jcamachor commented on code in PR #434:
URL: https://github.com/apache/incubator-xtable/pull/434#discussion_r1668190498


##########
release/release_guide.md:
##########
@@ -0,0 +1,570 @@
+<!--
+  Licensed to the Apache Software Foundation (ASF) under one or more
+  contributor license agreements.  See the NOTICE file distributed with
+  this work for additional information regarding copyright ownership.
+  The ASF licenses this file to You under the Apache License, Version 2.0
+  (the "License"); you may not use this file except in compliance with
+  the License.  You may obtain a copy of the License at
+
+       http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
+
+  Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
+  distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
+  WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
+  See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
+  limitations under the License.
+-->
+
+# Introduction
+
+Apache XTable, currently an incubating project at the Apache Software 
Foundation (ASF), is a cross-table converter for table formats that facilitates 
omni-directional interoperability across data processing systems and query 
engines. 
+This guide outlines the steps for releasing Apache XTable versions, following 
the ASF policies and incorporating practices from other successful ASF projects.
+
+# Legal Reminders
+
+Releasing software under the ASF banner requires adherence to the [ASF Release 
Policy](https://infra.apache.org/release-publishing.html) and [Incubator 
Release 
Guidelines](https://incubator.apache.org/guides/releasemanagement.html#best-practice).
 
+Please ensure all releases comply with these guidelines, focusing on proper 
licensing, source code distribution, and community approval.
+
+# Overview
+
+![](release_guide_overview.jpg)
+
+The release process consists of several steps:
+
+1. Decide to release
+2. Prepare for the release
+3. Build a release candidate
+4. Vote on the release candidate
+5. During vote process, run validation tests
+6. If necessary, fix any issues and go back to step 3.
+7. Finalize the release
+8. Promote the release
+
+# Decide to release
+
+Deciding to release and selecting a Release Manager is the first step of the 
release process. This is a consensus-based
+decision of the entire community.
+
+Anybody can propose a release on the dev@ mailing list, giving a solid 
argument and nominating a committer as the
+Release Manager (including themselves). There’s no formal process, no vote 
requirements, and no timing requirements. Any
+objections should be resolved by consensus before starting the release.
+
+In general, the community prefers to have a rotating set of 3-5 Release 
Managers. Keeping a small core set of managers
+allows enough people to build expertise in this area and improve processes 
over time, without Release Managers needing
+to re-learn the processes for each release. That said, if you are a committer 
interested in serving the community in
+this way, please reach out to the community on the dev@ mailing list.
+
+## Checklist to proceed to the next step
+
+1. Community agrees to release
+2. Community selects a Release Manager
+
+# Prepare for the release
+
+Before your first release, you should perform one-time configuration steps. 
This will set up your security keys for
+signing the release and access to various release repositories.
+
+To prepare for each release, you should audit the project status in the JIRA 
issue tracker, and do the necessary
+bookkeeping. Finally, you should create a release branch from which individual 
release candidates will be built.
+
+**NOTE**: If you are
+using [GitHub two-factor 
authentication](https://help.github.com/articles/securing-your-account-with-two-factor-authentication-2fa/)
+and haven’t configure HTTPS access, please
+follow [the 
guide](https://help.github.com/articles/creating-a-personal-access-token-for-the-command-line/)
 to configure
+command line access.
+
+## One-time Setup Instructions
+
+You need to have a GPG key to sign the release artifacts. Please be aware of 
the
+ASF-wide [release signing 
guidelines](https://www.apache.org/dev/release-signing.html). If you don’t have 
a GPG key
+associated with your Apache account, please follow the section below.
+
+### For Linux users
+
+There are 2 ways to configure your GPG key for release, either using release 
automation script(which is recommended), or
+running all commands manually. If using Mac, please see below to handle known 
issues.
+
+#### Use preparation_before_release.sh to setup GPG
+
+- Script: preparation_before_release.sh
+- Usage ./incubator-xtable/release/scripts/preparation_before_release.sh
+- Tasks included

Review Comment:
   These tasks might become outdated if the bash script changes or is updated. 
I recommend describing the purpose of the script at a high level and making 
sure these details are embedded into the script itself.



##########
release/release_guide.md:
##########
@@ -0,0 +1,570 @@
+<!--
+  Licensed to the Apache Software Foundation (ASF) under one or more
+  contributor license agreements.  See the NOTICE file distributed with
+  this work for additional information regarding copyright ownership.
+  The ASF licenses this file to You under the Apache License, Version 2.0
+  (the "License"); you may not use this file except in compliance with
+  the License.  You may obtain a copy of the License at
+
+       http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
+
+  Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
+  distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
+  WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
+  See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
+  limitations under the License.
+-->
+
+# Introduction
+
+Apache XTable, currently an incubating project at the Apache Software 
Foundation (ASF), is a cross-table converter for table formats that facilitates 
omni-directional interoperability across data processing systems and query 
engines. 
+This guide outlines the steps for releasing Apache XTable versions, following 
the ASF policies and incorporating practices from other successful ASF projects.
+
+# Legal Reminders
+
+Releasing software under the ASF banner requires adherence to the [ASF Release 
Policy](https://infra.apache.org/release-publishing.html) and [Incubator 
Release 
Guidelines](https://incubator.apache.org/guides/releasemanagement.html#best-practice).
 
+Please ensure all releases comply with these guidelines, focusing on proper 
licensing, source code distribution, and community approval.
+
+# Overview
+
+![](release_guide_overview.jpg)
+
+The release process consists of several steps:
+
+1. Decide to release
+2. Prepare for the release
+3. Build a release candidate
+4. Vote on the release candidate
+5. During vote process, run validation tests
+6. If necessary, fix any issues and go back to step 3.
+7. Finalize the release
+8. Promote the release
+
+# Decide to release
+
+Deciding to release and selecting a Release Manager is the first step of the 
release process. This is a consensus-based
+decision of the entire community.
+
+Anybody can propose a release on the dev@ mailing list, giving a solid 
argument and nominating a committer as the
+Release Manager (including themselves). There’s no formal process, no vote 
requirements, and no timing requirements. Any
+objections should be resolved by consensus before starting the release.
+
+In general, the community prefers to have a rotating set of 3-5 Release 
Managers. Keeping a small core set of managers

Review Comment:
   I'm not sure why the community should prefer a rotating set of 3-5 release 
managers (and not more, for example). Our goal should be to improve the release 
guide over time so that any committer in the community can volunteer to act as 
a release manager and successfully do so by simply following the steps in the 
guide. On that note, it would be beneficial if the release managers for the 
first few releases were different people, and they would help to make sure 
guidelines are clear and improve them throughout the process.



##########
release/release_guide.md:
##########
@@ -0,0 +1,570 @@
+<!--
+  Licensed to the Apache Software Foundation (ASF) under one or more
+  contributor license agreements.  See the NOTICE file distributed with
+  this work for additional information regarding copyright ownership.
+  The ASF licenses this file to You under the Apache License, Version 2.0
+  (the "License"); you may not use this file except in compliance with
+  the License.  You may obtain a copy of the License at
+
+       http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
+
+  Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
+  distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
+  WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
+  See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
+  limitations under the License.
+-->
+
+# Introduction
+
+Apache XTable, currently an incubating project at the Apache Software 
Foundation (ASF), is a cross-table converter for table formats that facilitates 
omni-directional interoperability across data processing systems and query 
engines. 
+This guide outlines the steps for releasing Apache XTable versions, following 
the ASF policies and incorporating practices from other successful ASF projects.
+
+# Legal Reminders
+
+Releasing software under the ASF banner requires adherence to the [ASF Release 
Policy](https://infra.apache.org/release-publishing.html) and [Incubator 
Release 
Guidelines](https://incubator.apache.org/guides/releasemanagement.html#best-practice).
 
