Zulip server release checklist

This document has reminders of things one might forget to do when preparing a new release.

Upgrade all Python dependencies in requirements to latest upstream versions so they can burn in (use pip list --outdated).
Update all the strings on Transifex and notify translators that they should translate the new strings to get them in for the next release.
Update changelog.md with major changes going into the release.
Create a burndown list of bugs that need to be fixed before we can release, and make sure all of them are being worked on.

Update changelog.md with any final changes since the last update.
Draft the release notes; see previous zulip-announce emails for the tooling needed.
Download updated translation strings from Transifex and commit them.
Use build-release-tarball to generate a release tarball.
Test the new tarball extensively, both new install and upgrade from last release, on both Trusty and Xenial.
Repeat until release is ready.

Do final updates to changelog.md.
Update ZULIP_VERSION in version.py.
Update version and/or release in docs/conf.py (ReadTheDocs meta tags).
Use build-release-tarball to generate a final release tarball.
Post the release tarball on zulip.org and update zulip.org.
Add the sha256sum of the release to the file SHA256SUMS.txt in https://www.zulip.org/dist/releases/
Create a git tag and push the tag.
Upload the release on GitHub so it doesn't provide a broken release tarball.
Email zulip-announce with the release notes
For a major release, post on the blog, tweet, etc.