Releases/Firefox 2.0.0.15/Checklist

This is the general release checklist we should use for maintenance releases.

It is organized by major functional activity in roughly chronological order. At the end of each bullet is the owner of the checklist item from within the Release Team.

Team

• Project lead: ss
• Security/Dev lead: dveditz/bsterne
• Build lead: bhearsum
• QA lead: abillings

Checklist

• Meet and schedule release - Entire team
  • Email dev-planning and release-drivers to announce meeting (2 days in advance) - Project lead
  • Have meeting - Led by Project lead

• Decision on release date - Entire team
  • Update Releases page - Project lead
  • Update Releases/PRODUCT&VERSION with proposed schedule - Project lead
  • Email dev-planning and release-drivers with proposed schedule - Project lead

• Triage of blocking/approval requests as needed - Entire team (minus build)
  • Schedule meetings - Project lead
  • Alert developers of upcoming freeze - Project lead

• Development code freeze - Dev lead
  • Email release-drivers when all code is in with formal "Go" - Project lead
    • Include bonsai URI from last 24 hours. Specify timezone in email as well (PST vs PDT).

• Builds created (all locales) - Build lead
  • Email release-drivers when builds are created - Build lead
  • Email betatesters when builds are created - Project lead

• QA verification - QA Lead
  • QA completes testing and maps it onto their test plan page (usually at PRODUCTNAME:VERSION:Test_Plan on the wiki) - QA Lead
  • When signed off, email release-drivers with notification - QA Lead

• Build snippets on betatest channel - Build lead
  • Email QA lead when finished - Build lead

• Project lead creates beta release notes; staging and live - Project Lead

• QA verifies snippets and website and emails release-drivers when signed off - QA Lead

• If any of those fail, email release-drivers with a formal "stop" notification and a second "go" notification when the process is started again - Project Lead

• "Go" to beta
  • Formal "Go" email sent to release-drivers - Project lead
  • Build snippets pushed to beta channel - Build lead
  • QA verifies snippets on beta channel - QA Lead

• Beta period
  • Announce to release-drivers, m.d.a.firefox, m.announce.prerelease, m.d.planning - Project lead
  • Notify mirrors of beta release - Project lead emails Justin
  • Notify PR (melissa, nloux) of "we're shipping in a week" estimate - Project lead
  • Announce to AV/Firewall venders - Project lead
  • Announce to security group - Security lead
    • to security and security-announce aliases
  • Monitor feedback - QA Lead, Project lead

• Vulnerability notices - Security lead
  • Draft to Security Group/Security-anncounce
  • Notify CERT (as needed)

• Draft release notes - Project lead
  • Confirm release notes with dev lead, QA lead, others as appropriate
  • Stage release notes, other website changes
  • Vet past marketing (jslater@m.c)
  • Alert Mozilla Europe/Japan/China as soon as release notes are ready - Project lead
    • Be sure to give them the estimated release date and time.
  • Alert webdev (clouserw/morgamic) of when release is planned for (for product-details pushing) - Project lead

• Decision to release - Entire team
  • If yes, let IT know 24-48 hours ahead of time based on release policy - Project lead
  • Notify PR (melissa, nloux) of "we're shipping in x days/hours/minutes" estimate - Project lead

• Final Release
  • Bits to mirrors - Project lead sends "go email"
    • Push actual bits - Build lead
  • Verify bits on releasetest channel - QA Lead
  • Push website changes - Project lead
  • Push security advisories - Security lead
    • Don't forget the security center changes [1]
  • QA verifies website changes - QA Lead
  • Build pushes to release channel - Build lead
  • QA verifies release channel - QA Lead

• Notify the world - Project lead
  • all -at- mozilla.com (so all staff knows)
  • drivers -at- mozilla.org (so drivers outside Mozilla Corp know)
  • m.dev.planning newsgroup
  • m.announce newsgroup (all product release announcements are expected here)
  • MDC Devnews
  • Post the Press Release
  • File IT/Server Ops request to add stats info
    • Something like "Subject:Add 2.0.0.x to stats;Description:Please add 2.0.0.x to our stats. FirefoxActiveUserCountByVersion, Firefox20DownloadsByVersion, etc."