+Please ensure all releases comply with these guidelines, focusing on proper 
licensing, source code distribution, and community approval.
+
+# Overview
+
+![](release_guide_overview.jpg)
+
+The release process consists of several steps:
+
+1. Decide to release
+2. Prepare for the release
+3. Build a release candidate
+4. Vote on the release candidate
+5. During vote process, run validation tests
+6. If necessary, fix any issues and go back to step 3.
+7. Finalize the release
+8. Promote the release
+
+# Decide to release
+
+Deciding to release and selecting a Release Manager is the first step of the 
release process. This is a consensus-based
+decision of the entire community.
+
+Anybody can propose a release on the dev@ mailing list, giving a solid 
argument and nominating a committer as the
+Release Manager (including themselves). There’s no formal process, no vote 
requirements, and no timing requirements. Any
+objections should be resolved by consensus before starting the release.
+
+In general, the community prefers to have a rotating set of 3-5 Release 
Managers. Keeping a small core set of managers
+allows enough people to build expertise in this area and improve processes 
over time, without Release Managers needing
+to re-learn the processes for each release. That said, if you are a committer 
interested in serving the community in
+this way, please reach out to the community on the dev@ mailing list.
+
+## Checklist to proceed to the next step
+
+1. Community agrees to release
+2. Community selects a Release Manager
+
+# Prepare for the release
+
+Before your first release, you should perform one-time configuration steps. 
This will set up your security keys for
+signing the release and access to various release repositories.
+
+To prepare for each release, you should audit the project status in the JIRA 
issue tracker, and do the necessary
+bookkeeping. Finally, you should create a release branch from which individual 
release candidates will be built.
+
+**NOTE**: If you are
+using [GitHub two-factor 
authentication](https://help.github.com/articles/securing-your-account-with-two-factor-authentication-2fa/)
+and haven’t configure HTTPS access, please
+follow [the 
guide](https://help.github.com/articles/creating-a-personal-access-token-for-the-command-line/)
 to configure
+command line access.
+
+## One-time Setup Instructions
+
+You need to have a GPG key to sign the release artifacts. Please be aware of 
the
+ASF-wide [release signing 
guidelines](https://www.apache.org/dev/release-signing.html). If you don’t have 
a GPG key
+associated with your Apache account, please follow the section below.
+
+### For Linux users
+
+There are 2 ways to configure your GPG key for release, either using release 
automation script(which is recommended), or
+running all commands manually. If using Mac, please see below to handle known 
issues.
+
+#### Use preparation_before_release.sh to setup GPG
+
+- Script: preparation_before_release.sh
+- Usage ./incubator-xtable/release/scripts/preparation_before_release.sh
+- Tasks included
+    1. Help you create a new GPG key if you want.
+    2. Configure git user.signingkey with chosen pubkey.
+    3. Add chosen pubkey into dev KEYS and release KEYS **NOTES**: Only PMC 
can write into release repo.
+    4. Start GPG agents.
+
+#### Run all commands manually
+
+- Get more entropy for creating a GPG key
+    - sudo apt-get install rng-tools
+    - sudo rngd -r /dev/urandom
+- Create a GPG key
+    - gpg --full-generate-key
+- Determine your Apache GPG Key and Key ID, as follows:
+    - gpg --list-keys
+- This will list your GPG keys. One of these should reflect your Apache 
account, for example:
+  ```
+  --------------------------------------------------
+  pub   2048R/935D191 2019-08-29
+  uid   Anonymous Anonymous <anonym...@apache.org>
+  sub   2048R/CD4C59FD 2019-08-29
+  ```
+  Here, the key ID is the 8-digit hex string in the pub line: 845E6689 or more 
than 8-digit hex string like
+  623E08E06DB376684FB9599A3F5953147903948A. Now, add your Apache GPG key to 
the incubator-xtable’s KEYS file both
+  in [dev](https://dist.apache.org/repos/dist/dev/incubator/xtable/KEYS)
+  and 
[release](https://dist.apache.org/repos/dist/release/incubator/xtable/KEYS) 
repositories
+  at [dist.apache.org](http://dist.apache.org/). Follow the instructions 
listed at the top of these files. (**Note**:
+  Only PMC members have write access to the release repository. If you end up 
getting 403 errors ask on the mailing list
+  for assistance.)
+- Configure git to use this key when signing code by giving it your key ID, as 
follows:
+    - git config --global user.signingkey XXXXXXXX
+    - You may drop the --global option if you’d prefer to use this key for the 
current repository only.
+- Start GPG agent in order to unlock your GPG key
+    - eval $(gpg-agent --daemon --no-grab --write-env-file 
$HOME/.gpg-agent-info)
+    - export GPG_TTY=$(tty)
+    - export GPG_AGENT_INFO
+
+### For Mac users
+
+- apt-get is not available. So install gpg using 
[https://gpgtools.org/](https://gpgtools.org/).
+- Create gpg key with your apache emailId and publish to key server 
(referhttps://gpgtools.org/ to the section "Submit
+  your GPG public key into MIT PGP Public Key Server" below)
+- The KEYS file is in 
[https://dist.apache.org/repos/dist/](https://dist.apache.org/repos/dist/)
+    - To checkout you need subversion. If subversion is not available in Mac 
you might have to first install it
+      using `brew install subversion`.
+
+### Access to Apache Nexus repository
+
+Configure access to the Apache Nexus repository, which enables final 
deployment of releases to the Maven Central
+Repository.
+
+1. You log in with your Apache account.
+2. Confirm you have appropriate access by finding org.apache.xtable under 
Staging Profiles.
+3. Navigate to your Profile (top right dropdown menu of the page).
+4. Choose User Token from the dropdown, then click Access User Token. Copy a 
snippet of the Maven XML configuration
+   block.
+5. Insert this snippet twice into your global Maven settings.xml file, 
typically ${HOME}/.m2/settings.xml. The end
+   result should look like this, where TOKEN_NAME and TOKEN_PASSWORD are your 
secret tokens:
+
+```xml
+<settings>
+   <servers>
+     <server>
+       <id>apache.releases.https</id>
+       <username>TOKEN_NAME</username>
+       <password>TOKEN_PASSWORD</password>
+     </server>
+     <server>
+       <id>apache.snapshots.https</id>
+       <username>TOKEN_NAME</username>
+       <password>TOKEN_PASSWORD</password>
+     </server>
+   </servers>
+ </settings>
+```
+
+### Submit your GPG public key into MIT PGP Public Key Server
+
+In order to make yourself have the right permission to stage java artifacts in 
Apache Nexus staging repository, please
+submit your GPG public key into [MIT PGP Public Key 
Server](http://pgp.mit.edu:11371/).
+
+Also send public key to ubuntu server via
+
+```shell
+gpg --keyserver hkp://keyserver.ubuntu.com --send-keys ${PUBLIC_KEY} # send 
public key to ubuntu server
+gpg --keyserver hkp://keyserver.ubuntu.com --recv-keys ${PUBLIC_KEY} # verify
+```
+
+would also refer
+to 
[stackoverflow](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/19462617/no-public-key-key-with-id-xxxxx-was-not-able-to-be-located-oss-sonatype-org)
+
+## Create a release branch in apache/incubator-xtable repository
+
+Attention: Only committer has permission to create release branch in 
apache/incubator-xtable.
+**Skip this step if it is a bug fix release. But do set the env variables.**
+
+Release candidates are built from a release branch. As a final step in 
preparation for the release, you should create the release branch, push it to 
the Apache code repository, and update version information on the original 
branch.
+
+Export Some Environment variables in the terminal where you are running the 
release scripts
+
+- export RELEASE_VERSION=<RELEASE_VERSION_TO_BE_PUBLISHED>
+- export NEXT_VERSION=<NEW_VERSION_IN_MASTER>
+- export RELEASE_BRANCH=release-<RELEASE_VERSION_TO_BE_PUBLISHED>
+- export RC_NUM=<release_candidate_num_starting_from_1>
+
+Use cut_release_branch.sh to cut a release branch
+
+- Script: 
[cut_release_branch.sh](https://github.com/apache/incubator-xtable/blob/master/scripts/release/cut_release_branch.sh)
+
+Usage
+
+```shell
+# Cut a release branch
+Cd scripts && ./release/cut_release_branch.sh \
+--release=${RELEASE_VERSION} \
+--next_release=${NEXT_VERSION} \
+--rc_num=${RC_NUM}
+# Show help page
+./incubator-xtable/release/scripts/cut_release_branch.sh -h
+```
+
+## Verify that a Release Build Works
+
+Run "mvn -Prelease clean install" to ensure that the build processes are in 
good shape. // You need to execute this command once you have the release 
branch in apache/incubator-xtable

Review Comment:
   We need to create this 'release' profile in pom.xml. The ASF parent pom 
defines an 'apache-release' profile, couldn't we rely on that one? 
https://maven.apache.org/pom/asf/



##########
release/scripts/cut_release_branch.sh:
##########
@@ -0,0 +1,145 @@
+#!/bin/bash
+#
+#    Licensed to the Apache Software Foundation (ASF) under one or more
+#    contributor license agreements.  See the NOTICE file distributed with
+#    this work for additional information regarding copyright ownership.
+#    The ASF licenses this file to You under the Apache License, Version 2.0
+#    (the "License"); you may not use this file except in compliance with
+#    the License.  You may obtain a copy of the License at
+#
+#       http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
+#
+#    Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
+#    distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
+#    WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
+#    See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
+#    limitations under the License.
+#
+
+# This script will update apache incubator-xtable master branch with next 
release version
+# and cut release branch for current development version.
+
+# Parse parameters passing into the script
+
+set -e
+
+function clean_up(){
+  echo "Do you want to clean local clone repo? [y|N]"
+  read confirmation
+  if [[ $confirmation = "y" ]]; then
+    cd ~
+    rm -rf ${LOCAL_CLONE_DIR}
+    echo "Clean up local repo."
+  fi
+}
+
+if [[ $# -eq 1 && $1 = "-h" ]]; then
+       echo "This script will update apache incubator-xtable master branch 
with next release version and cut release branch for current development 
version."
+       echo "There are 3 params required:"
+       echo "--release=\${CURRENT_RELEASE_VERSION}"
+       echo "--next_release=\${NEXT_RELEASE_VERSION}"
+       echo "--rc_num=\${RC_NUM}"
+       exit
+else
+       for param in "$@"
+       do
+               if [[ $param =~ --release\=([0-9]\.[0-9]*\.[0-9]) ]]; then
+                       RELEASE=${BASH_REMATCH[1]}
+               fi
+               if [[ $param =~ --next_release\=([0-9]\.[0-9]*\.[0-9]) ]]; then
+                       NEXT_VERSION_IN_BASE_BRANCH=${BASH_REMATCH[1]}
+               fi
+               if [[ $param =~ --rc_num\=([0-9]*) ]]; then
+                        RC_NUM=${BASH_REMATCH[1]}
+               fi
+       done
+fi
+
+if [[ -z "$RELEASE" || -z "$NEXT_VERSION_IN_BASE_BRANCH" || -z "$RC_NUM" ]]; 
then
+       echo "This script needs to be ran with params, please run with -h to 
get more instructions."
+       exit
+fi
+
+
+MASTER_BRANCH=master

Review Comment:
   'master' -> 'main'.
   Most probably we will catch more issues in these scripts as we go through 
the release process for the first time.



##########
release/release_guide.md:
##########
@@ -0,0 +1,570 @@
+<!--
+  Licensed to the Apache Software Foundation (ASF) under one or more
+  contributor license agreements.  See the NOTICE file distributed with
+  this work for additional information regarding copyright ownership.
+  The ASF licenses this file to You under the Apache License, Version 2.0
+  (the "License"); you may not use this file except in compliance with
+  the License.  You may obtain a copy of the License at
+
+       http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
+
+  Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
+  distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
+  WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
+  See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
+  limitations under the License.
+-->
+
+# Introduction
+
+Apache XTable, currently an incubating project at the Apache Software 
Foundation (ASF), is a cross-table converter for table formats that facilitates 
omni-directional interoperability across data processing systems and query 
engines. 
+This guide outlines the steps for releasing Apache XTable versions, following 
the ASF policies and incorporating practices from other successful ASF projects.
+
+# Legal Reminders
+
+Releasing software under the ASF banner requires adherence to the [ASF Release 
Policy](https://infra.apache.org/release-publishing.html) and [Incubator 
Release 
Guidelines](https://incubator.apache.org/guides/releasemanagement.html#best-practice).
 
