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Dong Ma, 04/23/2012 08:46 am

How to Create a New Release

Increment Version Number Appropriately

First thing's first... How do you increment version numbers?

[[http://fossology.org/pipermail/fossology/2007-December/000027.html|This mailing list post]] describes the version number in detail. To summarize:

A.B.C

where

A = Major release number
      Reason for change:
        schema and/or agent API breakage
  B = Minor release number
      Reasons for change:
        schema and/or agent APIs are added or extended 
        new agents added
        security fixes
        major roll up of bugfixes
  C = Bugfix release number
      Reasons for change:
        any bugfix worth doing a new release/test cycl

Tagging the release in subversion

- Edit ''branches/fossology2.0/fossology/VERSIONSTRING'' in subversion and change the content to the appropriate version number based on the guidelines above.  
  - Create a new tag for the release:  tag the ''branches/fossology2.0/fossology/'' directory and save it in ''/tags/<revision>/''
  • Create the new tagged version within subversion, tagging subversion revision ''NNN'':
svn copy -r NNN https://fossology.svn.sourceforge.net/svnroot/fossology/trunk/fossology \
    https://fossology.svn.sourceforge.net/svnroot/fossology/tags/A.B.C

In the case where you're tagging the top of tree, you can omit the ''-r NNN'' parameter.

  • You can update individual files in a tagged version if you want, but significant changes should be done on a branch instead. If you need to update individual files in the tagged version, remove the file(s) first and then replace them with:
svn delete https://fossology.svn.sourceforge.net/svnroot/fossology/tags/0.8.0/<full path to file(s)>
svn copy https://fossology.svn.sourceforge.net/svnroot/fossology/trunk/fossology/<full path to replacement file(s)> \
    https://fossology.svn.sourceforge.net/svnroot/fossology/tags/A.B.C/<full path to destination dir>

Now you should have a nice tidy directory in /tags/A.B.C/ where the released bits live. From here you can proceed to rolling a tarball and uploading the file release to sourceforge.

Branching in subversion

It is just about as easy to create a branch in svn as it is to tag. Branching creates an independent copy of one or more files in the repository, whose version history "branches" off from the point where the copy was made.

To create a new branch:
svn copy -r NNN https://fossology.svn.sourceforge.net/svnroot/fossology/trunk/fossology \
https://fossology.svn.sourceforge.net/svnroot/fossology/branches/<your new branch name>

Please try to make the branch name descriptive, and of course make sure to include an appropriate commit message so it's clear what is being done.

The more tricky part is merging changes between branches; In the event your branch is "permanent" and not going to be merged back into the trunk, this is less of a concern (as in the case of a release branch that diverges from top of tree).

You can find our [[process:branching | branch policy here.]]

Creating a tarball
To create a tarball, check out the released version. Within that directory, simply run 

make tar-release

This will create a file called ''fossology-A.B.C.tar.gz''.

Now you're ready to do a file release on Sourceforge!

Creating a Sourceforge file release
Also see https://sourceforge.net/apps/trac/sourceforge/wiki/Release%20files%20for%20download

  • Use "Create New Folder" to create a folder for the rpm & deb packages.
  • Click on the gear icon to the left of the newly created folder and select "Upload here" in the pull down menu
  • Upload the deb and rpm packages
  • (...possible other steps)...
  • You can (optionally) set properties for each of the uploads by clicking on the gear icon and selecting "Properties" in the pull down menu.
  • Note there is no final "Submit" once you've updated all the fields. The file is released. You can confirm this by going to the "Download" tab in sourceforge and ensuring the file you just uploaded shows up there.

Writing Release Notes

You must create a set of release notes in Dokuwiki at http://fossology.org/release_notes

Simply add the release notes to the top of the page, shifting all the previous versions down below them.

Be sure to highlight all the new features, bugfixes, any other errata.

Add news blurb to front page

Be sure to update the http://fossology.org/ front page with a short news blurb about the new release. You may also want to remove the oldest news blurb as well, to keep the page a bit current and up-to-date.

Sending email announcement

Finally it's important to send an announcement of the new release to the mailing list.

Email to '''' something like the following:

Subject:  Announcing FOSSology A.B.C Release
The FOSSology Project is pleased to announce the release of FOSSology A.B.C.
New in version A.B.C:
  * New feature
  * New feature
  * Important bug fix
  * etc... don't get too specific, but try to highlight the major changes
For more information on the FOSSology project and to download the software, 
  please visit http://fossology.org/
-- About FOSSology --
FOSSology is a Free Open Source Software (FOSS) project built around an open 
  architecture for analyzing software. Existing modules include license analysis, 
  Copyright/Email/URL scanner, analysis of deb and rpm packages.  This open
  source software tool analyzes a given set of software packages, and reports items 
  such as the software licenses used by these packages.
More than simply reporting, “Package X uses license Y,” the FOSSology tool 
  attempts to analyze every file within the package to determine its license. The 
  license report is thus an aggregate of all of the different licenses found to be 
  in use by a package. A single package may be labeled as “GPL” but contain files 
  that use other licenses (BSD, OSL, or any of the hundreds of other licenses). Even
  if an exact license is unknown, the license may be identifiable by common license 
  phrases.
The FOSSology Project started as an internal software development effort within 
  Hewlett Packard’s Open Source and Linux Organization. The tool evolved over 
  several years at HP from a few simple shell scripts to the much more comprehensive
  tool you see today.
Enjoy!
  The FOSSology team

Post-incrementing the version number in svn

After making a release, increment the version number in ''trunk/fossology/Makefile.conf'' in subversion. Increment the least-significant digit by 1, and add "~svn" to it (tilde svn).

For example if the release you just completed was ''"0.17.0"'', update ''Makefile.conf'' in subversion to be version "''0.17.1~svn''". Why? So that future checkouts of HEAD will not advertise being the previous release, which they certainly are not.