groff 1.23.0.rc2 readiness

[G. Branden Robinson]

Hi Bertrand,

I'm running out of things I can think of to do before RC2.

Below, I'll excerpt the FOR-RELEASE file and annotate it.

* Increment the version number.  groff requires an explicit three-part
  version, major.minor.revision, due to the .Y register.

Can you do the "git tag 1.23.0.rc2"?  As I understand it, that is all
that is required for this step.  (Maybe I should move it to be later in
the file.)

* Update font description files that we generate from external data and
  provide with our source distribution.

    Directory  Format                  Tool
    ---------  ------                  ----
    devX*      X11 core/server font    xtotroff

  The make(1) target "maintainer-font-descriptions" produces these font
  descriptions.

This was "done" after this following commit, but it caused no changes to
in-tree files.

        commit 3c82cbbfe5c378f8fc274b93cce28624b19a1b8a
        Author: G. Branden Robinson <g.branden.robinson@gmail.com>
        Date:   Sun Feb 27 21:18:19 2022 +1100

* Retrieve current versions of UnicodeData.txt[1] and the Adobe Glyph
  List (AGL)[2], and use them with
  src/utils/afmtodit/make-afmtodit-tables to update
  src/utils/afmtodit/afmtodit.tables.

  [1] E.g., <https://www.unicode.org/Public/13.0.0/ucd/UnicodeData.txt>.
      Check for the latest _released_ version of Unicode at the time.
      Data for the forthcoming release may be available.
  [2] <https://github.com/adobe-type-tools/agl-aglfn/blob/master/\
      glyphlist.txt>

        commit f04365c2b33e0d031e509bc4e739eaf3b28b3af0
        Author: G. Branden Robinson <g.branden.robinson@gmail.com>
        Date:   Wed May 25 21:13:35 2022 -0500

* Update the 'gnulib' sub-module to the latest version and the
  corresponding required commit hash identifier in 'INSTALL.REPO'.

        commit f55d8f418935e4f63f2a54ea2fa99e25b42767f8
        Author: Bertrand Garrigues <bertrand.garrigues@laposte.net>
        Date:   Sat Apr 23 17:50:07 2022 +0200

* Update the release version number where it is hard-coded.
  + NEWS
  + BUG-REPORT
  + arch/mingw/grap2graph.cmd
  + doc/groff.texi (multiple occurrences)
  + doc/webpage.ms

        commit 5224da3e11cf586c02239b963e724425e5de4689
        Author: G. Branden Robinson <g.branden.robinson@gmail.com>
        Date:   Sun Oct 25 14:18:09 2020 +1100

* If the major or minor version number is being incremented, split off
  a historical ChangeLog file.

        commit c11995df168e38d4d6dddf11c163951a15104f34
        Author: G. Branden Robinson <g.branden.robinson@gmail.com>
        Date:   Fri Feb 19 08:22:07 2021 +1100

* Update in 'src/roff/groff/groff.cpp' the 'printf' that displays the
  copyright.

        commit e70b435374060d0e8a7de115899193fadecc9d3f
        Author: G. Branden Robinson <g.branden.robinson@gmail.com>
        Date:   Wed May 25 21:36:51 2022 -0500

* Update the copyright year with 'update-copyright.sh'.

I haven't done this yet; I'm a little uneasy with the practice, and in
the past it has been error-prone so I'm apprehensive about doing it.  I
try to update copyright years by hand when I make a change to a file
that I think of as being substantive enough to constitute "original
expression", but that is of course a highly subjective standard.
Regardless, even if the script isn't run, we still won't have many if
any truly stale dates.  Can you do this one too, if you think it's
warranted?

----

I think an announcement email for RC2 should include the portion of the
'NEWS' file up to the last release.  Alternatively, if you'd like to
excerpt the items you consider most noteworthy, that would be fine too.

I have several ideas for release notes which would similarly excerpt
'NEWS' and include some statistical information on commits,
contributors, and resolved Savannah tickets (inspired by other
announcements I've seen on the info-gnu list), but I don't want to gate
the RC on that.  I can work on it while feedback on RC2 comes in.

Our RC1 announcement[1] included building instructions.  I've updated
(and in the first 2 cases, created) all of the following top-level
documentation files recently.

        FOR-RELEASE
        HACKING
        INSTALL.REPO
        INSTALL.extra
        LICENSES
        NEWS
        PROBLEMS
        README

Of particular interest for an RC are the updated building instructions.
As part of that I've documented how to build from the snapshot archives
that Savannah/cgit create on demand from any commit.

I should also note that Bjarni suggested that we CC the GNU
platform-testers list on our future beta/RC announcements[2].  If you
like this idea and it works out, I can add this step to "FOR-RELEASE".

If there is something you'd like me to do to facilitate RC2, please
don't hesitate to ask.

Regards,
Branden

[1] https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/groff/2020-11/msg00068.html
[2] https://savannah.gnu.org/bugs/?61939

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