At Maven, we eat our own dog food! Please make sure you are familiar with the Best Practices document and follow those techniques.
Prerequesites: you must define the following properties in
~/build.properties. (Note: you may
want to put these in
maven-plugins/plugin-parent/build.properties instead if you need to define
them differently for other projects).
maven.repo.apache.releases.username - your apache username
maven.repo.apache.releases.privatekey - the filename of your SSH private key
maven.repo.apache.releases.passphrase - the passphrase for your private key (
not your Apache password)
maven.announcement.mail.from - Your name and email address, as subscribed to the users and
developers mailing lists, e.g.
Brett Porter <brett@apache.org>
maven.announcement.mail.server - The SMTP server to use for sending the announcement mail.
Release process
For more general notes on making a release, please see the Releasing documentation in the User's Guide.
Run
maven scm:prepare-release and enter the appropriate tag
(
MAVEN_[PROJECTNAME]_[MAJOR]_[MINOR]) and version.
Produce a clean build using
maven -Dmaven.repo.list=apache.releases -Dmaven.site.deploy.live=true scm:perform-release.
When prompted for the tag, enter the one used in the previous step. When prompted for the goal, enter
plugin:repository-deploy,site:deploy for plugins, or
jar:deploy,site:deploy for an
individual JAR. To release a Maven distribution, see below.
Check for the new version at http://www.apache.org/dist/java-repository/maven/plugins/ or http://www.apache.org/dist/java-repository/maven/jars/.
Go to the JIRA administration page for the Maven subproject you have just released (Note that you need to be a JIRA administrator for this project) and release the version. Also make sure to add a new version for the following development version. This is required so that issue creators/developers can assign a "fix for" version to issues.
Run
maven announcement. Edit this, then send it in a release email to the Maven user and
developer lists. If you are happy with the default announcement, run
maven announcement:mail.
There are a couple of additional steps when releasing a Maven distribution.
maven maven:build-plugin-profile and check the versions are what you expect to distribute
scm:perform-release with the goals
jar:deploy,maven:installer. Do this on Windows
so that the .exe file is generated
/binaries/
scm:perform-release with the
site:deploy goal, and mail out release notes
Q: When would I do a release?
A: Plugins have their own release cycle now. So you can make a release whenever there is a change that you want to get into the hands of the users. This should be for major bugfixes and thoroughly tested and complete new features. You may also decide to make periodical releases every couple of months if there have only been minor bugfixes.
Q: What is the convention for versioning?
A: Rewrites and changes that break compatibility are a major version number change.
Announcements for these plugins should details what old functionality would be broken and
link to a migration document on the plugin project web site.
Minor version increments are for feature enhancements, major bugfixes and groups of bugfixes.
These versions can go beyond 10: eg
1.13.
A third version increment is optional and signifies minor updates. These may also be deployed as
snapshots or users may just be asked to build out of CVS to acquire these fixes.
Q: Who decides when a plugin can be released?
A: The lead developer of a plugin has the responsibility for making sure releases happen, but must first hold a vote on the Maven Developer list before cutting the release. The vote should detail the changes made and confirm that the testing has been performed and that there is no pending work that should hold up the release.