Release checklist Plone 6.2.0 RC 1

[mauritsvanrees]

Release packages, update versions

• Check Jenkins Status: should be green. (This should be checked often during the release process.)
• In coredev, optionally check packages for updates: bin/manage report --interactive. I never do this anymore, but the option is there. This is not really needed now that we have mr.roboto to add packages to the checkouts.
• Optionally use bin/versioncheck to see if any new PyPI releases are worth adding, or check the artifact of the versioncheck GitHub Action.
• Check that the overrides in versions.cfg and mx.ini are in sync.
• Release individual packages from checkouts.cfg.
• Check that the version numbers of CMFPlone metadata.xml and latest upgrade step are in sync, and that they are higher than in the previous Plone release.
• Handle special packages, often handled by special people. :-) You can can ping people in the release-team channel on Discord, in the current issue, or individually:
  • plonetheme.barceloneta and plone.staticresources need a release on PyPI and npmjs. Maybe plone.classicui. Ask Peter Mathis (petschki), Johannes (thet) or Maik (MrTango).
  • plone.restapi and maybe plone.volto. Ask David (davisagli) or Timo (tisto).
  • plone.app.locales. Ask Mikel (erral).
  • Release plone.app.upgrade, Plone and Products.CMFPlone yourself.
  • Update the versions of those packages in versions.cfg. This is done automatically if you are in a checkout of the package within buildout.coredev and run ../../bin/fullrelease. Or run bin/manage set-package-version package-name new-version.

Release notes, constraints, dist.plone.org

• Adjust coredev branch release/6.2-dev. Most importantly, the auto-checkout list in checkouts.cfg should be empty, and the versions.cfg and requirements.txt should be the same. One way that works for me: git switch release/6.2-dev; git reset --hard 6.2; git reset origin/release/6.2-dev; git checkout .package_ignores checkouts.cfg last_commit.txt mxcheckouts.ini. Then check which remaining changes you want to commit.
• Update the 6.2-dev directory on dist.plone.org, and gather files to put there:
  • Create a unified changelog based on the previous release: bin/manage changelog --start=6.2.0a1 > release/changelog.txt. Remove the uninteresting top lines. You may want to link to the Zope changelog with a specific tag.
  • Create a file release/RELEASE-NOTES.md. It may be enough to look through the changelog and copy interesting changes.
  • Get the versions*.cfg file and any other versions files from coredev.
  • NEW. Run make install. This uses mxdev to install packages and generate some files. Most importantly this generates constraints-mxdev.txt. This contains all constraints, and makes sure no constraints are in there twice (provided that mx.ini is correct). This is really the only constraints file that is needed and that is correct. So for now I will only ship this one and call it constraints.txt on dist.plone.org. This may need some more thought and updates in next releases.
  • Use tox -c release/tox.ini to copy these files to release/dist.
  • Copy (rsync) these files to the pending release directory: scp release/dist/* dist.plone.org:release/6.2-dev/

Final release, Docker

• Create tag of the release/6.2-dev branch, e.g. 6.2.0a1, and push to GitHub.
• Make final release directory on dist.plone.org, with versions, requirements, constraints, changelog, release notes.
• Update the "-latest" links on dist.plone.org, e.g. ln -sfT 6.2.0a1 6.2-latest
• Create a pull request for the plone-backend Docker image with the new version number. Get this reviewed, merged, tagged, released.

Announcements

You probably want to wait until the Docker images are there, but don't wait long.

