Re: Making releases

[Jim Meyering]

Reuben Thomas wrote:
> On 16 March 2011 16:09, Jim Meyering <address@hidden> wrote:
>> Reuben Thomas wrote:
>>> I finally cajoled maint.mk into actually making a stable release of GNU 
>>> Zile.
>>>
>>> There are a couple of odd things about the final stages:
>>>
>>> 1. It doesn't upload the release tarball &c. itself, it emits commands
>>> to do so. Why?
>>
>> Uploading is final.
>> Once you do it, you may have trouble undoing it,
>> so I prefer merely to emit the command.
>
> Prompting for one's GPG passphrase gets around this.

Currently the gnupload command is emitted at the end of a successful
"make stable".  Just because that succeeded does not always mean I am
ready to release.

Besides, I do not want to see a prompt until I decide to upload.

>>> 2. There's no post-release hook which I can use for my Freshmeat
>>> announcement (AFAICS).
>>
>> If it's via some web form, then no.
>
> Not sure I understand. To announce on Freshmeat I run a command. I
> don't care how it works (I think it's via a RESTful XML API, whatever
> that is, but I really don't give two hoots). I just want a hook I can
> put a command in.

Do you feel like adding one?
It'd default to empty, hence no change, and you'd
override some variable definition in your cfg.mk.

>> Note the use of make's -s option.
>> That is supposed to suppress the "make: Entering/Leaving directory ..."
>> diagnostics.
>
> make's man page only says that -s stops the executed commands being printed.

You should know better than to quote the man page
when there is texinfo documentation.
Read the info doc's description of --print-directory.

>> I usually say a few words about the release in place of FIXME.
>> That makes it a little more human.
>
> Sure, but is there a reason not to have this text in NEWS or supply it
> in some other way that doesn't force another manual step?

NEWS has a pretty strict format, so I wouldn't use it.

I'm not terribly gung-ho on making the process completely
non-interactive, so haven't pursued this, but if you find
a noninvasive way (or one that's universally accepted by maintainers who
use these rules) to make it do what you want, propose a patch.