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, zip and deb 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?

12. Build and release the Windows XAMPP package.

1. Update php.ini (xampp/php/php.ini)
   • Standard php settings
   • Uncomment extensions for ldap and openssl
2. Update apache config (xampp/apache/conf/httpd.conf)
3. Update mariadb innodb config (/xampp/mysql/bin/my.ini)
   • innodb_buffer_pool_size from 16M to 256M
   • innodb_log_file_size from 5M to 64M

13. Build and release the Cloud packages.

1. AWS
2. Google