• Create release page on https://plone.org/download/releases. This currently needs the Classic UI and some workarounds:
  • Go to the https://plone.org/ClassicUI/failsafe_login_form and login. Not with your GitHub username, but a special user. Ask the A/I team if you don't know.
  • In https://plone.org/ClassicUI/download/releases/ add a new Plone Release.
  • In the text you need the html of release notes. What I do: create a new post on community.plone.org, copy the release notes (MarkDown) in there, copy the html output, and save as a draft. Then paste the html in the Release notes field. Copy changelog.txt in the other field.
  • Go to the folder contents: https://plone.org/ClassicUI/download/releases/folder_contents. Go to the last batch page, and move the new release to the top of the folder.
  • Go to the ZMI: https://plone.org/ClassicUI/download/releases/manage_main. Rename plonerelease to new version number.
  • The rest can be done on the Volto side.
• Publish release page on plone.org.
• Update the https://plone.org/security/hotfixes/ page.
• Update the release schedule: note the new release, and say when the next release in this series is expected.
• Edit the link on https://plone.org/download.
• Announce on community.plone.org.
• In plone/documentation's conf.py, update SUPPORTED_PYTHON_VERSIONS_PLONE62 as needed. Ask Steve Piercy or do it yourself.
• Check if the version policy in Volto is still up to date.
• Send mail to Marketing Team so they can prepare announcements.
• Ask Philip Bauer and/or Fred van Dijk to update the demo sites. Here is a sample PR. Mostly just a search and replace, except when you want to update Volto as well.

[mauritsvanrees]

@sneridagh @tisto @petschki @erral @davisagli
Can you make releases of your packages by Wednesday please?
I want to make an RC Thursday or Friday.

I have spent too much time on community already this week, so I don't mind much if someone sees a reason to postpone till next week. But most work should be behind us. Famous last words...

@sneridagh Do you have updated release notes for Volto, compared that what we have here?
https://dist.plone.org/release/6.2-dev/RELEASE-NOTES.md

[tisto]

@mauritsvanrees IMO, we need to merge and release plone/volto#8041 before we can move on. We are preparing the hi-level changelog for the release and we need screencasts or screenshots of the new features.

[stevepiercy]

@mauritsvanrees from the release notes:

This release supports Python 3.10, 3.11, 3.12, and 3.13.

Support for Python 3.14 is expected in the next alpha or first beta release of 6.2.

But you're beyond alpha and beta, and on to release candidates.

Then in

Products.CMFPlone/setup.py

Line 30 in 656c4b2

"Programming Language :: Python :: 3.14",

Would you please advise which versions of Python are supported, and update the appropriate file? I'll prepare a PR in documentation accordingly. Thank you!

[sneridagh]

@mauritsvanrees great we are finally ready for the final release!

However, let's not rush it now. I agree with @tisto , we need a unified changelog in https://plone.org/download/releases along with screenshots and screencasts.

[mauritsvanrees]

@stevepiercy Plone 6.2 is for Python 3.10-3.14. I will update my release notes.

For clarity (but I don't think we need to mention this in release notes or docs):

• We always test the 6.2 branch and PRs on 3.10 and 3.14 on Jenkins.
• On a weekly basis we test the intermediate Pythons, see the Schedules tab on Jenkins.
• And since a few weeks we run a full test suite with GitHub Actions on the coredev.buildout repo with Python 3.13 and 3.14.

[mauritsvanrees]

IMO, we need to merge and release plone/volto#8041 before we can move on. We are preparing the hi-level changelog for the release and we need screencasts or screenshots of the new features.

@tisto That PR is a bugfix that makes a table wider. If we want to hold up a release for such fixes, we will never ship. (BTW, it has been merged since your comment, and can of course be released, I will leave that to David.)

Or is your point not the bugfix, but those screencasts and screenshots?

However, let's not rush it now. I agree with @tisto , we need a unified changelog in https://plone.org/download/releases along with screenshots and screencasts.

@sneridagh When I read these comments by you and Timo, I wonder if you two realise that I am talking about a release candidate, not a final release. Or do you really think we should first have those screenshots and screencasts and only then make the release candidate?

Sigh... maybe that is okay.

But I definitely want some release this week, or at the latest next Monday. It has been two months since the previous alpha, which is far too long (my bad). And I don't think those nice screen thingies will magically appear in the next two days or so.

So then this would be the first beta release. Which is the logical next step after an alpha release of course, so maybe I shouldn't have wanted to speed past that stage.

A beta is fine for me. Shall we go for that? At least that gives the signal to core developers: no new features please, let's polish what we have.

[erral]

plone.app.locales == 7.0.0a3 released.

