docs/project/release_manager_guid.pod - The Release Manager Guide.
This guide lays out in detail the steps necessary to prepare, assemble and publish a Parrot release.
Please ensure you carefully follow each step in the process. As always, please ask for help if you need it.
NOTE: You can use the newish/experimental script auto_release.pl to automate much of his guide (up to section IX):
perl tool/release/auto_release.pl X.Y.Z
Run perldoc on the tool to get more documentation. This tool is new and experimental. Your mileage may vary. Be prepared to do things manually if you have problems with this script.
As soon as you become the release manager, review any goals for the release. Presently, the best way to determine this is to ask on #parrot or, alternatively, email a query to the parrot-dev mailing list. If there are goals for the release, please annouce them on parrot-dev. As well, please ensure everyone understands what they've committed to accomplish in time for the release.
#parrot
parrot-dev
Shortly after the release preceding to your release, it is a good idea to start tracking Parrot news in ChangeLog. A good resource is the individual reports posted in the weekly IRC meeting on #parrotsketch. You may obtain a complete log of these meetings at http://irclog.perlgeek.de/parrotsketch/.
#parrotsketch
A couple of weeks in advance of the release, ask people to run make fulltest and report (and hopefully fix!) any problems they discover. Check-in with language project leaders (e.g., Rakudo) for any potential release blockers. This will, hopefully, afford them sufficient time apply any fixes. Also, please ask people to review any issues targeted for the upcoming release at https://github.com/parrot/parrot/issues.
make fulltest
During the course of the release process, you will need to be able to log in and operate on two different servers. To oversimplify a bit, you will need to be able to execute these two commands and their scp equivalents.
scp
ssh parrot@ftp-osl.osuosl.org
In order to do this, please ensure your public SSH key(s) have been added to the FTP server ftp-osl.osuosl.org. You can open a support ticket for this by sending an email to support@osuosl.org with your public SSH keys as attachments. Without them, you will not be able to ship the release.
support@osuosl.org
ssh <username>@parrot.org
Also, set up your account on http://parrot.org/. Any previous release manager should be able to help you, but you may also need to open a support ticket at support@osuosl.org in order to be added to the parrot group. The parrot group has permissions to create the new directories necessary to contain documentation for new releases.
parrot
A couple of days in advance, announce the new release to parrot-dev@lists.parrot.org and to the IRC channel #parrot. Ask whether there are any showstopping bugs. Check-in again with the language project leads. It's also good to ask for updates to http://github.com/parrot/parrot/blob/master/ChangeLog, http://github.com/parrot/parrot/blob/master/CREDITS, http://github.com/parrot/parrot/blob/master/PLATFORMS. http://github.com/parrot/parrot/blob/master/RESPONSIBLE_PARTIES, http://github.com/parrot/parrot/blob/master/api.yaml, and https://github.com/parrot/parrot/wiki/Languages.
parrot-dev@lists.parrot.org
On the Saturday before the release, you should notify other developers to stop committing non-release related code to the master branch. This will help to avoid complications. They are, of course, free to commit to branches as much as they want. You may also set the topic in #parrot, announcing the time you plan to start the release procedure. This will aid the committers.
You may also select a name (and optionally a quote) for your release. For example, you could select a name from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_parrots.
NOTE: You must have a recent version of Parrot already built for some of the subsequent steps.
The day of the release has arrived. Please ensure you have checked out the most recent version of the master branch:
git checkout master git pull --rebase
Also, ensure you do not have any local commits which have not yet been pushed and thoroughly tested. You can do so with the following command:
git log origin/master..
If this produces no output, then your local master and the remote master are in sync.
First, ensure you have configured Parrot (perl Configure.pl) and ran make and make html with the old version of Parrot. Second, save a copy of the entire 'docs/' directory to some temporary location; you will need them later in Section X below. Next, update files with the following version-specific information.
perl Configure.pl
make
make html
Use tools/release/update_version.pl to update the version string in several files. For example,
tools/release/update_version.pl
perl tools/release/update_version.pl 3.8.0
IMPORTANT: The version change you just made by running tools/release/update_version.pl invalidates any existing generated bytecode. Assuming you ran it in a directory with an existing build, you must now run make reconfig to clear out any invalid bytecode.
make reconfig
Update the version number, the date, and your name in http://github.com/parrot/parrot/blob/master/docs/parrothist.pod.
Update this file (http://github.com/parrot/parrot/blob/master/docs/project/release_manager_guide.pod) to remove the pending release you're currently building.
Run
perl tools/dev/new_changelog_skeleton.pl
to update ChangeLog with the new version number and a skeleton announcement.
Add any other changes which have occurred since the last release. Hopefully, the committers are updating these files as they work. But, if not, then it's probably a good idea to gather the updates weekly rather than wait until the day of the release.
