Steps for an official release

Overview

Steps detailing a release (5.0.2 is given as an example).

1. Create a rel-502 branch from master in the git repo.

• Create this in github (very straightforward) and protect the branch to not allow force pushing and also only allow integrator group to write to it.
• Also need to update Github Actions related stuff in .github/workflows/ and at top of main README.md

2. Release an online development demo that uses the rel-502 branch and updates daily.

• Also provide links for downloading rel-502 daily builds/packages(zip and tarball) to allow testing of installation and upgrading by testers

3. Publish installation, upgrade, and downloading instructions. Also set minimum php version.

• Installation documention
• Upgrade documentation
• Also update the Documentation/INSTALL file
• Ensure have correct minimum php version set in OpenEMR.

5. Bug fix and finalize the rel-502 branch.

• Update the copyright/acknowledgements page by copying the copyright page from HERE to acknowledge_license_cert.html in openemr codebase

6. Create a list of new features in the rel-502 branch (since the last official release)

• Page for maintaining the new feature lists.

7. Prepare for docker upgrade

1. Increment docker-version file (increment number by 1) in docker /root/
2. Increment docker-version file (increment number by 1) in openemr base directory
3. Increment docker-version file (increment number by 1) in openemr sites/default directory
4. Create fsupgrade-<number-incremented-to-above>.sh in docker /root/ and at least set priorOpenemrVersion and do the database upgrade
5. Edit Dockerfile to bring in the fsupgrade-<number-incremented-to-above>.sh and docker-version file into the docker (these are in the upgrade directory in the repo)

8. Release rel-502 branch by tagging in git repo with v5_0_2.

• Things to remember before tagging the release.

• Remove -dev from $v_tag (make it blank) in the version.php file
• Ensure the 'allow_debug_language' global in locale section in library/globals.inc.php is defaulted to 0

• Login into the sourceforge shell and go to the git repo and type:

git tag v5_0_0 rel-500

9. Build the docker, tar.gz and zip packages from v5_0_2.

Use following script for the tar.gz, zip, and deb packages: https://gist.github.com/bradymiller/94409d7b6eadfd3ee34ff7b4363aac25

10. Release packages on sourceforge

• Upload via Project Admin
• Upload release and a release notes file
• Set file properties appropriately

11. Announce Release

Use the follow social channels to announce the release in ~140 characters or less with a link to the formal release marketing piece or, if the release is a minor or patch release, a link to the wiki release changelog.

• Sourceforge
• Twitter
• Facebook
• google+
• Diaspora
• Mastodon
• Linkedin
• https://www.reddit.com/r/OpenEMR
• Announce to registered users

Update the OpenEMR Wikipedia entry:

• Wikipedia

If the release is a major release (as opposed to minor or patch releases), it is best to put together a nice marketing piece describing the release changes (screenshots are encouraged with new features!). Use https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/openemr-achieves-complete-meaningful-use-certification-with-release-50-300415752.html as inspiration. This release announcement should be posted on the following sites:

• Linuxmednews
• OpenHealthNews
• HackerNews

TODO: are there any other OSS sites that would be interested in having OpenEMR releases pop up in their feeds?

13. Build and release the Cloud packages.

1. AWS
2. Google