Release Procedures

(Unlabeled items are handled by the Release Manager)

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
- Ensure that VERSION-INFO.dcf is updated and sent to CRAN
- Notify r-announce and an r-devel lists to give package maintainers fair warning.
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)
- (cron) Create final build. This also pushes the sources and associated files to CRAN and sets the version to "x.y.z Patched" in the SVN branch.
- Update developer page
- Update R-project homepage
- Commit webpage changes
- Calculate md5sums. NEW: Also do SHA-256 (shasum -a 256 * R-3/*)
- Notify r-announce list. Include checksums and relevant section of NEWS.
- CRAN masters:
  - Update CRAN web pages (banner.html, sources.html) by running the "CRAN-homepage-process-templates" script
  - build manuals (currently not automatically) and push to CRAN

Dot-zero releases (x.y.0)

SCHEDULING
- Update developer page
- Update R-project homepage
- Commit webpage changes
- Notify r-announce and r-devel lists
- Ensure that VERSION-INFO.dcf is updated and sent to CRAN
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"
- CRAN masters: Update devel version in CRAN-package-list
- CRAN incoming checkers: Populate user library as necessary.
- Check src/library/tools/R/utils.R for Bioconductor version matching this release
- 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)
- (cron) Create final build. This also pushes the sources and associated files to CRAN and sets the version to "x.y.z Patched" in the SVN branch.
- Update developer page
- Update R-project homepage
- Commit webpage changes
- Calculate md5sums and SHA-256
- Notify r-announce list. Include checksums and relevant section of NEWS.
- CRAN masters:
  - Update CRAN web pages (banner.html, sources.html) by running the "CRAN-homepage-process-templates" script
  - update links (r-oldrel, r-release, r-devel, ...)
  - build manuals (currently not automatically) and push to CRAN

TODO: Unresolved/unautomated items. (I.e., someone usually remembers to do it.)

Update .save files (notably internet.Rout.save).
Update reference to BioC versions. (This needs the BioC maintainers to have set up all three BioC repositories for the development version. Nowadays done not later than GFF.)
Relabeling inside NEWS.
Update bug repository settings, so that people can report on new versions.
Update tools/config.{guess,sub} from the git URLs given within them. (These are GPL-3 but with an exception.)
Update software included under src/extra:
- tre
- trio: only used on Windows.
- tzone: this amounts to picking up the latest tzdata file, and on a machine with a fully 64-bit zic (usually Linux, not OS X) following the procedure in src/extra/tzone/Notes.
- win_iconv: only used on Windows.
We don't update intl (originally for licence reasons, but it reverted to LGPL 2.1).