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: fixing and stabilizing the release branch
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 This phase is mostly spent fixing bugs and documenting new features
20 and changes on the "emacs-NN" branch. Actually, the default branch
21 for pushing any work in this phase should be "emacs-NN", except for
24 At the beginning of this phase, a release branch called "emacs-NN"
25 ("NN" represents the major version number of the new Emacs release)
26 will be cut from 'master'. When that happens, the version number on
27 'master' should be incremented; use admin/admin.el's 'set-version'
28 command to do that, then commit the changes it made and push to
29 'master'. For major releases, also update the value of
30 'customize-changed-options-previous-release'.
32 The 2 main manuals, the User Manual and the Emacs Lisp Manual, need to
33 be proofread, preferably by at least 2 different persons, and any
34 uncovered problems fixed. This is a lot of work, so it is advisable
35 to divide the job between several people (see the checklist near the
38 In parallel to this phase, 'master' can receive new features, to be
39 released in the next release cycle. From time to time, the master
40 branches merges bugfix commits from the "emacs-NN" branch.
42 * RELEASE-CRITICAL BUGS
44 Emacs uses the "blocking bug(s)" feature of Debbugs for bugs need to
45 be addressed in the next release.
47 Currently, bug#19759 is the tracking bug for release of 25.1 and
48 bug#21966 is the tracking bug for release of 25.2. Say bug#123 needs
49 to be fixed for Emacs 25.1. Send a message to control@debbugs.gnu.org
54 Change "block" to "unblock" to unblock the bug.
56 * TO BE DONE SHORTLY BEFORE RELEASE
58 ** Make sure the Copyright date reflects the current year in the source
59 files. See 'admin/notes/years' for information about maintaining
60 copyright years for GNU Emacs.
62 ** Make sure the necessary sources and scripts for any generated files
63 are included in the source tarball. (They don't need to be installed,
64 so e.g. admin/ is fine.)
66 ** Regenerate AUTHORS by using admin/authors.el
67 (The instructions are at the beginning of that file.)
69 ** Remove temporary +++/--- lines in NEWS.
70 But first make sure there are no unmarked entries, and update the
71 documentation (or decide no updates are necessary) for those that
75 Check for node names using problematic characters:
76 find doc -name '*.texi' -exec grep '^@node[^,]*[:.()]' {} +
77 Sadly makeinfo does not warn about such characters.
79 Check for major new features added since the last release (e.g. new
80 lisp files), and add the relevant authors to the Acknowledgments in
81 doc/emacs/ack.texi and emacs.texi.
83 For major releases, rewrite the "Antinews" appendix of the User Manual
84 (doc/emacs/anti.texi) to describe features lost by downgrading to the
85 previous version. The way to do that is read NEWS, pick up the more
86 significant changes and new features in the upcoming release, then
87 describe the "benefits" from losing those features. Be funny, use
88 humor. The text written for the previous major release can serve as
91 Check cross-references between the manuals (e.g. from emacs to elisp)
92 are correct. You can use something like the following in the info
93 directory in the Emacs build tree:
95 emacs -Q --eval "(progn (require 'info) (setq Info-directory-list '(\".\")))" \
96 -f info-xref-check-all
98 Setting Info-directory-list avoids having system info pages confuse
99 things. References to external manuals will be flagged as
100 uncheckable. You should still check these, and also that each
101 external manual has an appropriate redirect in the file manual/.htaccess
102 in the web pages repository. E.g.:
103 Redirect /software/emacs/manual/html_mono/automake.html /software/automake/manual/automake.html
104 Redirect /software/emacs/manual/html_node/automake/ /software/automake/manual/html_node/
106 Another tool you can use to check links is gnu.org's linc.py:
107 http://www.gnu.org/server/source/
109 You run this with something like:
111 cd /path/to/cvs/emacs-www
112 linc.py -o /path/to/output-dir --url http://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/ .
114 Be warned that it is really, really slow (as in, can take ~ a full day
115 to check the manual/ directory). It is probably best to run it on a
116 single directory at a time from e.g. manual/html_node. It is very
117 inefficient, but may reveal a few things that info-xref does not.
