The Mesa 3D Graphics Library

# Releasing Process

- Overview
- Release schedule
- Cherry-pick and test
- Staging branch
- Making a branchpoint
- Pre-release announcement
- Making a new release
- Announce the release
- Update Gitlab Issues

## Overview

This document uses the convention X.Y.Z for the release number with X.Y being the stable branch name.

Mesa provides feature and bugfix releases. Former use zero as patch version (Z), while the latter have a non-zero one.

For example:

    	Mesa 10.1.0 - 10.1 branch, feature
    	Mesa 10.1.4 - 10.1 branch, bugfix
    	Mesa 12.0.0 - 12.0 branch, feature
    	Mesa 12.0.2 - 12.0 branch, bugfix

## Release schedule

Releases should happen on Wednesdays. Delays can occur although those should be kept to a minimum.

See our calendar for information about how the release schedule is planned, and the date and other details for individual releases.

## Feature releases

- Available approximately every three months.
- Initial timeplan available 2-4 weeks before the planned branchpoint (rc1) on the mesa-announce@ mailing list.
- Typically, the final release will happen after 4 candidates. Additional ones may be needed in order to resolve blocking regressions, though.
- A pre-release announcement should be available approximately 24 hours before the final (non-rc) release.

## Stable releases

- Normally available once every two weeks.
- Only the latest branch has releases. See note below.
- A pre-release announcement should be available approximately 48 hours before the actual release.

Note: There is one or two releases overlap when changing branches. For example:

The final release from the 12.0 series Mesa 12.0.5 will be out around the same time (or shortly after) 13.0.1 is out.

This also involves that, as a final release may be delayed due to the need of additional candidates to solve some blocking regression(s), the release manager might have to update the calendar with additional bug fix releases of the current stable branch.

## Cherry-picking and testing

Commits nominated for the active branch are picked as based on the criteria as described in the same section.

Nomination happens in the mesa-stable@ mailing list. However, maintainer is responsible of checking for forgotten candidates in the master branch. This is achieved by a combination of ad-hoc scripts and a casual search for terms such as regression, fix, broken and similar.

Maintainer is also responsible for testing in various possible permutations of the meson and scons build.

## Cherry-picking and build/check testing

Done continuously up-to the pre-release announcement.

Developers can request, as an exception, patches to be applied up-to the last one hour before the actual release. This is made only with explicit permission/request, and the patch must be very well contained. Thus it cannot affect more than one driver/subsystem.

Following developers have requested permanent exception

- Ilia Mirkin
- AMD team

The following must pass:

- meson test, scons and scons check
- Testing with different version of system components - LLVM and others is also performed where possible.
- As a general rule, testing with various combinations of configure switches, depending on the specific patchset.

These are achieved by combination of local testing, which includes mingw-w64 cross compilation and AppVeyor plus Travis-CI, the latter two as part of their Github integration.

For Windows related changes, the main contact point is Brian Paul. Jose Fonseca can also help as a fallback contact.

For Android related changes, the main contact is Tapani Pälli. Mauro Rossi is collaborating with android-x86 and may provide feedback about the build status in that project.

For MacOSX related changes, Jeremy Huddleston Sequoia is currently a good contact point.

Note: If a patch in the current queue needs any additional fix(es), then they should be squashed together. The commit messages and the "`cherry picked from`"-tags must be preserved.

This should be noted in the pre-announce email.

        git show b10859ec41d09c57663a258f43fe57c12332698e

        commit b10859ec41d09c57663a258f43fe57c12332698e
        Author: Jonas Pfeil <pfeiljonas@gmx.de>
        Date:   Wed Mar 1 18:11:10 2017 +0100

            ralloc: Make sure ralloc() allocations match malloc()'s alignment.

            The header of ralloc needs to be aligned, because the compiler assumes
            ...

            (cherry picked from commit cd2b55e536dc806f9358f71db438dd9c246cdb14)

            Squashed with commit:

            ralloc: don't leave out the alignment factor

            Experimentation shows that without alignment factor gcc and clang choose
            ...

            (cherry picked from commit ff494fe999510ea40e3ed5827e7818550b6de126)

## Regression/functionality testing

Less often (once or twice), shortly before the pre-release announcement. Ensure that testing is redone if Intel devs have requested an exception, as per above.

- no regressions should be observed for Piglit/dEQP/CTS/Vulkan on Intel platforms
- no regressions should be observed for Piglit using the swrast, softpipe and llvmpipe drivers

Currently testing is performed courtesy of the Intel OTC team and their Jenkins CI setup. Check with the Intel team over IRC how to get things setup.

