org-mode/README_maintainer

# -*- mode:org -*-

#+title: Maintainer tasks
#+startup: indent

This document describes the tasks the Org-mode maintainer has to do
and how they are performed.


* Releases

** Main releases

The release number for main releases look like this:  =7.13=

Main releases are made whenever Org is in a state where the feature
set is consistent and we feel that the features that are implemented
is something we want to support in the future.

A major release turns the current state of the master branch into a
release.  The release process is a single make command:

: make release TAG=7.13

** Minor releases

The release number for minor releases look like this:  =7.13.01=

Minor releases are small amends to main releases.  Usually they fix
bugs discovered in a main release.  Only the fix to the bug is
bundled into a release, without the main development work going on in
the master branch.  Since the big fix will also be needed in the
master branch, usually the fix is made in master and then
cherry-picked into maint.  When this is done, a release is made from
maint with this command:

: make fixrelease TAG=7.13.01

* Synchonization with Emacs

This is still a significant headache.  Some hand work is needed here.

Emacs uses bzr, I cannot bring myself to switch from git to bzr for the
development version of Org-mode.  So the way I have been doing things
is this:

1. I watch the Emacs diffs for changes made by the maintainers of
   Emacs in the org-mode files in Emacs.  Any changes that come up
   there, I merge into the development version of Org-mode.
   Occasionally I do not do this, if I do not agree with a change.
   The changes go into Org /without/ a ChangeLog-like entry in the
   commit message.  The reason for this is that we will later generate
   a ChangeLog file from our commit messages, and I do not want double
   Change entries in the Emacs ChangeLog file.

2. When I have made a release (usually I wait for the minor releases
   to stabilize), I copy org files into the Emacs repository.  Yes, I
   do not merge, I copy.  This has been the source of some problems in
   the past - but I have not had the patience to work out a better
   mechanism.

   Careful: Copy org.texi and orgcard.tex into the right places, and
   also copy the lisp files with *two exceptions*: Do *not* copy
   /org-colview-xemacs.el/ and /org-install.el/.  The former does not
   belong in Emacs.  And the latter would actually be harmful because
   Emacs generates its own autoloads.  The Emacs distribution contains
   an empty org-install.el, so that users can have =(require
   'org-install)= in .emacs with no ill effects.  So if you were to
   copy org-install.el, you would overwrite that empty placeholder
   file.

3. Generate the ChangeLog entries

   For this, I do in the org-mode git repository

   : UTILITIES/make_emacs_changelog release_7.02.05..release_7.03.02

   This will spit out the ChangeLog entries that need to go into the
   ChangeLog file in the lisp/org directory in Emacs.