HOWTO_RELEASE

How to release
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
  Date: 2009-07-01

Versioning Scheme
-----------------

Release version is composed by POSTGIS_MAJOR_VERSION, POSTGIS_MINOR_VERSION
and POSTGIS_MICRO_VERSION components.

By default only [POSTGIS_MICRO_VERSION] increments between releases.

[POSTGIS_MINOR_VERSION] is incremented (and MICRO set to 0) when minor
additions have been introduced (one or two functions can be considered
*micro* additions)

[POSTGIS_MAJOR_VERSION] is incremented (and MICRO and MINOR set to 0) when
a dump/reload of existing spatial databases is *REQUIRED* for things
to work or rather *HIGHLY RECOMMENDED* to get new functionalities.

Requirements
------------

In order to build a release, you will need to build PostGIS and the 
documentation -- that means having the required software:

* For PostGIS:
  - PostgreSQL 
  - GEOS
  - Proj4
* For the docs:
  - xsltproc
  - DocBook XSL scripts
  - ImageMagick

Release procedure
-----------------

1) Re-generate the ChangeLog using svn2cl.
2) Edit NEWS: set release date and check all notable changes have
   been reported (extract from ChangeLog).
3) Edit README.postgis and set release date and version.
4) Add release notes in doc/release_notes.xml
5) Commit all your changes
6) Tag trunk:  
   svn copy http://svn.osgeo.org/postgis/trunk http://svn.osgeo.org/postgis/tags/x.x.x
7) Checkout tag:
   svn checkout http://svn.osgeo.org/postgis/tags/x.x.x
8) Update Version.config as specified in Versioning Scheme above.
9) Update doc/postgis.xml to download.osgeo.org link 
  (note: unreleased are on postgis.net, and released download.osgeo.org )
   Also make sure the correct minimum and lastest geos etc are noted.
10) Commit your version number change to the tag.
11) Run: sh make_dist.sh x.x.x
12) Copy tarball to web site and edit downloads page
13) Announce on e-mail 
    - postgis-users
    - postgis-devel
    - pgsql-announce
    - osgeo-discuss
14) Update web sites
    - PostGIS News
     - https://svn.osgeo.org/postgis/web/_content_posts
       a) create a new Post for current year making sure the page name starts with mm-dd
       b) commit and wait 5 minutes to see changes on website
    - PostGIS doc release versioned doc - http://postgis.net/documentation/
     (For building pdf, debbie has tagged jobs 
       -- http://debbie.postgis.net:8080 (log in)
       Create new job copy last tag e.g. PostGIS_2.0_tagged_docs to PostGIS_2.1_tagged_docs
       and make appropriate edits and then just run.
       Oh just be lazy and bug Regina Obe do this.
    - Freshmeat
    - Wikipedia
    - Twitter (we all love twitter don't we)
    - PlanetPostGIS
15) Update Trac and make old Milestone as completed

16) Push the revision number in trunk forward if necessary
17) Ensure all the previous released minor versions are listed in extension/upgradeable_versions.mk