Update release-related information in tools/release/release.json. You will use this later for the release announcements. There are a few, essential fields which must be updated at each release:
release.*
The date of the next release (see Appendix 1).
bugday.date
Enter the date of the Saturday before the next release.
wiki.bugday
Enter the date part of the link to the wiki page for the next bugday.
ftp.path
The URL of the FTP directory where the Parrot tarball can be found.
Make sure RESPONSIBLE_PARTIES is still accurate.
Give yourself credit for the release in CREDITS.
Configure Parrot and run make distro_tests. Then either fix what those tests complain about or fix the tests so they don't complain.
make distro_tests
NOTE: You may skip the following step if this is a developer release or if there have been no new entries to PBC_COMPAT.
If this is a supported release and new entries to PBC_COMPAT have been added since the last supported release, add a new entry with a new major version number for this release at the top of the list. For example,
3.0 2007.10.17 coke released 0.4.17
Delete all minor version numbers since the last major bytecode version number, as these are used only in development and are not relevant to the bytecode support policy. Those changes are all included within the major version number increase for the supported release.
Once you've updated PBC_COMPAT - running sh tools/dev/mk_packfile_pbc if necessary - then run sh tools/dev/mk_native_pbc to update the PBC files used in the native PBC tests. Note: Parrot must already have built Parrot for this to work, and this script will reconfigure and rebuild Parrot with various primitive size options.
sh tools/dev/mk_packfile_pbc
sh tools/dev/mk_native_pbc
Verify that the build process runs smoothly:
make realclean perl Configure.pl --test ... make world html 2>&1 | tee make_world_html.log make fulltest 2>&1 | tee make_fulltest.log
Note that running make fulltest takes a while and that separate harnesses are being run.
When all is well, commit your changes:
git diff git add file1 file2 ... git commit -m "awesome and informative commit message"
Instead of adding files individually, you can also tell git commit that you want all modified and deleted files to be in your next commit via the -a switch:
git commit
-a
git commit -a -m "awesome and informative commit message"
Be careful with git commit -a as it could add files you do not mean to include. Verify the contents of your most recent commit look sane with:
git commit -a
git show
If you want, you can note the SHA-1 digest from this commit by running,
git rev-parse master > SHA1_TO_REMEMBER
Update the repository on GitHub with,
git push origin master
There are two possible approaches to preparing and testing the release tarball: using make release or using make release_check.
make release
make release_check
Begin by running:
make release VERSION=a.b.c
where a.b.c is the version number (e.g., 3.8.0). This will create the tarball named parrot-a.b.c.tar.gz. The DEVELOPING file is automatically excluded from the release tarball.
3.8.0
Extract parrot-a.b.c.tar.gz into another directory:
cp parrot-a.b.c.tar.gz ~/another/directory cd ~/another/directory tar -xvzf parrot-a.b.c.tar.gz
perl Configure.pl make world html 2>&1 | tee make_world_html.log make fulltest 2>&1 | tee make_fulltest.log
As an alternative, you can package the release by running:
perl Configure.pl make release_check
This target (or, for short, make relcheck), will prepare the tarball, copy it into a temporary directory, and then reconfigure, rebuild, re-test (with make test) and re-release.
make relcheck
make test
Whichever of these two approaches you use, verify the version is correct and does not contain the suffix devel:
devel
./parrot -V
Tag the release as "RELEASE_a_b_c", where a.b.c is the version number:
git tag RELEASE_a_b_c git push --tags
Log in to ftp-osl.osuosl.org:
As mentioned previously, your public SSH key must be added to the list of authorized keys before you can log in.
If this is a development release, create a new directory under ~/ftp/releases/devel:
mkdir ~/ftp/releases/devel/a.b.c
If this is a supported release, (see Appendix 1), create the new directory in ~/ftp/releases/supported instead:
mkdir ~/ftp/releases/supported/a.b.c
Copy all the tarballs and their respective digest files from your machine into the new directory:
scp parrot-a.b.c.tar.gz \ parrot-a.b.c.tar.bz2 \ parrot-a.b.c.tar.gz.sha256 \ parrot-a.b.c.tar.bz2.sha256 \ parrot@ftp-osl.osuosl.org:~/ftp/releases/devel/a.b.c
You don't necessarily have to use scp for this step. You can use whichever tool you prefer.
When you're finished making changes, run the trigger script to push the changes out to the FTP mirrors:
~/trigger-parrot
Verify your changes at ftp://ftp.parrot.org/pub/parrot/releases. It should only take a few minutes for the mirrors to sync.
Compose the release announcement. Use tools/release/crow.pir to make this part easier. You can specify the format of your announcements like so,
./parrot tools/release/crow.pir --type=text ./parrot tools/release/crow.pir --type=html
Copy the output and paste it into the application you need. HTML works well for Perl and PerlMonks and text works well for the rest. It's a good idea (although not necessary) to add a "highlights" section to draw attention to major new features. If you do, be sure to say the same thing in both the text and the HTML versions.