Installing the built driver from the pre-announced RC branch in the system and making some every day's use until the release may be a good idea too.

## Staging branch

A live branch, which contains the currently merge/rejected patches is available in the main repository under `staging/X.Y`. For example:

    	staging/18.1 - WIP branch for the 18.1 series
    	staging/18.2 - WIP branch for the 18.2 series

Notes:

- People are encouraged to test the staging branch and report regressions.
- The branch history is not stable and it will be rebased,

## Making a branchpoint

A branchpoint is made such that new development can continue in parallel to stabilisation and bugfixing.

Note: Before doing a branch ensure that basic build and `meson test` testing is done and there are little to-no issues. Ideally all of those should be tackled already.

Check if the version number is going to remain as, alternatively `git mv docs/relnotes/{current,new}.html` as appropriate.

To setup the branchpoint:

    	git checkout master # make sure we're in master first
    	git tag -s X.Y-branchpoint -m "Mesa X.Y branchpoint"
    	git checkout -b X.Y
    	git checkout master
    	$EDITOR VERSION # bump the version number
    	git commit -as
    	cp docs/relnotes/{X.Y,X.Y+1}.html # copy/create relnotes template
    	git commit -as
    	git push origin X.Y-branchpoint X.Y

Now go to gitlab and add the new Mesa version X.Y.

Check that there are no distribution breaking changes and revert them if needed. For example: files being overwritten on install, etc. Happens extremely rarely - we had only one case so far (see commit 2ced8eb136528914e1bf4e000dea06a9d53c7e04).

Proceed to release -rc1.

## Pre-release announcement

It comes shortly after outstanding patches in the respective branch are pushed. Developers can check, in brief, what's the status of their patches. They, alongside very early testers, are strongly encouraged to test the branch and report any regressions.

It is followed by a brief period (normally 24 or 48 hours) before the actual release is made.

Be aware to add a note to warn about a final release in a series, if that is the case.

## Terminology used

- Nominated

Patch that is nominated but yet to to merged in the patch queue/branch.

- Queued

Patch is in the queue/branch and will feature in the next release. Barring reported regressions or objections from developers.

- Rejected

Patch does not fit the criteria and is followed by a brief information. The release maintainer is human so if you believe you've spotted a mistake do let them know.

## Format/template

    Subject: [ANNOUNCE] Mesa X.Y.Z release candidate
    To: mesa-announce@...
    Cc: mesa-dev@...

    Hello list,

    The candidate for the Mesa X.Y.Z is now available. Currently we have:
     - NUMBER queued
     - NUMBER nominated (outstanding)
     - and NUMBER rejected patches

    [If applicable:
    Note: this is the final anticipated release in the SERIES series. Users are
    encouraged to migrate to the NEXT_SERIES series in order to obtain future fixes.]

    BRIEF SUMMARY OF CHANGES

    Take a look at section "Mesa stable queue" for more information.

    Testing reports/general approval
    --------------------------------
    Any testing reports (or general approval of the state of the branch) will be
    greatly appreciated.

    The plan is to have X.Y.Z this DAY (DATE), around or shortly after TIME.

    If you have any questions or suggestions - be that about the current patch
    queue or otherwise, please go ahead.

    Trivial merge conflicts
    -----------------------
    List of commits where manual intervention was required.
    Keep the authors in the CC list.

    commit SHA
    Author: AUTHOR

        COMMIT SUMMARY

        CHERRY PICKED FROM

    For example:

    commit 990f395e007c3204639daa34efc3049f350ee819
    Author: Emil Velikov <emil.velikov@collabora.com>

        anv: automake: cleanup the generated json file during make clean

        (cherry picked from commit 8df581520a823564be0ab5af7dbb7d501b1c9670)

    Cheers,
    Emil

    Mesa stable queue
    -----------------

    Nominated (NUMBER)
    ==================

    AUTHOR (NUMBER):
          SHA     COMMIT SUMMARY

    For example:

    Dave Airlie (1):
          2de85eb radv: fix texturesamples to handle single sample case

    Queued (NUMBER)
    ===============

    AUTHOR (NUMBER):
          COMMIT SUMMARY
    [If applicable:
    Squashed with
          COMMIT SUMMARY]

    For example:

    Jonas Pfeil (1):
          ralloc: Make sure ralloc() allocations match malloc()'s alignment.
    Squashed with
          ralloc: don't leave out the alignment factor

    Rejected (NUMBER)
    =================

    AUTHOR (NUMBER):
          SHA     COMMIT SUMMARY

    Reason: ...

