12.7 Announcing Releases

When you have a new release, please make an announcement. For official new releases, including those made just to fix bugs, we strongly recommend using the (moderated) general GNU announcements list, info-gnu@gnu.org. Doing so makes it easier for users and developers to find the latest GNU releases. On the other hand, please do not announce test releases on info-gnu unless it’s a highly unusual situation.

Please also post release announcements in the news section of your Savannah project site. Here, it is fine to also write news entries for test releases and any other newsworthy events. The news feeds from all GNU projects at savannah are aggregated at https://planet.gnu.org (GNU Planet), unless the text of the entry contains the string ‘::noplanet::’. You can also post items directly, or arrange for feeds from other locations; see information on the GNU Planet web page.

You can maintain your own mailing list (typically ‘info-package@gnu.org’) for announcements as well if you like. For your own list, of course you decide as you see fit what events are worth announcing. (See Mail, for setting this up, and more suggestions on handling mail for your package.)

When writing an announcement, please include the following:

• A very brief description (a few sentences at most) of the general purpose of your package.
• Your package’s web page (normally ‘https://www.gnu.org/software/package/’).
• Your package’s download location (normally ‘https://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/package/’). It is also useful to mention the mirror list at https://www.gnu.org/order/ftp.html, and that ‘https://ftpmirror.gnu.org/package/’ will automatically redirect to a nearby mirror.
• The NEWS (see NEWS File in GNU Coding Standards) for the present release.

You may find the announce-gen script useful for creating announcements, which is available from the build-aux/ directory of the gnulib project at https://savannah.gnu.org/projects/gnulib.