+Please ensure all releases comply with these guidelines, focusing on proper 
licensing, source code distribution, and community approval.
+
+# Overview
+
+![](release_guide_overview.jpg)
+
+The release process consists of several steps:
+
+1. Decide to release
+2. Prepare for the release
+3. Build a release candidate
+4. Vote on the release candidate
+5. During vote process, run validation tests
+6. If necessary, fix any issues and go back to step 3.
+7. Finalize the release
+8. Promote the release
+
+# Decide to release
+
+Deciding to release and selecting a Release Manager is the first step of the 
release process. This is a consensus-based
+decision of the entire community.
+
+Anybody can propose a release on the dev@ mailing list, giving a solid 
argument and nominating a committer as the
+Release Manager (including themselves). There’s no formal process, no vote 
requirements, and no timing requirements. Any
+objections should be resolved by consensus before starting the release.
+
+In general, the community prefers to have a rotating set of 3-5 Release 
Managers. Keeping a small core set of managers
+allows enough people to build expertise in this area and improve processes 
over time, without Release Managers needing
+to re-learn the processes for each release. That said, if you are a committer 
interested in serving the community in
+this way, please reach out to the community on the dev@ mailing list.
+
+## Checklist to proceed to the next step
+
+1. Community agrees to release
+2. Community selects a Release Manager
+
+# Prepare for the release
+
+Before your first release, you should perform one-time configuration steps. 
This will set up your security keys for
+signing the release and access to various release repositories.
+
+To prepare for each release, you should audit the project status in the JIRA 
issue tracker, and do the necessary
+bookkeeping. Finally, you should create a release branch from which individual 
release candidates will be built.
+
+**NOTE**: If you are
+using [GitHub two-factor 
authentication](https://help.github.com/articles/securing-your-account-with-two-factor-authentication-2fa/)
+and haven’t configure HTTPS access, please
+follow [the 
guide](https://help.github.com/articles/creating-a-personal-access-token-for-the-command-line/)
 to configure
+command line access.
+
+## One-time Setup Instructions
+
+You need to have a GPG key to sign the release artifacts. Please be aware of 
the
+ASF-wide [release signing 
guidelines](https://www.apache.org/dev/release-signing.html). If you don’t have 
a GPG key
+associated with your Apache account, please follow the section below.
+
+### For Linux users
+
+There are 2 ways to configure your GPG key for release, either using release 
automation script(which is recommended), or
+running all commands manually. If using Mac, please see below to handle known 
issues.
+
+#### Use preparation_before_release.sh to setup GPG
+
+- Script: preparation_before_release.sh
+- Usage ./incubator-xtable/release/scripts/preparation_before_release.sh
+- Tasks included
+    1. Help you create a new GPG key if you want.
+    2. Configure git user.signingkey with chosen pubkey.
+    3. Add chosen pubkey into dev KEYS and release KEYS **NOTES**: Only PMC 
can write into release repo.
+    4. Start GPG agents.
+
+#### Run all commands manually
+
+- Get more entropy for creating a GPG key
+    - sudo apt-get install rng-tools
+    - sudo rngd -r /dev/urandom
+- Create a GPG key
+    - gpg --full-generate-key
+- Determine your Apache GPG Key and Key ID, as follows:
+    - gpg --list-keys
+- This will list your GPG keys. One of these should reflect your Apache 
account, for example:
+  ```
+  --------------------------------------------------
+  pub   2048R/935D191 2019-08-29
+  uid   Anonymous Anonymous <anonym...@apache.org>
+  sub   2048R/CD4C59FD 2019-08-29
+  ```
+  Here, the key ID is the 8-digit hex string in the pub line: 845E6689 or more 
than 8-digit hex string like
+  623E08E06DB376684FB9599A3F5953147903948A. Now, add your Apache GPG key to 
the incubator-xtable’s KEYS file both
+  in [dev](https://dist.apache.org/repos/dist/dev/incubator/xtable/KEYS)
+  and 
[release](https://dist.apache.org/repos/dist/release/incubator/xtable/KEYS) 
repositories
+  at [dist.apache.org](http://dist.apache.org/). Follow the instructions 
listed at the top of these files. (**Note**:
+  Only PMC members have write access to the release repository. If you end up 
getting 403 errors ask on the mailing list
+  for assistance.)
+- Configure git to use this key when signing code by giving it your key ID, as 
follows:
+    - git config --global user.signingkey XXXXXXXX
+    - You may drop the --global option if you’d prefer to use this key for the 
current repository only.
+- Start GPG agent in order to unlock your GPG key
+    - eval $(gpg-agent --daemon --no-grab --write-env-file 
$HOME/.gpg-agent-info)
+    - export GPG_TTY=$(tty)
+    - export GPG_AGENT_INFO
+
+### For Mac users
+
+- apt-get is not available. So install gpg using 
[https://gpgtools.org/](https://gpgtools.org/).
+- Create gpg key with your apache emailId and publish to key server 
(referhttps://gpgtools.org/ to the section "Submit
+  your GPG public key into MIT PGP Public Key Server" below)
+- The KEYS file is in 
[https://dist.apache.org/repos/dist/](https://dist.apache.org/repos/dist/)
+    - To checkout you need subversion. If subversion is not available in Mac 
you might have to first install it
+      using `brew install subversion`.
+
+### Access to Apache Nexus repository
+
+Configure access to the Apache Nexus repository, which enables final 
deployment of releases to the Maven Central
+Repository.
+
+1. You log in with your Apache account.
+2. Confirm you have appropriate access by finding org.apache.xtable under 
Staging Profiles.
+3. Navigate to your Profile (top right dropdown menu of the page).
+4. Choose User Token from the dropdown, then click Access User Token. Copy a 
snippet of the Maven XML configuration
+   block.
+5. Insert this snippet twice into your global Maven settings.xml file, 
typically ${HOME}/.m2/settings.xml. The end
+   result should look like this, where TOKEN_NAME and TOKEN_PASSWORD are your 
secret tokens:
+
+```xml
+<settings>
+   <servers>
+     <server>
+       <id>apache.releases.https</id>
+       <username>TOKEN_NAME</username>
+       <password>TOKEN_PASSWORD</password>
+     </server>
+     <server>
+       <id>apache.snapshots.https</id>
+       <username>TOKEN_NAME</username>
+       <password>TOKEN_PASSWORD</password>
+     </server>
+   </servers>
+ </settings>
+```
+
+### Submit your GPG public key into MIT PGP Public Key Server
+
+In order to make yourself have the right permission to stage java artifacts in 
Apache Nexus staging repository, please
+submit your GPG public key into [MIT PGP Public Key 
Server](http://pgp.mit.edu:11371/).
+
+Also send public key to ubuntu server via
+
+```shell
+gpg --keyserver hkp://keyserver.ubuntu.com --send-keys ${PUBLIC_KEY} # send 
public key to ubuntu server
+gpg --keyserver hkp://keyserver.ubuntu.com --recv-keys ${PUBLIC_KEY} # verify
+```
+
+would also refer
+to 
[stackoverflow](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/19462617/no-public-key-key-with-id-xxxxx-was-not-able-to-be-located-oss-sonatype-org)
+
+## Create a release branch in apache/incubator-xtable repository
+
+Attention: Only committer has permission to create release branch in 
apache/incubator-xtable.
+**Skip this step if it is a bug fix release. But do set the env variables.**
+
+Release candidates are built from a release branch. As a final step in 
preparation for the release, you should create the release branch, push it to 
the Apache code repository, and update version information on the original 
branch.
+
+Export Some Environment variables in the terminal where you are running the 
release scripts
+
+- export RELEASE_VERSION=<RELEASE_VERSION_TO_BE_PUBLISHED>
+- export NEXT_VERSION=<NEW_VERSION_IN_MASTER>
+- export RELEASE_BRANCH=release-<RELEASE_VERSION_TO_BE_PUBLISHED>
+- export RC_NUM=<release_candidate_num_starting_from_1>
+
+Use cut_release_branch.sh to cut a release branch
+
+- Script: 
[cut_release_branch.sh](https://github.com/apache/incubator-xtable/blob/master/scripts/release/cut_release_branch.sh)
+
+Usage
+
+```shell
+# Cut a release branch
+Cd scripts && ./release/cut_release_branch.sh \
+--release=${RELEASE_VERSION} \
+--next_release=${NEXT_VERSION} \
+--rc_num=${RC_NUM}
+# Show help page
+./incubator-xtable/release/scripts/cut_release_branch.sh -h
+```
+
+## Verify that a Release Build Works
+
+Run "mvn -Prelease clean install" to ensure that the build processes are in 
good shape. // You need to execute this command once you have the release 
branch in apache/incubator-xtable
+
+```shell
+mvn -Prelease clean install
+```
+
+## Checklist to proceed to the next step
+
+- Release Manager’s GPG key is published to 
[dist.apache.org](http://dist.apache.org/).
+- Release Manager’s GPG key is configured in git configuration.
+- Release Manager has org.apache.xtable listed under Staging Profiles in Nexus.
+- Release Manager’s Nexus User Token is configured in settings.xml.
+- JIRA release item for the subsequent release has been created.
+- All test failures from branch verification have associated JIRA issues.
+- There are no release blocking JIRA issues.
+- Release branch has been created.
+- Release Notes  have been audited and added to RELEASE_NOTES.md.
+
+# Build a release candidate
+
+The core of the release process is the build-vote-fix cycle. Each cycle 
produces one release candidate. The Release Manager repeats this cycle until 
the community approves one release candidate, which is then finalized.
+
+Set up a few environment variables to simplify Maven commands that follow. 
This identifies the release candidate being built. Start with RC_NUM equal to 1 
and increment it for each candidate.
+
+1. git checkout ${RELEASE_BRANCH}
+2. Run mvn version to set the proper rc number in all artifacts
+    1. mvn versions:set -DnewVersion=${RELEASE_VERSION}-rc${RC_NUM}
+3. Run Unit tests  and ensure they succeed
+    1. mvn test -DskipITs=true
+4. Run Integration Tests and ensure they succeed
+    1. mvn verify -DskipUTs=true
+5. Commit and push this change to RELEASE branch
+    1. git commit -am "Bumping release candidate number ${RC_NUM}"
+       > There will be some backup files created which needs to be removed.
+       >
+       > You could do "git clean -fd" before doing the commit.
+    2. git push origin ${RELEASE_BRANCH}
+       > If you already have a remote tag with same name as your branch, you 
can try below command.
+       >
+       > git push origin refs/heads/${RELEASE_BRANCH}
+       >
+       > "refs/heads/" refers to a branch.
+       >
+       > "refs/tags/" refers to tag.
+6. Generate Source Release: This will create the tarball under 
incubator-xtable/src_release directory
+    1. git checkout ${RELEASE_BRANCH}
+    2. cd scripts && ./release/create_source_release.sh
+       > If you have multiple gpg keys(gpg --list-keys), then the signing 
command will take in the first key most likely.
+       > You will release this when it asks for a passphrase in a pop up.
+       > When asked for passphrase, ensure the intended key is the one asked 
for.
+       >
+       > Command used in script:
+       >
+       > gpg --armor --detach-sig 
${RELEASE_DIR}/incubator-xtable-${RELEASE_VERSION}.src.tgz
+       >
+       > To use a specific key: update as follows: // replace FINGERPRINT
+       >
+       > gpg --local-user [FINGERPRINT] --armor --detach-sig 
${RELEASE_DIR}/incubator-xtable-${RELEASE_VERSION}.src.tgz
+    3. Verify Source release is signed and buildable
+        1. cd incubator-xtable/src_release
+        2. gpg --verify 
incubator-xtable-${RELEASE_VERSION}-rc${RC_NUM}.src.tgz.asc 
incubator-xtable-${RELEASE_VERSION}-rc${RC_NUM}.src.tgz
+        3. tar -zxvf incubator-xtable-${RELEASE_VERSION}-rc${RC_NUM}.src.tgz 
&& cd incubator-xtable-${RELEASE_VERSION}-rc${RC_NUM} && mvn clean package 
-DskipTests -Pintegration-tests
