This page is a brain dump of the various items needed for a release. It needs some work...

Preparation

request Bugzilla version update
ensure changes.xml is up to date
update JMeterVersion.java
build documents, having first cleaned out existing files (so obsolete files will be removed):
- [clean-docs] then [docs-site]
- [clean-apidocs] then [docs-api]
update docs tree in SVN
build code
test
- GUI and non-GUI using host with graphic capability
- non-GUI only using host with no graphic capability
- ideally test on Java 1.4 and latest Java - especially for GUI

Generate Release

tag all the files with the new version tag
extract files from SVN using the tag into a new directory tree
create distribution files:
- ant distribution -Djmeter.version=m.n -Duser.name=user-AT-apache.org
- sign distribution files (gpg -ba file)

upload to temporary location (e.g. personal dir)
- cd public_html ; mkdir jmeter-m.n
- cd jmeter-m.n
- mkdir dist
- svn co http://svn.apache.org/repos/asf/jakarta/jmeter/tags/vm_nxx/docs
send round [VOTE] e-mail
Wait for any feedback; address any issues raised
If at least 3 PMC votes, then continue
send round [VOTE] [RESULT] e-mail

copy archives to /www/www.apache.org/dist/jakarta/jmeter/binaries and /www/www.apache.org/dist/jakarta/jmeter/source
delete any obsolete releases (keep the current one)
check files are visible and downloadable from www.apache.org (2+ hours)
wait a day or so for mirrors to catch up

update ./site/xdocs/downloads/downloads.xml file in SVN to point to new directory
update news.xml to add details of new release
rebuild jakarta site2 (ant docs)
commit changes
login to people.apache.org
cd /www/jakarta.apache.org
svn update index.html site
cd /www/jakarta.apache.org/jmeter
fetch site from SVN:
- svn switch http://svn.apache.org/repos/asf/jakarta/jmeter/tags/vm_nxx/docs
- for later updates, use "svn switch" or "svn update" as appropriate
N.B. wait for few hours so site updates catch up

update Wiki version details
update doap_JMeter.rdf details in trunk
send [ANNOUNCE] e-mail to jmeter-user, jmeter-dev, general@jakarta
also copy to announce AT ao (has to be sent from an ao e-mail address)
N.B. to track bounces and unsubscribes, it may be a good idea to use separate mails to Jakarta and Announce, and include a simple marker to distinguish them, e.g. To: Jakarta, To: Announce.