maint: automate PACKAGE_COPYRIGHT_YEAR update, and update it.

[bison.git] / HACKING

diff --git a/HACKING b/HACKING
index 062952cc4d074a69de9c05c585a9ea526f5ca04a..680ca999b1a861478061deffd87f579fdd9b4ec3 100644 (file)
--- a/HACKING
+++ b/HACKING
@@ -213,9 +213,17 @@ causes it to be rejected by recent Gettext releases; please report
 these to the Translation Project.
 
 ** Update README
-Make sure the information in this file is current.  Most notably, make sure it
-recommends a version of GNU M4 that is compatible with the latest Bison
-sources.
+Make sure the information in README is current.  Most notably, make sure
+it recommends a version of GNU M4 that is compatible with the latest
+Bison sources.
+
+** Check copyright years.
+We update years in copyright statements throughout Bison once at the
+start of every year by running `make update-copyright'.  However, before
+a release, it's good to verify that it's actually been run.  Besides the
+copyright statement for each Bison file, check the copyright statements
+that the skeletons insert into generated parsers, and check all
+occurrences of PACKAGE_COPYRIGHT_YEAR in configure.ac.
 
 ** Update NEWS
 The version number, *and* the date of the release (including for
@@ -224,9 +232,6 @@ betas).
 ** Update ChangeLog
 Should have an entry similar to `Version 1.49b.'.
 
-** Update configure.ac
-Be sure PACKAGE_COPYRIGHT_YEAR is up-to-date.
-
 ** Tag the release
 Before Bison will build with the right version number, you must tag the release
 in git.  Do this after all other changes.  The command is similar to:
@@ -237,12 +242,6 @@ The log message can be simply:
 
   Bison 2.3b
 
-** make distcheck
-Be sure to use automake 1.10.3, 1.11.1, or later in order to avoid the
-security issue described here:
-
-  http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.comp.sysutils.autotools.announce/131
-
 ** Push
 Once `make distcheck' passes, push your changes and the tag.
 `git push' without arguments will not push the tag.