+        4. If they pass, delete the repository we got from the tar-ball
+            - cd ../ && rm -rf incubator-xtable-${RELEASE_VERSION}-rc${RC_NUM}
+
+7. Create tag
+    1. git tag -s release-${RELEASE_VERSION}-rc${RC_NUM} -m 
"${RELEASE_VERSION}".
+       > If you run into some issues, and if want to re-run the same candidate 
again from start, ensure you delete existing tags before retrying again.
+       >
+       > // to remove local
+       >
+       > git tag -d release-${RELEASE_VERSION}-rc${RC_NUM}
+       >
+       > // to remove remote
+       >
+       > git push --delete origin release-${RELEASE_VERSION}-rc${RC_NUM}
+    2. if apache repo is origin.
+       > git push origin release-${RELEASE_VERSION}-rc${RC_NUM}
+       >
+       > If a branch with the same name already exists in origin, this command 
might fail as below.
+       >
+       > error: src refspec release-0.5.3 matches more than one
+       >
+       > error: failed to push some refs to 
'https://github.com/apache/incubator-xtable.git'
+       >
+       > In such a case, try below command
+       >
+       > git push origin refs/tags/release-${RELEASE_VERSION}-rc${RC_NUM}
+
+8. [Stage source 
releases](https://www.apache.org/legal/release-policy.html#stage) on 
[dist.apache.org](http://dist.apache.org/)
+    1. If you have not already, check out the incubator-xtable section of the 
dev repository on [dist.apache.org](http://dist.apache.org/) via Subversion. In 
a fresh directory
+    2. if you would not checkout, please try svn checkout 
[https://dist.apache.org/repos/dist/dev/incubator/xtable](https://dist.apache.org/repos/dist/dev/incubator/xtable)
 again.
+        1. svn checkout 
[https://dist.apache.org/repos/dist/dev/incubator/xtable](https://dist.apache.org/repos/dist/dev/incubator/xtable)
 --depth=immediates
+    3. Make a directory for the new release:
+        1. mkdir 
incubator-xtable/incubator-xtable-${RELEASE_VERSION}-rc${RC_NUM}
+    4. Copy incubator-xtable source distributions, hashes, and GPG signature:
+        1. mv <incubator-xtable-dir>/src_release/* 
incubator-xtable/incubator-xtable-${RELEASE_VERSION}-rc${RC_NUM}
+    5. Add and commit all the files.
+        1. cd incubator-xtable
+        2. svn add incubator-xtable-${RELEASE_VERSION}-rc${RC_NUM}
+        3. svn commit
+    6. Verify that files are 
[present](https://dist.apache.org/repos/dist/dev/incubator/xtable)
+    7. Run Verification Script to ensure the source release is sane
+        1. For RC: cd scripts && ./release/validate_staged_release.sh 
--release=${RELEASE_VERSION} --rc_num=${RC_NUM} --verbose
+        2. For finalized release in dev: cd scripts && 
./release/validate_staged_release.sh --release=${RELEASE_VERSION} --verbose
+
+9. Deploy maven artifacts and verify
+    1. This will deploy jar artifacts to the Apache Nexus Repository, which is 
the staging area for deploying jars to Maven Central.
+    2. Review all staged artifacts (https://repository.apache.org/). They 
should contain all relevant parts for each module, including pom.xml, jar, test 
jar, source, test source, javadoc, etc. Carefully review any new artifacts.
+    3. git checkout ${RELEASE_BRANCH}
+    4. ./scripts/release/deploy_staging_jars.sh 2>&1 | tee -a 
"/tmp/${RELEASE_VERSION}-${RC_NUM}.deploy.log"
+        1. when prompted for the passphrase, if you have multiple gpg keys in 
your keyring, make sure that you enter the right passphase corresponding to the 
same key (FINGERPRINT) as used while generating source release in step f.ii.
+           > If the prompt is not for the same key (by default the 
maven-gpg-plugin will pick up the first key in your keyring so that could be 
different), then add the following option to your ~/.gnupg/gpg.conf file
+        2. make sure your IP is not changing while uploading, otherwise it 
creates a different staging repo
+        3. Use a VPN if you can't prevent your IP from switching
+        4. after uploading, inspect the log to make sure all maven tasks said 
"BUILD SUCCESS"
+    5. Review all staged artifacts by logging into Apache Nexus and clicking 
on "Staging Repositories" link on left pane. Then find a "open" entry for 
apachextable
+    6. Once you have ensured everything is good and validation of step 7 
succeeds, you can close the staging repo. Until you close, you can re-run 
deploying to staging multiple times. But once closed, it will create a new 
staging repo. So ensure you close this, so that the next RC (if need be) is on 
a new repo. So, once everything is good, close the staging repository on Apache 
Nexus. When prompted for a description, enter
+       > Apache incubator-xtable, version `${RELEASE_VERSION}`, release 
candidate `${RC_NUM}`.
+    7. After closing, run the script to validate the staged bundles again:
+       ```shell
+       ./scripts/release/validate_staged_bundles.sh 
orgapachextable-<stage_repo_number> ${RELEASE_VERSION}-rc${RC_NUM} 2>&1 | tee 
-a /tmp/validate_staged_bundles_output.txt
+       ```
+
+## Checklist to proceed to the next step
+
+1. Maven artifacts deployed to the staging repository of repository.apache.org
+2. Source distribution deployed to the dev repository of dist.apache.org and 
validated
+
+# Vote on the release candidate
+
+Once you have built and individually reviewed the release candidate, please 
share it for the community-wide(dev@incubator-xtable ) review. Please review 
foundation-wide voting guidelines for more information.
+
+Start the review-and-vote thread on the dev@ mailing list. Here’s an email 
template; please adjust as you see fit.
+
+```
+From: Release Manager
+
+To: d...@incubator-xtable.apache.org 
+
+Subject: [VOTE] Release 1.2.3, release candidate #3
+
+ 
+
+Hi everyone,
+
+Please review and vote on the release candidate #3 for the version 1.2.3, as 
follows:
+
+[ ] +1, Approve the release
+
+[ ] -1, Do not approve the release (please provide specific comments)
+
+ 
+
+The complete staging area is available for your review, which includes:
+
+* JIRA release notes [1],
+
+* the official Apache source release and binary convenience releases to be 
deployed to dist.apache.org [2], which are signed with the key with fingerprint 
FFFFFFFF [3],
+
+* all artifacts to be deployed to the Maven Central Repository [4],
+
+* source code tag "1.2.3-rc3" [5],
+
+ 
+
+The vote will be open for at least 72 hours. It is adopted by majority 
approval, with at least 3 PMC affirmative votes.
+
+ 
+
+Thanks,
+
+Release Manager
+
+ 
+
+[1] link
+
+[2] link
+
+[3] https://dist.apache.org/repos/dist/release/incubator/xtable/KEYS
+
+[4] link
+
+[5] link
+
+[6] link
+```
+
+If there are any issues found in the release candidate, reply on the vote 
thread to cancel the vote, and there’s no need to wait 72 hours if any issues 
found. Proceed to the Fix Issues step below and address the problem. However, 
some issues don’t require cancellation. For example, if an issue is found in 
the website, just correct it on the spot and the vote can continue as-is.
+
+If there are no issues, reply on the vote thread to close the voting. Then, 
tally the votes in a separate email. Here’s an email template; please adjust as 
you see fit.
+
+```
+From: Release Manager
+
+To: d...@xtable.apache.org
+
+Subject: [RESULT] [VOTE] Release 1.2.3, release candidate #3
+
+ 
+
+I'm happy to announce that we have unanimously approved this release.
+
+ 
+
+There are XXX approving votes, XXX of which are binding:
+
+* approver 1
+
+* approver 2
+
+* approver 3
+
+* approver 4
+
+ 
+
+There are no disapproving votes.
+
+ 
+
+Thanks everyone!
+```
+
+## Checklist to proceed to the finalization step
+
+Community votes to release the proposed candidate, with at least three 
approving PMC votes
+
+# Fix any issues
+
+Any issues identified during the community review and vote should be fixed in 
this step.
+
+Code changes should be proposed as standard pull requests to the master branch 
and reviewed using the normal contributing process. Then, relevant changes 
should be cherry-picked into the release branch. The cherry-pick commits should 
then be proposed as the pull requests against the release branch, again 
reviewed and merged using the normal contributing process.
+
+Once all issues have been resolved, you should go back and build a new release 
candidate with these changes.
+
+## Checklist to proceed to the next step
+
+Issues identified during vote have been resolved, with fixes committed to the 
release branch.
+
+# Finalize the release
+
+Once the release candidate has been reviewed and approved by the community, 
the release should be finalized. This involves the final deployment of the 
release candidate to the release repositories, merging of the website changes, 
etc.
+
+## Current follow the below steps to finalize the release.
+
+1. Drop all RC orgapachextable-XXX in [Apache Nexus Staging 
Repositories](https://repository.apache.org/#stagingRepositories).
+2. change the version from ${RELEASE_VERSION}-rc${RC_NUM} to 
${RELEASE_VERSION} against release branch, use command `mvn versions:set 
-DnewVersion=${RELEASE_VERSION}`, e.g. change 0.5.1-rc1 to 0.5.1.
+3. Commit and push the version change to release branch.
+    1. git commit -am "[MINOR] Update release version to reflect published 
version  ${RELEASE_VERSION}"
+    2. git push origin release-${RELEASE_VERSION}
+4. Repeat the steps from **_Generate Source Release (f) to Stage source 
releases on [dist.apache.org](http://dist.apache.org/) (i)_**. Including 
staging jars with the release version and uploading source release.
+   > **Note that make sure remove the -rc${RC_NUM} suffix when repeat the 
above steps. and please also verify the steps.  Ensure git tag is also done 
without -rc${RC_NUM}**
+5. One more step is to [deploy source code to 
release](https://www.apache.org/legal/release-policy.html#upload-ci) dist. 
[https://dist.apache.org/repos/dist/release/incubator/xtable](https://dist.apache.org/repos/dist/release/incubator/xtable).
+   Only PMC will have access to this repo. So, if you are not a PMC, do get 
help from somone who is.
+    1. svn checkout 
https://dist.apache.org/repos/dist/release/incubator/xtable --depth=immediates, 
if you would not checkout, please try svn checkout 
https://dist.apache.org/repos/dist/release/incubator/xtable again.
+    2. Make a directory for the new release:
+       ```shell
+       mkdir incubator-xtable/${RELEASE_VERSION}
+       ```
+    3. Copy incubator-xtable source distributions, hashes, and GPG signature:
+       ```shell
+       mv <incubator-xtable-dir>/src_release/* 
incubator-xtable/${RELEASE_VERSION}
+       ```
+    4. Add and commit all the files.
+       ```shell
+       cd incubator-xtable
+       svn add ${RELEASE_VERSION}
+       svn commit
+       ```
+    5. Verify that files are 
[present](https://dist.apache.org/repos/dist/release/incubator/xtable)
+6. Use the Apache Nexus repository to release the staged binary artifacts to 
the Maven Central repository. In the Staging Repositories section, find the 
relevant release candidate orgapachextable-XXX entry and click `Release`.
+   > Note: make sure and check you click `Release` repo, it cannot be 
withdrawn.
+7. Drop all other release candidates that are not being released. It can take 
up to 24 hours for the new release to show up in [Maven Central 
repository](https://search.maven.org/search?q=g:org.apache.xtable).
+8. In Jira, go to Releases → <Release Version> and ensure that all Jiras for 
the release are 'Closed' state, if not transition all 'Resolved' jiras to 
'Closed'.
+   > Note: we should close jira and choose 'resolution = Fixed' rather than 
resolve jira.
+9. Finalize the Release in Jira by providing the release date.
+10. Update [DOAP]
+11. Create a new Github release, off the release version tag, you pushed before
+
+
+# Promote the release
+
+Once the release has been finalized, the last step of the process is to 
promote the release within the project and beyond. Please wait for 1h after 
finalizing the release in accordance with the [ASF release 
policy](http://www.apache.org/legal/release-policy.html#release-announcements).

