Add note about release candidate

1 files changed, 8 insertions, 0 deletions

diff --git a/admin/make-tarball.txt b/admin/make-tarball.txt
index cfae61e092f..85cd505a28d 100644
--- a/admin/make-tarball.txt
+++ b/admin/make-tarball.txt
@@ -50,6 +50,14 @@ General steps (for each step, check for possible errors):
     For a pretest, start at version .90.  After .99, use .990 (so that
     it sorts).
 
+    The final pretest should be a release candidate.  Set the version
+    number to that of the actual release.  Pick a date about a week
+    from now when you intend to make the release.  Use M-x add-release-logs
+    to add the ChangeLog entries for that date to the tar file (but
+    not yet to the repository).  Name the tar file as
+    emacs-XX-Y-rc1.tar.  If all goes well in the following week, you
+    can simply rename the file and use it for the actual release.
+
 5.   autoreconf -i -I m4 --force
      make bootstrap