A guide for developers who are doing a matplotlib release
When doing a release
Once all the tests are passing and you are ready to do a release, you need to create a release branch:
git checkout -b v1.1.x
git push git@github.com:matplotlib/matplotlib.git v1.1.x
On the branch, do any additional testing you want to do, and then build binaries and source distributions for testing as release candidates.
For each release candidate as well as for the final release version, please git tag the commit you will use for packaging like so:
git tag -a v1.1.0rc1
The -a flag will allow you to write a message about the tag, and affiliate your name with it. A reasonable tag message would be something like v1.1.0 Release Candidate 1 (September 24, 2011). To tag a release after the fact, just track down the commit hash, and:
git tag -a v1.0.1 a9f3f3a50745
Tags allow developers to quickly checkout different releases by name, and also provides source download via zip and tarball on github.
Post the release candidates tarballs to the matplotlib download page. If you have developer rights, you should see an “Upload a new file” section there.
Announce the release on matplotlib-announce, matplotlib-users and matplotlib-devel. Include a summary of highlights from the CHANGELOG and/or post the whole CHANGELOG since the last release.