Developer Area/Release Instructions/Release Candidate

1. Create the new branch

You should create a new "_STABLE" branch based off of master.

• Create a new branch in the admin section of Gerrit
• Copy the changelog from the previous stable branch
• Update the branch name in the "push" target of the Makefile

2. Bump the version on master

• Go to the master branch and bump the version to 1.5.0dev (if you just created the 1.4_STABLE branch)

3. Package the release

Now, on the new _STABLE branch, follow the usual release instructions up to and including step 5.

4. Creating the new language packs branch

You need to set up launchpad translations for the new branch. See the separate instructions on setting up a new translations branch.

5. Changelog and release notes

Do not paste the full changelog on Launchpad (that's for the actual release) and only put something like "First release candidate for 1.4" in the bullet point section of the release notes on Launchpad.

6. Do not update the bug tracker

The bug tracker does not need to be updated because no bugs should ever have an RC release as its milestone.

Furthermore, these bugs are not fixed until the release has happened, so they should be left as "Fix committed".

7. Announcements

The main purpose of an RC is to get people to test the release for any major bugs. Therefore, we do not consider the RC as a release and only announce it through:

• Identica/Twitter
• IRC
• The news forum

(Note that Freshmeat is missing.)

Here is a sample announcement for the News forum:

 This is a call for testing. If you want to make sure that Mahara 1.4 works well on your site,
 please help us out by testing this first release candidate:
 
   https://launchpad.net/mahara/+milestone/1.4rc1

 New Features for the Release Candidate are listed on Launchpad with the newfeature tag:

   https://bugs.launchpad.net/mahara/+bugs?field.tag=newfeature
 
 The Mahara developers have completed development and bug fixing on Mahara 1.4 and are giving
 users an opportunity to report last minute bugs to be fixed before the final release:
 
   https://bugs.launchpad.net/mahara/+filebug
 
 If important bugs are found within the next week we may produce a second release candidate.
 Otherwise this release candidate will become the final release.
 
 - The 1.4 Release Managers

Here is another one for the last release candidate:

 Based on the feedback we have received so far, this will most likely be the last release
 candidate before the final 1.4 release:
 
   https://launchpad.net/mahara/1.4/1.4rc2

 New Features for the Release Candidate are listed on Launchpad with the newfeature tag:

   https://bugs.launchpad.net/mahara/+bugs?field.tag=newfeature
 
 If you haven't had a chance to test it out yet, please do so now and report any bugs on the
 tracker:
 
   https://bugs.launchpad.net/mahara/+filebug
 
 This is your last chance to make sure your upgrade to 1.4 will be smooth. If nothing major is
 reported in the next few days, we will be cutting the 1.4.0 release in about a week.
 
 - The 1.4 Release Managers

8. Do not update the demo site

The demo site should always be the last stable release. The RC is not a release yet.

9. Update master.dev.mahara.org

Updating master.dev.mahara.org however is useful for users who do not have somewhere to set up a test instance but would like to check out the changes.