Release process and making a first release?

[poVoq]

We should probably brainstorm a bit about how we want to do (and document) the release process.

For a first release there are probably the following considerations right now:

• Remove all known to be broken bridges (mostly done, Rocketchat still pending. others?)
• Decide on Golang version (1.24 for Debian stable compatibility?)
• Vendoring dependencies (comment)?
• Complete pending PRs for attachments? Any others?

Who is going to tag the release and build the binaries or do we just take the last CI artifacts?

Any announcement posts? Coordination with distribution packagers?

[selfhoster1312]

For the golang version, i opened a dedicated issue: matterbridge-org/matterbridge#203

For vendoring dependencies, of course they'll be vendored in the release tarball. We just need to make that process happen as part of the release script.

Complete pending PRs for attachments? Any others?

I think we should try to fix the attachment/replies problems we have before a release. Otherwise we'll get even more bug reports about the same problems.

Who is going to tag the release and build the binaries or do we just take the last CI artifacts?

We should have a release script preparing the tarball. The script should be triggered from a Github action (since that's what we use at the moment). For the moment, and until we have a more elaborate process, i believe there should be 0 manual intervention (beyond pushing a git tag) to produce the release. This automation will make it easier to produce more releases in the future (avoid tech debt and unwritten protocols).

Any announcement posts?

We don't have a website (yet), but we should definitely write an announcement!

Coordination with distribution packagers?

I don't think this will be necessary for this release. We know very little about golang, about our dependencies, and about packaging in general. My personal preference would be to have "organic growth" with packaging problems slowly emerging, and not putting too much pressure on this first release by trying to get it everywhere.