MUST DO

• make sure everything is in shape
  • try to build it in as many way as possible changing the configure flags
  • run each build against some testcases [maybe try to automate it if possible]
  • Double check documentation, manpages and doxy, grammar mistakes won't make the code fail but look bad.
• prepare the release documents
  • NEWS : should contain a synthetic summary of the changes, git-shortlog may help a lot
  • ChangeLog : should contain a relatively list of the changes, git log with the right format string can do that for us, if there is time delete the less meaningful commits
  • RELEASE : write a short essay on what we did and why people should use the new revision. Mention of known issue should be done there.
• tag the release
  • use git-tag -s -m „Release $version“ v$version
• prepare the tarball

  $ git archive --format=tar --prefix=$app-$version/ v$version | (cd /var/tmp/ && tar xf -)
  $ cd /var/tmp/$app-$version
  $ ./autogen.sh
  $ doxygen
  $ cd ..
  $ tar -jcf $app-$version.tar.bz2 $app-$version

• put it on the website updating the pages and preparing a release newsitem.

OPTIONAL

• create packages for commonly used distributions.
• ping freshmeat.net
• have a party