Here are most of the steps we (maintainers) follow when making a release.

* Start from a clean, up-to-date git directory on "master":

make -k maintainer-clean || { ./configure && make maintainer-clean; }
git checkout master
git pull origin master

* Ensure that the latest stable versions of autoconf, automake, etc.
are in your PATH. See the buildreq list in bootstrap.conf for
the complete list of tools.

* Ensure that you have no uncommitted diffs. This should produce no
output:

git diff

* Ensure that you've pushed all changes that belong in the release:

git push origin master

* Check that the NixOS/Hydra autobuilder is reporting all is well:

http://hydra.nixos.org/jobset/gnu/gzip-master

* Run the following command to download any new translations:

./bootstrap && ./configure

* Pre-release testing: ensure that the following command succeeds:

make check syntax-check distcheck

* To (i) set the date, version number, and release TYPE on line 3 of
NEWS, (ii) commit that, and (iii) tag the release, run

# "TYPE" must be stable, beta or alpha
make release-commit RELEASE='X.Y TYPE'

* Run the following to create release tarballs. Your choice selects the
corresponding upload-to destination in the emitted gnupload command.
The different destinations are specified in cfg.mk. See the definitions
of gnu_ftp_host-{alpha,beta,stable}.

make release RELEASE='X.Y TYPE'

* Test the tarball. Copy it to a few odd-ball systems and ensure that
it builds and passes all tests.

* While that's happening, write the release announcement that you will
soon post. Start with the template, $HOME/announce-gzip-X.Y
that was just created by that "make" command.

Once all the builds and tests have passed,

* Run the gnupload command that was suggested by your "make release"
run above, or run

make upload RELEASE='X.Y TYPE'

* Wait a few minutes (maybe up to 30?) and then use the release URLs to
download all tarball/signature pairs and use gpg --verify to ensure
that they're all valid.

* Push the NEWS-updating changes and the new tag:

v=$(cat .prev-version)
git push origin master tag v$v

* Announce it on Savannah first, so you can include the savannah.org
announcement link in the email message.

Go to the news-submission form:

https://savannah.gnu.org/news/submit.php?group=gzip

If it does not work, then enable "News" for the project via this link:

https://savannah.gnu.org/project/admin/editgroupfeatures.php?group=gzip

Write something like the following:

Subject: gzip-X.Y released [stable]
+verbatim+
...paste the announcement here...
-verbatim-

Then go here to approve it:

https://savannah.gnu.org/news/approve.php?group=gzip

* Send the announcement email message.

* After each non-alpha release, run

make web-manual-update

to update the on-line manual accessible at

http://www.gnu.org/software/gzip/manual/