Please ensure you include the SHA256 sums of the tarballs in the release announcement which are automatically generated by make release.
Update the website. You will need an account with editor rights on http://www.parrot.org.
Create a new page for the release announcement by navigating to Create content -> Story. There's some additional stuff needed at the top of the page; use one of the old announcements as a guide.
The "<!--break-->" line marks the end of the text that will appear on the front page.
For the "News" category, select both "Releases" and "News".
Add tags to the page for significant changes in this release (e.g. "rakudo" for significant Rakudo language updates or "gc" for significant garbage collection subsystem updates).
Under URL path settings, uncheck Automatic alias and set the path to news/[year]/Parrot-[release number].
Under Publishing options, make sure Published and Promoted to front page are both checked.
Under Administer -> Site building -> URL Redirects, change the URL for release/current to the FTP file for the new release (e.g. ftp://ftp.parrot.org/pub/parrot/releases/devel/3.8.0/parrot-3.8.0.tar.gz). Also update the URL for release/developer or release/supported depending on which type of release this is.
release/current
release/developer
release/supported
Update http://docs.parrot.org. Run make html in a release copy of Parrot, and save the resources/ and html/ directories created in docs/. Use SSH to login to <username>@parrot.org and expand these into a release directory (e.g. 3.8.0) in the webroot (i.e., /var/www/docs.parrot.org/htdocs/parrot) for http://docs.parrot.org. In <webroot>/parrot, there are symbolic links for latest, supported, and devel. Update the latest symlink to point to your new directory. If this is a supported release, also update the supported symlink. Do not delete any old copies of the docs and don't update the other symlinks.
<webroot>/parrot
latest
supported
Preview the new page, and submit it.
The old release announcement may be edited to uncheck Promoted to front page to keep the main page fresh.
To update both the parrot.github.com and the relevant parrot-docsx repositories, execute the following command:
parrot.github.com
parrot-docsx
perl tools/release/parrot_github_release.pl
Please note: To review the available options, use the -h | --help option. In addition, you may also want to review the pod with, perldoc tools/release/parrot_github_release.pl.
-h | --help
perldoc tools/release/parrot_github_release.pl
For more information about the update process, see http://github.com/parrot/parrot/blob/master/docs/project/release_parrot_github_guide.pod.
Publicize the release by publishing the announcement through the following channels (and any others you can think of):
Send a text email to parrot-dev, parrot-users, perl6-language, perl6-announce, perl5-porters, etc. You should also include lwn.net in this mailing; email to lwn at that domain.
parrot-users
perl6-language
perl6-announce
perl5-porters
lwn
Submit the announcement story to use Perl, Perl Monks, Slashdot, Newsforge, etc. Don't forget to set a Reply-To: or Followup-To: header, if your mail client lets you.
Reply-To:
Followup-To:
Modify the topic on #parrot, for example,
/topic #parrot Parrot 4.0.0 "[Name of Parrot Release]" | http://parrot.org/ | Log: http://irclog.perlgeek.de/parrot | #parrotsketch meeting Tuesday 19:30 UTC
Update the wiki frontpage at https://github.com/parrot/parrot/wiki
Update the Wikipedia entry at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parrot_virtual_machine.
Update the C2 wiki entry at http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?ParrotCode.
You're done! Help yourself to a beer, cola, or other delicious celebratory drink.
http://github.com/parrot/parrot/blob/master/README.pod, http://github.com/parrot/parrot/blob/master/RESPONSIBLE_PARTIES.
To make a monthly release schedule possible, we spread the burden of releases across multiple release managers. Releases are scheduled for the 3rd Tuesday of each month.
To learn more about our support policy, see http://github.com/parrot/parrot/blob/master/docs/project/support_policy.pod.
The calendar of releases is available at the comp.lang.parrot Google calendar, visible at http://www.google.com/calendar/render?cid=ldhctdamsgfg5a1cord52po9h8@group.calendar.google.com.
comp.lang.parrot
- Jul 17, 2012 - 4.6.0 - rurban - Aug 21, 2012 - 4.7.0 - whiteknight - Sep 18, 2012 - 4.8.0 - alvis - Oct 16, 2012 - 4.9.0 - dukeleto - Nov 20, 2012 - 4.10.0 - ?? - Dec 18, 2012 - 4.11.0 - ??
To install Rakudo::Star, copy and paste the appropriate command in to your terminal.
cpanm
cpanm Rakudo::Star
CPAN shell
perl -MCPAN -e shell install Rakudo::Star
For more information on module installation, please visit the detailed CPAN module installation guide.