Review Comment:
   In Calcite, we publish a blog post in the Calcite site for each release, 
e.g., 
https://github.com/apache/calcite/blob/main/site/_posts/2024-05-06-release-1.37.0.md.
 The blog post provides details about the release, including a high-level 
description of major changes. I think it would be great to adopt something 
similar for XTable.



##########
release/release_guide.md:
##########
@@ -0,0 +1,570 @@
+<!--
+  Licensed to the Apache Software Foundation (ASF) under one or more
+  contributor license agreements.  See the NOTICE file distributed with
+  this work for additional information regarding copyright ownership.
+  The ASF licenses this file to You under the Apache License, Version 2.0
+  (the "License"); you may not use this file except in compliance with
+  the License.  You may obtain a copy of the License at
+
+       http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
+
+  Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
+  distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
+  WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
+  See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
+  limitations under the License.
+-->
+
+# Introduction
+
+Apache XTable, currently an incubating project at the Apache Software 
Foundation (ASF), is a cross-table converter for table formats that facilitates 
omni-directional interoperability across data processing systems and query 
engines. 
+This guide outlines the steps for releasing Apache XTable versions, following 
the ASF policies and incorporating practices from other successful ASF projects.
+
+# Legal Reminders
+
+Releasing software under the ASF banner requires adherence to the [ASF Release 
Policy](https://infra.apache.org/release-publishing.html) and [Incubator 
Release 
Guidelines](https://incubator.apache.org/guides/releasemanagement.html#best-practice).
 