[petschki]

New releases:

plonetheme.barceloneta == 4.0.1
plone.staticresources == 3.0.0a5

@plone/mockup == 5.6.1
@plone/plonetheme-barceloneta-base == 4.0.0

Complete Changelog for staticresources 3.x (mockup 5.5.x - 5.6.x) is here: https://github.com/plone/mockup/blob/5.6.1/CHANGES.md

[stevepiercy]

• In plone/documentation's conf.py, update SUPPORTED_PYTHON_VERSIONS_PLONE62 as needed. Ask Steve Piercy or do it yourself.

plone/documentation#2071

• Check if the version policy in Volto is still up to date.

plone/volto#8051

And because these two packages get pulled into documentation, I noticed a couple of things.

Old issues for plone.api, which could use some love:

• Maintenance: add Plone 6.1, drop 5.2; add Python 3.12, 3.13, drop 3.9 plone.api#548
• Remove Plone 6.0 / Python 3.8 support plone.api#552

plone.restapi's Upgrade guide doesn't mention that it requires Python 3.10+ and Plone 6.2, as it states in the change log.

• https://6.docs.plone.org/plone.restapi/docs/source/upgrade-guide.html
• https://github.com/plone/plone.restapi/blob/main/CHANGES.md#breaking-changes

[mauritsvanrees]

Old issues for plone.api, which could use some love:

• Maintenance: add Plone 6.1, drop 5.2; add Python 3.12, 3.13, drop 3.9 plone.api#548
• Remove Plone 6.0 / Python 3.8 support plone.api#552

I closed them both as already done.

plone.restapi's Upgrade guide doesn't mention that it requires Python 3.10+ and Plone 6.2, as it states in the change log.

• https://6.docs.plone.org/plone.restapi/docs/source/upgrade-guide.html
• https://github.com/plone/plone.restapi/blob/main/CHANGES.md#breaking-changes

The upgrade guide is right, the changelog is wrong.
I made a PR to fix it:
plone/plone.restapi#2006

[mauritsvanrees]

I had a chat with Victor and Timo. We will stick to calling this a release candidate, end of this week. If some updated screen shots are already there, that is fine, but not required for the release candidate.

I will keep publishing the usual technical release notes on community.plone.org, and pushing them to dist.plone.org. The originals for these are on the release/6.2-dev branch of buildout.coredev, in the release directory. I sync this back to the 6.2 branch after a release.

On plone.org instead of creating an instance of the old Plone Release content type by jumping through some hoops in Classic UI, we can just create a News Item within https://plone.org/download/releases. Then anyone can edit it because this just uses Blocks.

• On the top can be a nice marketing section with screen shots.
• Then an accordion, collapsed, with sections for:
  • backend
  • frontend
  • Classic UI

Well, except that you can only add Plone Releases in that folder, and not News Items. And I don't see in Volto where to change this. This may need a trip via ClassicUI after all. ;-)

In 6.2.0a1 for the first time I added a larger section on Volto, instead of just a few links. I think in the technical release notes it now makes sense to go back to simply linking to the latest Volto, without extra text. The Volto text would then be something that Victor adds in the plone.org News Item.

[sneridagh]

@mauritsvanrees I guess that the old content type only gives you the metadata, and probably it is not use anywhere else... why don't we enable the blocks behavior, and put all in blocks?

[sneridagh]

@mauritsvanrees mmm that might hide all the default view for existing ones though... :/
@fredvd can we make a quick test on test.plone.org?

[mauritsvanrees]

Indeed as far as I know, the metadata is not used anymore. At least not for new content: there are links between the Security Team related content types and the Releases, based on the metadata. But for new release that is not needed.

The oldest I found was 4.3.9. I thought it would go back to Plone 2-something.

I would not want to touch those old ones. Well, if there is a migration on the new plone.org then this may be possible. But I never edit any of these, except maybe a typo shortly after release. So if the old ones can be displayed without being editable, then it would be fine. But this is getting into the territory of the new plone.org, so this is getting out of scope. :-)

I went into the Classic UI and changed the constraints. Now we can add News Items. I started one here, but it only has a title:
https://plone.org/download/releases/6-2.0rc1

Hm. It was created as '6-2.0rc1' first. I tried renaming it to '6.2.0rc1' to match the other releases, but this was changed to '6-2-1.0rc'. Wait, where did that '-1' came from? Maybe my mistake. Tried again with only dots, but this became '6-2.0rc1' again. Oh well, that does not matter much.

The news item is private. We can experiment.