119 make emacs.dvi, elisp.dvi, and deal with any errors (undefined
120 references etc) in the output. Break any overfull lines.
121 Underfull hboxes are not serious, but it can be nice to get rid of
122 them if a simple rephrasing or rearrangement will work.
124 Update the master menu and detailed menu (e.g. the antinews version).
125 The command texinfo-multiple-files-update can do this, but you
126 probably want to apply the results selectively (e.g. the current master
127 menu has better line-breaks than the automatic version). It includes
128 the menu-entry name (if there is one) as well as the node name - using
129 only the latter looks better. Also, it doesn't seem to handle nested
130 includes, so will miss edebug.texi etc.
132 Check for widow and orphan lines in the printed manual; make sure all
133 the pages really look OK in the manual as formatted. Orphans/widows
134 are cases where the first/last line of a paragraph is on its own at
135 the end/start of a page, or where the last word in a paragraph is on
136 its own at the start of a line. It looks better if you reword/respace
137 things to avoid these. (AFAIK, there is no way to find these except
138 paging through the whole manual.) This should be the very last thing
139 you do, since any change can alter the layout.
140 (Actually, there is probably little point in trying to do this.
141 It's only really relevant if printed versions of the manuals are going
142 to be published. End-users are not likely to print out all 1000+
143 pages of the manuals, and even if they do, the resulting page breaks
144 depend on what paper and font size they use. This also means that if
145 you _are_ going to do this, it should be done with the paper and font
146 size that the GNU Press are going to use when they print the manuals.
147 I think this is different to what you get if you just use e.g. 'make
148 emacs.pdf' (e.g., enable "smallbook").
150 ** Try to reorder NEWS: most important things first, related items together.
152 ** For a major release, add a "New in Emacs XX" section to faq.texi.
154 ** Check the keybindings in the refcards are correct, and add any new ones.
155 What paper size are the English versions supposed to be on?
156 On Debian testing, the packages texlive-lang-czechslovak and
157 texlive-lang-polish will let you generate the cs-* and sk-* pdfs.
158 (You may need texlive-lang-cyrillic, texlive-lang-german for others.)
159 The Makefile rules did not work for me, I had to use something like:
160 csplain -output-format=pdf cs-refcard
162 ** Ask maintainers of refcard translations to update them.
164 Emacs 22 translators:
166 LANG Translator Status
175 ** cusver-check from admin.el can help find new defcustoms missing
178 ** Add a line to etc/HISTORY for the release version number and date.
182 ** Check for modes which bind M-s that conflicts with a new global binding M-s
183 and change key bindings where necessary. The current list of modes:
185 1. Gnus binds 'M-s' to 'gnus-summary-search-article-forward'.
187 2. Minibuffer binds 'M-s' to 'next-matching-history-element'
188 (not useful any more since C-s can now search in the history).
190 3. 'center-line' in Text mode was already moved to the text formatting
191 keymap as 'M-o M-s' (thus this binding is not necessary any more
192 in 'nroff-mode-map' too and can be removed now from the nroff mode
193 because it can now use the global key binding 'M-o M-s' 'center-line').
195 4. PCL-CVS binds 'M-s' to 'cvs-status', and log-edit-mode binds it to
196 'log-edit-comment-search-forward'. Perhaps search commands
197 on the global key binding 'M-s' are useless in these modes.
199 5. Rmail binds '\es' to 'rmail-search'/'rmail-summary-search'.
204 ** Check the Emacs Tutorial.
206 The first line of every tutorial must begin with text ending in a
207 period (".", ASCII 0x2E) saying "Emacs Tutorial" in the respective
208 language. This should be followed by "See end for copying conditions",
209 likewise in the respective language.
211 After each file name, on the same line or the following line, come the
212 names of the people who have checked it.
215 ----------------------------------
241 abbrevs.texi Steve Byrne
294 ** Check the Lisp manual.
296 abbrevs.texi Steve Byrne
348 For Emacs's versioning scheme, see 'admin/notes/versioning'.
350 For instructions to create pretest or release tarballs, announcements,
351 etc., see 'admin/make-tarball.txt'.