+Please ensure all releases comply with these guidelines, focusing on proper 
licensing, source code distribution, and community approval.
+
+# Overview
+
+![](release_guide_overview.jpg)
+
+The release process consists of several steps:
+
+1. Decide to release
+2. Prepare for the release
+3. Build a release candidate
+4. Vote on the release candidate
+5. During vote process, run validation tests
+6. If necessary, fix any issues and go back to step 3.
+7. Finalize the release
+8. Promote the release
+
+# Decide to release
+
+Deciding to release and selecting a Release Manager is the first step of the 
release process. This is a consensus-based
+decision of the entire community.
+
+Anybody can propose a release on the dev@ mailing list, giving a solid 
argument and nominating a committer as the
+Release Manager (including themselves). There’s no formal process, no vote 
requirements, and no timing requirements. Any
+objections should be resolved by consensus before starting the release.
+
+In general, the community prefers to have a rotating set of 3-5 Release 
Managers. Keeping a small core set of managers
+allows enough people to build expertise in this area and improve processes 
over time, without Release Managers needing
+to re-learn the processes for each release. That said, if you are a committer 
interested in serving the community in
+this way, please reach out to the community on the dev@ mailing list.
+
+## Checklist to proceed to the next step
+
+1. Community agrees to release
+2. Community selects a Release Manager
+
+# Prepare for the release
+
+Before your first release, you should perform one-time configuration steps. 
This will set up your security keys for
+signing the release and access to various release repositories.
+
+To prepare for each release, you should audit the project status in the JIRA 
issue tracker, and do the necessary
+bookkeeping. Finally, you should create a release branch from which individual 
release candidates will be built.
+
+**NOTE**: If you are
+using [GitHub two-factor 
authentication](https://help.github.com/articles/securing-your-account-with-two-factor-authentication-2fa/)
+and haven’t configure HTTPS access, please
+follow [the 
guide](https://help.github.com/articles/creating-a-personal-access-token-for-the-command-line/)
 to configure
+command line access.
+
+## One-time Setup Instructions
+
+You need to have a GPG key to sign the release artifacts. Please be aware of 
the
+ASF-wide [release signing 
guidelines](https://www.apache.org/dev/release-signing.html). If you don’t have 
a GPG key
+associated with your Apache account, please follow the section below.
+
+### For Linux users
+
+There are 2 ways to configure your GPG key for release, either using release 
automation script(which is recommended), or
+running all commands manually. If using Mac, please see below to handle known 
issues.
+
+#### Use preparation_before_release.sh to setup GPG
+
+- Script: preparation_before_release.sh
+- Usage ./incubator-xtable/release/scripts/preparation_before_release.sh
+- Tasks included
+    1. Help you create a new GPG key if you want.
+    2. Configure git user.signingkey with chosen pubkey.
+    3. Add chosen pubkey into dev KEYS and release KEYS **NOTES**: Only PMC 
can write into release repo.
+    4. Start GPG agents.
+
+#### Run all commands manually
+
+- Get more entropy for creating a GPG key
+    - sudo apt-get install rng-tools
+    - sudo rngd -r /dev/urandom
+- Create a GPG key
+    - gpg --full-generate-key
+- Determine your Apache GPG Key and Key ID, as follows:
+    - gpg --list-keys
+- This will list your GPG keys. One of these should reflect your Apache 
account, for example:
+  ```
+  --------------------------------------------------
+  pub   2048R/935D191 2019-08-29
+  uid   Anonymous Anonymous <anonym...@apache.org>
+  sub   2048R/CD4C59FD 2019-08-29
+  ```
+  Here, the key ID is the 8-digit hex string in the pub line: 845E6689 or more 
than 8-digit hex string like
+  623E08E06DB376684FB9599A3F5953147903948A. Now, add your Apache GPG key to 
the incubator-xtable’s KEYS file both
+  in [dev](https://dist.apache.org/repos/dist/dev/incubator/xtable/KEYS)
+  and 
[release](https://dist.apache.org/repos/dist/release/incubator/xtable/KEYS) 
repositories
+  at [dist.apache.org](http://dist.apache.org/). Follow the instructions 
listed at the top of these files. (**Note**:
+  Only PMC members have write access to the release repository. If you end up 
getting 403 errors ask on the mailing list
+  for assistance.)
+- Configure git to use this key when signing code by giving it your key ID, as 
follows:
+    - git config --global user.signingkey XXXXXXXX
+    - You may drop the --global option if you’d prefer to use this key for the 
current repository only.
+- Start GPG agent in order to unlock your GPG key
+    - eval $(gpg-agent --daemon --no-grab --write-env-file 
$HOME/.gpg-agent-info)
+    - export GPG_TTY=$(tty)
+    - export GPG_AGENT_INFO
+
+### For Mac users
+
+- apt-get is not available. So install gpg using 
[https://gpgtools.org/](https://gpgtools.org/).
+- Create gpg key with your apache emailId and publish to key server 
(referhttps://gpgtools.org/ to the section "Submit
+  your GPG public key into MIT PGP Public Key Server" below)
+- The KEYS file is in 
[https://dist.apache.org/repos/dist/](https://dist.apache.org/repos/dist/)
+    - To checkout you need subversion. If subversion is not available in Mac 
you might have to first install it
+      using `brew install subversion`.
+
+### Access to Apache Nexus repository
+
+Configure access to the Apache Nexus repository, which enables final 
deployment of releases to the Maven Central
+Repository.
+
+1. You log in with your Apache account.
+2. Confirm you have appropriate access by finding org.apache.xtable under 
Staging Profiles.
+3. Navigate to your Profile (top right dropdown menu of the page).
+4. Choose User Token from the dropdown, then click Access User Token. Copy a 
snippet of the Maven XML configuration
+   block.
+5. Insert this snippet twice into your global Maven settings.xml file, 
typically ${HOME}/.m2/settings.xml. The end
+   result should look like this, where TOKEN_NAME and TOKEN_PASSWORD are your 
secret tokens:
+
+```xml
+<settings>
+   <servers>
+     <server>
+       <id>apache.releases.https</id>
+       <username>TOKEN_NAME</username>
+       <password>TOKEN_PASSWORD</password>
+     </server>
+     <server>
+       <id>apache.snapshots.https</id>
+       <username>TOKEN_NAME</username>
+       <password>TOKEN_PASSWORD</password>
+     </server>
+   </servers>
+ </settings>
+```
+
+### Submit your GPG public key into MIT PGP Public Key Server
+
+In order to make yourself have the right permission to stage java artifacts in 
Apache Nexus staging repository, please
+submit your GPG public key into [MIT PGP Public Key 
Server](http://pgp.mit.edu:11371/).
+
+Also send public key to ubuntu server via
+
+```shell
+gpg --keyserver hkp://keyserver.ubuntu.com --send-keys ${PUBLIC_KEY} # send 
public key to ubuntu server
+gpg --keyserver hkp://keyserver.ubuntu.com --recv-keys ${PUBLIC_KEY} # verify
+```
+
+would also refer
+to 
[stackoverflow](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/19462617/no-public-key-key-with-id-xxxxx-was-not-able-to-be-located-oss-sonatype-org)
+
+## Create a release branch in apache/incubator-xtable repository
+
+Attention: Only committer has permission to create release branch in 
apache/incubator-xtable.
+**Skip this step if it is a bug fix release. But do set the env variables.**
+
+Release candidates are built from a release branch. As a final step in 
preparation for the release, you should create the release branch, push it to 
the Apache code repository, and update version information on the original 
branch.
+
+Export Some Environment variables in the terminal where you are running the 
release scripts
+
+- export RELEASE_VERSION=<RELEASE_VERSION_TO_BE_PUBLISHED>
+- export NEXT_VERSION=<NEW_VERSION_IN_MASTER>
+- export RELEASE_BRANCH=release-<RELEASE_VERSION_TO_BE_PUBLISHED>
+- export RC_NUM=<release_candidate_num_starting_from_1>
+
+Use cut_release_branch.sh to cut a release branch
+
+- Script: 
[cut_release_branch.sh](https://github.com/apache/incubator-xtable/blob/master/scripts/release/cut_release_branch.sh)
+
+Usage
+
+```shell
+# Cut a release branch
+Cd scripts && ./release/cut_release_branch.sh \
+--release=${RELEASE_VERSION} \
+--next_release=${NEXT_VERSION} \
+--rc_num=${RC_NUM}
+# Show help page
+./incubator-xtable/release/scripts/cut_release_branch.sh -h
+```
+
+## Verify that a Release Build Works
+
+Run "mvn -Prelease clean install" to ensure that the build processes are in 
good shape. // You need to execute this command once you have the release 
branch in apache/incubator-xtable
+
+```shell
+mvn -Prelease clean install
+```
+
+## Checklist to proceed to the next step
+
+- Release Manager’s GPG key is published to 
[dist.apache.org](http://dist.apache.org/).
+- Release Manager’s GPG key is configured in git configuration.
+- Release Manager has org.apache.xtable listed under Staging Profiles in Nexus.
+- Release Manager’s Nexus User Token is configured in settings.xml.
+- JIRA release item for the subsequent release has been created.
+- All test failures from branch verification have associated JIRA issues.
+- There are no release blocking JIRA issues.
+- Release branch has been created.
+- Release Notes  have been audited and added to RELEASE_NOTES.md.
+
+# Build a release candidate
+
+The core of the release process is the build-vote-fix cycle. Each cycle 
produces one release candidate. The Release Manager repeats this cycle until 
the community approves one release candidate, which is then finalized.
+
+Set up a few environment variables to simplify Maven commands that follow. 
This identifies the release candidate being built. Start with RC_NUM equal to 1 
and increment it for each candidate.
+
+1. git checkout ${RELEASE_BRANCH}
+2. Run mvn version to set the proper rc number in all artifacts
+    1. mvn versions:set -DnewVersion=${RELEASE_VERSION}-rc${RC_NUM}
+3. Run Unit tests  and ensure they succeed
+    1. mvn test -DskipITs=true
+4. Run Integration Tests and ensure they succeed
+    1. mvn verify -DskipUTs=true
+5. Commit and push this change to RELEASE branch
+    1. git commit -am "Bumping release candidate number ${RC_NUM}"
+       > There will be some backup files created which needs to be removed.
+       >
+       > You could do "git clean -fd" before doing the commit.
+    2. git push origin ${RELEASE_BRANCH}
+       > If you already have a remote tag with same name as your branch, you 
can try below command.
+       >
+       > git push origin refs/heads/${RELEASE_BRANCH}
+       >
+       > "refs/heads/" refers to a branch.
+       >
+       > "refs/tags/" refers to tag.
+6. Generate Source Release: This will create the tarball under 
incubator-xtable/src_release directory
+    1. git checkout ${RELEASE_BRANCH}
+    2. cd scripts && ./release/create_source_release.sh
+       > If you have multiple gpg keys(gpg --list-keys), then the signing 
command will take in the first key most likely.
+       > You will release this when it asks for a passphrase in a pop up.
+       > When asked for passphrase, ensure the intended key is the one asked 
for.
+       >
+       > Command used in script:
+       >
+       > gpg --armor --detach-sig 
${RELEASE_DIR}/incubator-xtable-${RELEASE_VERSION}.src.tgz
+       >
+       > To use a specific key: update as follows: // replace FINGERPRINT
+       >
+       > gpg --local-user [FINGERPRINT] --armor --detach-sig 
${RELEASE_DIR}/incubator-xtable-${RELEASE_VERSION}.src.tgz
+    3. Verify Source release is signed and buildable
+        1. cd incubator-xtable/src_release
+        2. gpg --verify 
incubator-xtable-${RELEASE_VERSION}-rc${RC_NUM}.src.tgz.asc 
incubator-xtable-${RELEASE_VERSION}-rc${RC_NUM}.src.tgz
+        3. tar -zxvf incubator-xtable-${RELEASE_VERSION}-rc${RC_NUM}.src.tgz 
&& cd incubator-xtable-${RELEASE_VERSION}-rc${RC_NUM} && mvn clean package 
-DskipTests -Pintegration-tests
+        4. If they pass, delete the repository we got from the tar-ball
+            - cd ../ && rm -rf incubator-xtable-${RELEASE_VERSION}-rc${RC_NUM}
+
+7. Create tag
+    1. git tag -s release-${RELEASE_VERSION}-rc${RC_NUM} -m 
"${RELEASE_VERSION}".
+       > If you run into some issues, and if want to re-run the same candidate 
again from start, ensure you delete existing tags before retrying again.
+       >
+       > // to remove local
+       >
+       > git tag -d release-${RELEASE_VERSION}-rc${RC_NUM}
+       >
+       > // to remove remote
+       >
+       > git push --delete origin release-${RELEASE_VERSION}-rc${RC_NUM}
+    2. if apache repo is origin.
+       > git push origin release-${RELEASE_VERSION}-rc${RC_NUM}
+       >
+       > If a branch with the same name already exists in origin, this command 
might fail as below.
+       >
+       > error: src refspec release-0.5.3 matches more than one
+       >
+       > error: failed to push some refs to 
'https://github.com/apache/incubator-xtable.git'
+       >
+       > In such a case, try below command
+       >
+       > git push origin refs/tags/release-${RELEASE_VERSION}-rc${RC_NUM}
+
+8. [Stage source 
releases](https://www.apache.org/legal/release-policy.html#stage) on 
[dist.apache.org](http://dist.apache.org/)
+    1. If you have not already, check out the incubator-xtable section of the 
dev repository on [dist.apache.org](http://dist.apache.org/) via Subversion. In 
a fresh directory
+    2. if you would not checkout, please try svn checkout 
[https://dist.apache.org/repos/dist/dev/incubator/xtable](https://dist.apache.org/repos/dist/dev/incubator/xtable)
 again.
+        1. svn checkout 
[https://dist.apache.org/repos/dist/dev/incubator/xtable](https://dist.apache.org/repos/dist/dev/incubator/xtable)
 --depth=immediates
+    3. Make a directory for the new release:
+        1. mkdir 
incubator-xtable/incubator-xtable-${RELEASE_VERSION}-rc${RC_NUM}
+    4. Copy incubator-xtable source distributions, hashes, and GPG signature:
+        1. mv <incubator-xtable-dir>/src_release/* 
incubator-xtable/incubator-xtable-${RELEASE_VERSION}-rc${RC_NUM}
+    5. Add and commit all the files.
+        1. cd incubator-xtable
+        2. svn add incubator-xtable-${RELEASE_VERSION}-rc${RC_NUM}
+        3. svn commit
+    6. Verify that files are 
[present](https://dist.apache.org/repos/dist/dev/incubator/xtable)
+    7. Run Verification Script to ensure the source release is sane
+        1. For RC: cd scripts && ./release/validate_staged_release.sh 
--release=${RELEASE_VERSION} --rc_num=${RC_NUM} --verbose
+        2. For finalized release in dev: cd scripts && 
./release/validate_staged_release.sh --release=${RELEASE_VERSION} --verbose
+
+9. Deploy maven artifacts and verify
+    1. This will deploy jar artifacts to the Apache Nexus Repository, which is 
the staging area for deploying jars to Maven Central.
+    2. Review all staged artifacts (https://repository.apache.org/). They 
should contain all relevant parts for each module, including pom.xml, jar, test 
jar, source, test source, javadoc, etc. Carefully review any new artifacts.
+    3. git checkout ${RELEASE_BRANCH}
+    4. ./scripts/release/deploy_staging_jars.sh 2>&1 | tee -a 
"/tmp/${RELEASE_VERSION}-${RC_NUM}.deploy.log"
+        1. when prompted for the passphrase, if you have multiple gpg keys in 
your keyring, make sure that you enter the right passphase corresponding to the 
same key (FINGERPRINT) as used while generating source release in step f.ii.
+           > If the prompt is not for the same key (by default the 
maven-gpg-plugin will pick up the first key in your keyring so that could be 
different), then add the following option to your ~/.gnupg/gpg.conf file
+        2. make sure your IP is not changing while uploading, otherwise it 
creates a different staging repo
+        3. Use a VPN if you can't prevent your IP from switching
+        4. after uploading, inspect the log to make sure all maven tasks said 
"BUILD SUCCESS"
+    5. Review all staged artifacts by logging into Apache Nexus and clicking 
on "Staging Repositories" link on left pane. Then find a "open" entry for 
apachextable
+    6. Once you have ensured everything is good and validation of step 7 
succeeds, you can close the staging repo. Until you close, you can re-run 
deploying to staging multiple times. But once closed, it will create a new 
staging repo. So ensure you close this, so that the next RC (if need be) is on 
a new repo. So, once everything is good, close the staging repository on Apache 
Nexus. When prompted for a description, enter
+       > Apache incubator-xtable, version `${RELEASE_VERSION}`, release 
candidate `${RC_NUM}`.
+    7. After closing, run the script to validate the staged bundles again:
+       ```shell
+       ./scripts/release/validate_staged_bundles.sh 
orgapachextable-<stage_repo_number> ${RELEASE_VERSION}-rc${RC_NUM} 2>&1 | tee 
-a /tmp/validate_staged_bundles_output.txt
+       ```
+
+## Checklist to proceed to the next step
+
+1. Maven artifacts deployed to the staging repository of repository.apache.org
+2. Source distribution deployed to the dev repository of dist.apache.org and 
validated
+
+# Vote on the release candidate
+
+Once you have built and individually reviewed the release candidate, please 
share it for the community-wide(dev@incubator-xtable ) review. Please review 
foundation-wide voting guidelines for more information.
+
+Start the review-and-vote thread on the dev@ mailing list. Here’s an email 
template; please adjust as you see fit.
+
+```
+From: Release Manager
+
+To: d...@incubator-xtable.apache.org 
+
+Subject: [VOTE] Release 1.2.3, release candidate #3
+
+ 
+
+Hi everyone,
+
+Please review and vote on the release candidate #3 for the version 1.2.3, as 
follows:
+
+[ ] +1, Approve the release
+
+[ ] -1, Do not approve the release (please provide specific comments)
+
+ 
+
+The complete staging area is available for your review, which includes:
+
+* JIRA release notes [1],
+
+* the official Apache source release and binary convenience releases to be 
deployed to dist.apache.org [2], which are signed with the key with fingerprint 
FFFFFFFF [3],
+
+* all artifacts to be deployed to the Maven Central Repository [4],
+
+* source code tag "1.2.3-rc3" [5],
+
+ 
+
+The vote will be open for at least 72 hours. It is adopted by majority 
approval, with at least 3 PMC affirmative votes.
+
+ 
+
+Thanks,
+
+Release Manager
+
+ 
+
+[1] link
+
+[2] link
+
+[3] https://dist.apache.org/repos/dist/release/incubator/xtable/KEYS
+
+[4] link
+
+[5] link
+
+[6] link
+```
+
+If there are any issues found in the release candidate, reply on the vote 
thread to cancel the vote, and there’s no need to wait 72 hours if any issues 
found. Proceed to the Fix Issues step below and address the problem. However, 
some issues don’t require cancellation. For example, if an issue is found in 
the website, just correct it on the spot and the vote can continue as-is.
+
+If there are no issues, reply on the vote thread to close the voting. Then, 
tally the votes in a separate email. Here’s an email template; please adjust as 
you see fit.
+
+```
+From: Release Manager
+
+To: d...@xtable.apache.org
+
+Subject: [RESULT] [VOTE] Release 1.2.3, release candidate #3
+
+ 
+
+I'm happy to announce that we have unanimously approved this release.
+
+ 
+
+There are XXX approving votes, XXX of which are binding:
+
+* approver 1
+
+* approver 2
+
+* approver 3
+
+* approver 4
+
+ 
+
+There are no disapproving votes.
+
+ 
+
+Thanks everyone!
+```
+
+## Checklist to proceed to the finalization step
+
+Community votes to release the proposed candidate, with at least three 
approving PMC votes
+
+# Fix any issues
+
+Any issues identified during the community review and vote should be fixed in 
this step.
+
+Code changes should be proposed as standard pull requests to the master branch 
and reviewed using the normal contributing process. Then, relevant changes 
should be cherry-picked into the release branch. The cherry-pick commits should 
then be proposed as the pull requests against the release branch, again 
reviewed and merged using the normal contributing process.

