binutils-$version
+ rm $release_dir/binutils-$version.tar
+ mv $release_dir/binutils-$version.tar.lzip ..
+
+ c. Build a test target using this tarball.
+
+ d. Upload the prerelease snapshot to the FTP:
+
+ scp ../binutils-$version.tar.bz2 sourceware.org:~ftp/pub/binutils/snapshots
+ ssh sourceware.org md5sum \~ftp/pub/binutils/snapshots/binutils-$version.tar.bz2
+ md5sum ../binutils-$version.tar.bz2
+
+ 9. Send it to the Translation Project:
+
+ http://translationproject.org/html/maintainers.html
+
+ Sending mail for one of the POT files is sufficient.
+
+ 10. Announce the availability of the snapshot and the branch on the
+ binutils mailing list. Set a date for when the release will
+ actually happen. Nag maintainers to fix any testsuite failures
+ for their architectures...
+
xxx -- fill in stuff here -- xxx
-------------------------------------------------
2. Make sure that the branch sources build, test and install
correctly.
+ 2.5 Prepare a list of the bugs which have been fixed. This
+ will be needed for step 8.
+
3. In the branch sources:
a. Update the minor release number in bfd/version.m4.
Our thanks go out to all of the binutils contributors, past and
present, for helping to make this release possible.
+
+ Here is a list of the bugs that have been fixed:
+ xx
+ xx
+ xx
+ xx
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