    For example:

    Emil Velikov (1)
          a39ad18 configure.ac: honour LLVM_LIBDIR when linking against LLVM

    Reason: The patch was reverted shortly after it was merged.

## Making a new release

These are the instructions for making a new Mesa release.

### Get latest source files

Ensure the latest code is available - both in your local master and the relevant branch.

### Perform basic testing

Most of the testing should already be done during the cherry-pick and pre-announce stages. So we do a quick 'touch test'

- meson dist
- scons (from release tarball)
- the produced binaries work

Here is one solution:

        __glxgears_cmd='glxgears 2>&1 | grep -v "configuration file"'
        __es2info_cmd='es2_info 2>&1 | egrep "GL_VERSION|GL_RENDERER|.*dri\.so"'
        __es2gears_cmd='es2gears_x11 2>&1 | grep -v "configuration file"'
        test "x$LD_LIBRARY_PATH" != 'x' && __old_ld="$LD_LIBRARY_PATH"
        export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=`pwd`/test/usr/local/lib/:"${__old_ld}"
        export LIBGL_DRIVERS_PATH=`pwd`/test/usr/local/lib/dri/
        export LIBGL_DEBUG=verbose
        eval $__glxinfo_cmd
        eval $__glxgears_cmd
        eval $__es2info_cmd
        eval $__es2gears_cmd
        export LIBGL_ALWAYS_SOFTWARE=true
        eval $__glxinfo_cmd
        eval $__glxgears_cmd
        eval $__es2info_cmd
        eval $__es2gears_cmd
        export LIBGL_ALWAYS_SOFTWARE=true
        export GALLIUM_DRIVER=softpipe
        eval $__glxinfo_cmd
        eval $__glxgears_cmd
        eval $__es2info_cmd
        eval $__es2gears_cmd
        # Smoke test DOTA2
        unset LD_LIBRARY_PATH
        test "x$__old_ld" != 'x' && export LD_LIBRARY_PATH="$__old_ld" && unset __old_ld
        unset LIBGL_DRIVERS_PATH
        unset LIBGL_DEBUG
        unset LIBGL_ALWAYS_SOFTWARE
        unset GALLIUM_DRIVER
        export VK_ICD_FILENAMES=`pwd`/test/usr/local/share/vulkan/icd.d/intel_icd.x86_64.json
        steam steam://rungameid/570  -vconsole -vulkan
        unset VK_ICD_FILENAMES

### Create release notes for the new release

The release notes are completely generated by the `bin/gen_release_notes.py` script. Simply run this script before bumping the version The only thing left to do is add the sha256 sums.

### Update version in file VERSION

Increment the version contained in the file VERSION at Mesa's top-level, then commit this change.

Commit these changes and push the branch.

    	git push origin HEAD

### Use the release.sh script from xorg util-modular

Start the release process.

    	# For the dist/distcheck, you may want to specify which LLVM to use:
    	# export LLVM_CONFIG=/usr/lib/llvm-3.9/bin/llvm-config
    	../relative/path/to/release.sh . # append --dist if you've already done distcheck above

Pay close attention to the prompts as you might be required to enter your GPG and SSH passphrase(s) to sign and upload the files, respectively.

### Add the sha256sums to the release notes

Edit docs/relnotes/X.Y.Z.html to add the sha256sums as available in the mesa-X.Y.Z.announce template. Commit this change.

### Back on mesa master, add the new release notes into the tree

Something like the following steps will do the trick:

    	git cherry-pick -x X.Y~1
    	git cherry-pick -x X.Y

Then run the `./bin/post_verison.py X.Y.Z`, where X.Y.Z is the version you just made. This will updated docs/relnotes.html and docs/index.html. Remove docs/release-calendar.html. Then commit and push:

    	git commit -as -m "docs: update calendar, add news item and link release notes for X.Y.Z"
    	git push origin master X.Y

## Announce the release

Use the generated template during the releasing process.

Again, pay attention to add a note to warn about a final release in a series, if that is the case.

## Update gitlab issues

Parse through the bugreports as listed in the docs/relnotes/X.Y.Z.html document. If there's outstanding action, close the bug referencing the commit ID which addresses the bug and mention the Mesa version that has the fix.

Note: the above is not applicable to all the reports, so use common sense.