the (hopefully final) "release candidate" of the new release system is now on scratch.drupal.org. i have made a lot of updates and edits to the original forum post about this: http://drupal.org/node/90436 the scratch DB and cvs repo have been wiped clean, and the installed copies of project.module, project_issue.module, project_release.module, cvslog.module, the xcvs-* access control scripts, and the packaging script to create releases are all running the most recent code (in the DRUPAL-4-7--2 branch of the contrib repo, if anyone's following closely). of particular interest: 1) http://scratch.drupal.org/handbook/version-info#contrib a draft of the new handbook text describing contrib version strings in the new system -- this would obviously replace the real http:// drupal.org/handbook/version-info once the new system is live. 2) http://drupal.org/node/90436#critical-issues my list of known-issues that must be addressed before the system can be deployed. as you can see, everything is now crossed-out (i.e. done) except 2 final documentation tasks. any help would be greatly appreciated... (see also http://lists.drupal.org/archives/development/ 2006-10/msg00604.html) 3) http://drupal.org/node/90436#future-work my to-do list of other issues/improvements that should be done, but which aren't so critical that they need to delay the new system being deployed. again, any help would be great (both in terms of patches for existing issues, or other ideas on improvements we should make). pretty, pretty please, try out scratch.drupal.org. try tagging some releases for your contribs in the scratch cvs repository, create release nodes, and watch them get packaged. see what gets included in the tarball. read the version-info handbook page and see if it makes sense. play with the UI. LET ME KNOW if anything isn't working how you expect or if you find any problems. see http:// drupal.org/node/90436#feedback for how/where to provide feedback. if the rest of the docs get written, this could all be live in a day or 2... i've done almost all i possibly can to get to this point -- now's your chance to contribute. thanks!!! -derek (dww)