The Mesa 3D Graphics Library

# Releasing Process

- Overview
- Release schedule
- Cherry-pick and test
- Staging branch
- Making a branchpoint
- 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.

## Stable releases

- Normally available once every two weeks.
- Only the latest branch has releases. See note below.

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.

Nominations happen via special tags in the commit messages, and via gitlab merge requests against the staging branches. There are special scripts used to read the tags.

The maintainer should watch or be in contact with the Intel CI team, as well as watch the gitlab CI for regressions.

Cherry picking should be done with the '-x' switch (to automatically add "cherry picked from ..." to the commit message):

`git cherry-pick -x abcdef12345667890`

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 gitlab CI must pass.

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.

    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

- 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

## 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
    truncate docs/relnotes/new_features.txt
    git commit -a
    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).

## 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 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.

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.

    ../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 sha256sum 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_version.py X.Y.Z

, where X.Y.Z is the version you just made. This will updated docs/relnotes.html, docs/index.html, and docs/release-calendar.html. It will then generate a git commit automatically. Check that everything looks correct and push:

    	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 bug reports 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.