Review Comment:
   If a linear history is preferred, we could cut the branch again from the 
main branch, rather than cherry-picking. Currently, we do not have a high 
traffic of commits, so I assume it's unlikely that the release would be 
destabilized by other commits.



##########
release/release_guide.md:
##########
@@ -0,0 +1,570 @@
+<!--
+  Licensed to the Apache Software Foundation (ASF) under one or more
+  contributor license agreements.  See the NOTICE file distributed with
+  this work for additional information regarding copyright ownership.
+  The ASF licenses this file to You under the Apache License, Version 2.0
+  (the "License"); you may not use this file except in compliance with
+  the License.  You may obtain a copy of the License at
+
+       http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
+
+  Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
+  distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
+  WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
+  See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
+  limitations under the License.
+-->
+
+# Introduction
+
+Apache XTable, currently an incubating project at the Apache Software 
Foundation (ASF), is a cross-table converter for table formats that facilitates 
omni-directional interoperability across data processing systems and query 
engines. 
+This guide outlines the steps for releasing Apache XTable versions, following 
the ASF policies and incorporating practices from other successful ASF projects.
+
+# Legal Reminders
+
+Releasing software under the ASF banner requires adherence to the [ASF Release 
Policy](https://infra.apache.org/release-publishing.html) and [Incubator 
Release 
Guidelines](https://incubator.apache.org/guides/releasemanagement.html#best-practice).
 
+Please ensure all releases comply with these guidelines, focusing on proper 
licensing, source code distribution, and community approval.
+
+# Overview
+
+![](release_guide_overview.jpg)
+
+The release process consists of several steps:
+
+1. Decide to release
+2. Prepare for the release
+3. Build a release candidate
+4. Vote on the release candidate
+5. During vote process, run validation tests
+6. If necessary, fix any issues and go back to step 3.
+7. Finalize the release
+8. Promote the release
+
+# Decide to release
+
+Deciding to release and selecting a Release Manager is the first step of the 
release process. This is a consensus-based
+decision of the entire community.
+
+Anybody can propose a release on the dev@ mailing list, giving a solid 
argument and nominating a committer as the
+Release Manager (including themselves). There’s no formal process, no vote 
requirements, and no timing requirements. Any
+objections should be resolved by consensus before starting the release.
+
+In general, the community prefers to have a rotating set of 3-5 Release 
Managers. Keeping a small core set of managers
+allows enough people to build expertise in this area and improve processes 
over time, without Release Managers needing
+to re-learn the processes for each release. That said, if you are a committer 
interested in serving the community in
+this way, please reach out to the community on the dev@ mailing list.
+
+## Checklist to proceed to the next step
+
+1. Community agrees to release
+2. Community selects a Release Manager
+
+# Prepare for the release
+
+Before your first release, you should perform one-time configuration steps. 
This will set up your security keys for
+signing the release and access to various release repositories.
+
+To prepare for each release, you should audit the project status in the JIRA 
issue tracker, and do the necessary

Review Comment:
   Potentially! Actually, I have also left a comment in the mailing list about 
this to see what others think.



##########
release/release_guide.md:
##########
@@ -0,0 +1,570 @@
+<!--
+  Licensed to the Apache Software Foundation (ASF) under one or more
+  contributor license agreements.  See the NOTICE file distributed with
+  this work for additional information regarding copyright ownership.
+  The ASF licenses this file to You under the Apache License, Version 2.0
+  (the "License"); you may not use this file except in compliance with
+  the License.  You may obtain a copy of the License at
+
+       http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
+
+  Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
+  distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
+  WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
+  See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
+  limitations under the License.
+-->
+
+# Introduction
+
+Apache XTable, currently an incubating project at the Apache Software 
Foundation (ASF), is a cross-table converter for table formats that facilitates 
omni-directional interoperability across data processing systems and query 
engines. 
+This guide outlines the steps for releasing Apache XTable versions, following 
the ASF policies and incorporating practices from other successful ASF projects.
+
+# Legal Reminders
+
+Releasing software under the ASF banner requires adherence to the [ASF Release 
Policy](https://infra.apache.org/release-publishing.html) and [Incubator 
Release 
Guidelines](https://incubator.apache.org/guides/releasemanagement.html#best-practice).
 
