This is a summary of common tasks when rolling out a release.
It should be understood as advice, which is backed by previous experience.
Printed out it comes handy with all those checkboxes :)

Quite some time before release
------------------------------
[] update documentation.
   This includes both the docs/ module in all its glory, as well as manpages and
   individual program documentation, and also generated docs (doxygen).
[] check TODO files
[] regression tests: anything gotten worse since last release?
[] check shared file consistency (run synchroniser.py)
[] update translations (i18n), see separate document 'Internationalization'
[] inform 3rd party game authors
[] hunt bugs, keep the number of new ones low
[] organize game blitzes

Directly before release
-----------------------
[] update build instruction.
   Affected files are README.GGZ and QuickStart.GGZ.
   Does 'make distcheck' work? (The ggzbuild tools might help)
   (There's also DISTCHECK_CONFIGURE_FLAGS to add a prefix or the like.)
[] update RPM and Debian scripts if possible
[] update NEWS and README
[] bump version numbers
   This includes configure.in, man pages, Doxygen files, and hard-coded values.
   Protocol version numbers should be controlled by
   /docs/games/game-development/games.html
   In GGZ-Java, it must be changed in AboutDialog.java.
[] decide which library interface versions must be bumped
   (libtool only - see info libtool for the concept)
[] update version definitions in header files accordingly
[] update toplevel ChangeLog files with CVS/SVN history
   svn2cl > ChangeLog (from playground/maintenance/projectserver/subversion/)
[] inform distributors, via ggz-servers list
   (currently: Debian, Gentoo, Slackware, SourceMage, Arch Linux, Lunar Linux,
   Mandrake, Sorcerer)
[] update permanent stable game servers
   Currently, this is live.ggzgamingzone.org.
   Also, the metaserver should contain an entry for the previous version,
   pointing to a convenience host.
   Announce on ggz-servers.

During release
--------------
[] tag SVN with symbolic tag '/tags/ggz-x-y-z'
   Create stable branch '/branches/ggz-x-y-z'.
[] create source tarballs, and upload them to the GGZ FTP server,
   wait for mirrors
[] web site synchronization - test success with md5 hash sums.
   The release announcement as well as several common files should be updated.
   This includes the QuickStart.GGZ and README.GGZ files, and everything under
   docs/:
    - API documentation
    - games.html and features.html
    - guides
    - user docs, grubby docs
   The release pages (/releases/latest/) must be updated manually.
[] announce on various game-related websites
   Examples can be found in promo.txt.
   Announce on ggz-announce.
[] find some time to actually play one of our games once, celebrating the
   release, help first-time users

After release
-------------
[] Check each and every problem
[] Update roadmap, decide which playground stuff goes gold next time

