Release Procedures

Patch releases (x.y.z, z ≥ 1)

• SCHEDULING
  • Update developer page
  • Update R-project homepage
  • Commit webpage changes
  • Setup crontab for nightly builds and transitions to beta and RC
  • Notify r-announce list
• START (T-10)
  • CRAN masters: Populate CRAN subdirectory x.y.z
  • (cron) Set version to "x.y.z beta"
  • Update the NEWS file header from x.y.(z-1) Patched to x.y.z
  • Recommended packages should be at their versions for release, preferably by (T-14).
• CODE FREEZE (T-7)
  • Binary maintainers: Binary builds should be available now, if not earlier
  • (cron) Set version to "x.y.z RC"
• RELEASE (T)
  • Create final build (edit and run R-build-dist script). This also sets the version to "x.y.z Patched" in the SVN branch.
  • Update developer page
  • Update R-project homepage
  • Commit webpage changes
  • Calculate md5sums
  • Notify r-announce list. Include md5sums and relevant section of NEWS.
  • CRAN masters: Mirror release to CRAN, build manuals, update Freshmeat record

Dot-zero releases (x.y.0)

• SCHEDULING
  • Update developer page
  • Update R-project homepage
  • Commit webpage changes
  • Notify r-announce list
• START (T-31)
  • CRAN masters: Create and populate CRAN subdirectory src/contrib/x.(y+1).0/Recommended
  • Binaries masters: Create CRAN subdirectory bin/windows/contrib/x.(y+1).0 etc
  • Setup crontab for nightly builds and transitions to alpha, beta, and RC status
• GRAND-FEATURE FREEZE (T-28)
  • (cron) Run the R-create-branch script, which does the following.
    • Create the SVN release branch
    • Set VERSION of SVN trunk to "x.(y+1).0 Under development (unstable)"
    • Set VERSION in release branch to "x.y.0 alpha"
  • Fixup etc/repositories in the SVN trunk for Bioconductor version
  • Translation master: Ask translators for updates by FF
  • Binary maintainers: Start publishing binary builds
  • Binary package maintainers:
    • Create package directories x.y and x.(y+1)
    • Update package testing environment
    • Send automated messages to maintainers whose packages are failing.
• FEATURE FREEZE (T-14)
  • (cron) Set VERSION in release branch to "x.y.0 beta"
  • Recommended packages should be at their versions for release (since changes to one can affect another).
• CODE FREEZE (T-7)
  • (cron) Set VERSION in release branch to "x.y.0 RC"
• PRERELEASE (T-3)
  • CRAN masters: Populate CRAN subdirectory x.y-patched
• RELEASE (T)
  • Create final build (edit and run R-build-dist script). This also sets the version to "x.y.z Patched"
  • Update developer page
  • Update R-project homepage
  • Commit webpage changes
  • Calculate md5sums
  • Notify r-announce list. Include md5sums and relevant section of NEWS.
  • CRAN masters: Mirror release to CRAN, build manuals, update Freshmeat record

• Update .save files (notably internet.Rout.save).
• Update reference to BioC versions. (This needs the BioC maintainers to have set up all four BioC repositories for the development version, and although they have been asked repeatedly to tell us when they do, they usually need reminding.)
• Relabeling inside NEWS.
• Update tools/config.{guess,sub} from the git URLs given within them.
• Update software included under src/extra:
  • bzip2
  • PCRE
  • tre
  • trio: only used on Windows.
  • tzone: this amounts to picking up the latest tzdata file, and on a machine with zic (usually Linux) following the procedure in src/extra/tzone/Notes.
  • xz
  • win_iconv: only used on Windows.
  • zlib. We now only use the basic interface, not the buggy gzio one.
  We don't update intl (originally for licence reasons, but it reverted to LGPL 2.1).