+Please ensure all releases comply with these guidelines, focusing on proper 
licensing, source code distribution, and community approval.
+
+# Overview
+
+![](release_guide_overview.jpg)
+
+The release process consists of several steps:
+
+1. Decide to release
+2. Prepare for the release
+3. Build a release candidate
+4. Vote on the release candidate
+5. During vote process, run validation tests
+6. If necessary, fix any issues and go back to step 3.
+7. Finalize the release
+8. Promote the release
+
+# Decide to release
+
+Deciding to release and selecting a Release Manager is the first step of the 
release process. This is a consensus-based
+decision of the entire community.
+
+Anybody can propose a release on the dev@ mailing list, giving a solid 
argument and nominating a committer as the
+Release Manager (including themselves). There’s no formal process, no vote 
requirements, and no timing requirements. Any
+objections should be resolved by consensus before starting the release.
+
+In general, the community prefers to have a rotating set of 3-5 Release 
Managers. Keeping a small core set of managers
+allows enough people to build expertise in this area and improve processes 
over time, without Release Managers needing
+to re-learn the processes for each release. That said, if you are a committer 
interested in serving the community in
+this way, please reach out to the community on the dev@ mailing list.
+
+## Checklist to proceed to the next step
+
+1. Community agrees to release
+2. Community selects a Release Manager
+
+# Prepare for the release
+
+Before your first release, you should perform one-time configuration steps. 
This will set up your security keys for
+signing the release and access to various release repositories.
+
+To prepare for each release, you should audit the project status in the JIRA 
issue tracker, and do the necessary
+bookkeeping. Finally, you should create a release branch from which individual 
release candidates will be built.
+
+**NOTE**: If you are
+using [GitHub two-factor 
authentication](https://help.github.com/articles/securing-your-account-with-two-factor-authentication-2fa/)
+and haven’t configure HTTPS access, please
+follow [the 
guide](https://help.github.com/articles/creating-a-personal-access-token-for-the-command-line/)
 to configure
+command line access.
+
+## One-time Setup Instructions
+
+You need to have a GPG key to sign the release artifacts. Please be aware of 
the
+ASF-wide [release signing 
guidelines](https://www.apache.org/dev/release-signing.html). If you don’t have 
a GPG key
+associated with your Apache account, please follow the section below.
+
+### For Linux users
+
+There are 2 ways to configure your GPG key for release, either using release 
automation script(which is recommended), or
+running all commands manually. If using Mac, please see below to handle known 
issues.
+
+#### Use preparation_before_release.sh to setup GPG
+
+- Script: preparation_before_release.sh
+- Usage ./incubator-xtable/release/scripts/preparation_before_release.sh
+- Tasks included
+    1. Help you create a new GPG key if you want.
+    2. Configure git user.signingkey with chosen pubkey.
+    3. Add chosen pubkey into dev KEYS and release KEYS **NOTES**: Only PMC 
can write into release repo.
+    4. Start GPG agents.
+
+#### Run all commands manually
+
+- Get more entropy for creating a GPG key
+    - sudo apt-get install rng-tools
+    - sudo rngd -r /dev/urandom
+- Create a GPG key
+    - gpg --full-generate-key
+- Determine your Apache GPG Key and Key ID, as follows:
+    - gpg --list-keys
+- This will list your GPG keys. One of these should reflect your Apache 
account, for example:
+  ```
+  --------------------------------------------------
+  pub   2048R/935D191 2019-08-29
+  uid   Anonymous Anonymous <anonym...@apache.org>
+  sub   2048R/CD4C59FD 2019-08-29
+  ```
+  Here, the key ID is the 8-digit hex string in the pub line: 845E6689 or more 
than 8-digit hex string like
+  623E08E06DB376684FB9599A3F5953147903948A. Now, add your Apache GPG key to 
the incubator-xtable’s KEYS file both
+  in [dev](https://dist.apache.org/repos/dist/dev/incubator/xtable/KEYS)
+  and 
[release](https://dist.apache.org/repos/dist/release/incubator/xtable/KEYS) 
repositories
+  at [dist.apache.org](http://dist.apache.org/). Follow the instructions 
listed at the top of these files. (**Note**:
+  Only PMC members have write access to the release repository. If you end up 
getting 403 errors ask on the mailing list
+  for assistance.)
+- Configure git to use this key when signing code by giving it your key ID, as 
follows:
+    - git config --global user.signingkey XXXXXXXX
+    - You may drop the --global option if you’d prefer to use this key for the 
current repository only.
+- Start GPG agent in order to unlock your GPG key
+    - eval $(gpg-agent --daemon --no-grab --write-env-file 
$HOME/.gpg-agent-info)
+    - export GPG_TTY=$(tty)
+    - export GPG_AGENT_INFO
+
+### For Mac users
+
+- apt-get is not available. So install gpg using 
[https://gpgtools.org/](https://gpgtools.org/).
+- Create gpg key with your apache emailId and publish to key server 
(referhttps://gpgtools.org/ to the section "Submit
+  your GPG public key into MIT PGP Public Key Server" below)
+- The KEYS file is in 
[https://dist.apache.org/repos/dist/](https://dist.apache.org/repos/dist/)
+    - To checkout you need subversion. If subversion is not available in Mac 
you might have to first install it
+      using `brew install subversion`.
+
+### Access to Apache Nexus repository
+
+Configure access to the Apache Nexus repository, which enables final 
deployment of releases to the Maven Central
+Repository.
+
+1. You log in with your Apache account.
+2. Confirm you have appropriate access by finding org.apache.xtable under 
Staging Profiles.
+3. Navigate to your Profile (top right dropdown menu of the page).
+4. Choose User Token from the dropdown, then click Access User Token. Copy a 
snippet of the Maven XML configuration
+   block.
+5. Insert this snippet twice into your global Maven settings.xml file, 
typically ${HOME}/.m2/settings.xml. The end
+   result should look like this, where TOKEN_NAME and TOKEN_PASSWORD are your 
secret tokens:
+
+```xml
+<settings>
+   <servers>
+     <server>
+       <id>apache.releases.https</id>
+       <username>TOKEN_NAME</username>
+       <password>TOKEN_PASSWORD</password>
+     </server>
+     <server>
+       <id>apache.snapshots.https</id>
+       <username>TOKEN_NAME</username>
+       <password>TOKEN_PASSWORD</password>
+     </server>
+   </servers>
+ </settings>
+```
+
+### Submit your GPG public key into MIT PGP Public Key Server
+
+In order to make yourself have the right permission to stage java artifacts in 
Apache Nexus staging repository, please
+submit your GPG public key into [MIT PGP Public Key 
Server](http://pgp.mit.edu:11371/).
+
+Also send public key to ubuntu server via
+
+```shell
+gpg --keyserver hkp://keyserver.ubuntu.com --send-keys ${PUBLIC_KEY} # send 
public key to ubuntu server
+gpg --keyserver hkp://keyserver.ubuntu.com --recv-keys ${PUBLIC_KEY} # verify
+```
+
+would also refer
+to 
[stackoverflow](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/19462617/no-public-key-key-with-id-xxxxx-was-not-able-to-be-located-oss-sonatype-org)
+
+## Create a release branch in apache/incubator-xtable repository
+
+Attention: Only committer has permission to create release branch in 
apache/incubator-xtable.
+**Skip this step if it is a bug fix release. But do set the env variables.**
+
+Release candidates are built from a release branch. As a final step in 
preparation for the release, you should create the release branch, push it to 
the Apache code repository, and update version information on the original 
branch.

Review Comment:
   (This is not strictly about the release, but it's useful to address as we do 
housekeeping and establish processes.) Regarding branches, I notice there are 
many different branches in the main repository. It would be better if the 
branches in the main repository were only used for releases as described here. 
It is common for development to be done in branches within users' forks (unless 
we establish some process for large feature branches), and PRs can be created 
from there. We can start a separate discussion in the dev list to address this 
and clean things up.



##########
release/release_guide.md:
##########
@@ -0,0 +1,570 @@
+<!--
+  Licensed to the Apache Software Foundation (ASF) under one or more
+  contributor license agreements.  See the NOTICE file distributed with
+  this work for additional information regarding copyright ownership.
+  The ASF licenses this file to You under the Apache License, Version 2.0
+  (the "License"); you may not use this file except in compliance with
+  the License.  You may obtain a copy of the License at
+
+       http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
+
+  Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
+  distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
+  WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
+  See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
+  limitations under the License.
+-->
+
+# Introduction
+
+Apache XTable, currently an incubating project at the Apache Software 
Foundation (ASF), is a cross-table converter for table formats that facilitates 
omni-directional interoperability across data processing systems and query 
engines. 
+This guide outlines the steps for releasing Apache XTable versions, following 
the ASF policies and incorporating practices from other successful ASF projects.
+
+# Legal Reminders
+
+Releasing software under the ASF banner requires adherence to the [ASF Release 
Policy](https://infra.apache.org/release-publishing.html) and [Incubator 
Release 
Guidelines](https://incubator.apache.org/guides/releasemanagement.html#best-practice).
 
+Please ensure all releases comply with these guidelines, focusing on proper 
licensing, source code distribution, and community approval.
+
+# Overview
+
+![](release_guide_overview.jpg)
+
+The release process consists of several steps:
+
+1. Decide to release
+2. Prepare for the release
+3. Build a release candidate
+4. Vote on the release candidate
+5. During vote process, run validation tests
+6. If necessary, fix any issues and go back to step 3.
+7. Finalize the release
+8. Promote the release
+
+# Decide to release
+
+Deciding to release and selecting a Release Manager is the first step of the 
release process. This is a consensus-based
+decision of the entire community.
+
+Anybody can propose a release on the dev@ mailing list, giving a solid 
argument and nominating a committer as the

Review Comment:
   Although anyone should be able to propose a release at any time, in my 
experience, it is healthy to make sure we have a regular cadence for project 
releases, e.g., every 2 to 3 months. What do others think? Should we try to 
establish such guidelines?



##########
release/release_guide.md:
##########
@@ -0,0 +1,570 @@
+<!--
+  Licensed to the Apache Software Foundation (ASF) under one or more
+  contributor license agreements.  See the NOTICE file distributed with
+  this work for additional information regarding copyright ownership.
+  The ASF licenses this file to You under the Apache License, Version 2.0
+  (the "License"); you may not use this file except in compliance with
+  the License.  You may obtain a copy of the License at
+
+       http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
+
+  Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
+  distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
+  WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
+  See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
+  limitations under the License.
+-->
+
+# Introduction
+
+Apache XTable, currently an incubating project at the Apache Software 
Foundation (ASF), is a cross-table converter for table formats that facilitates 
omni-directional interoperability across data processing systems and query 
engines. 
+This guide outlines the steps for releasing Apache XTable versions, following 
the ASF policies and incorporating practices from other successful ASF projects.
+
+# Legal Reminders
+
+Releasing software under the ASF banner requires adherence to the [ASF Release 
Policy](https://infra.apache.org/release-publishing.html) and [Incubator 
Release 
Guidelines](https://incubator.apache.org/guides/releasemanagement.html#best-practice).
 
+Please ensure all releases comply with these guidelines, focusing on proper 
licensing, source code distribution, and community approval.
+
+# Overview
+
+![](release_guide_overview.jpg)
+
+The release process consists of several steps:
+
+1. Decide to release
+2. Prepare for the release
+3. Build a release candidate
+4. Vote on the release candidate
+5. During vote process, run validation tests
+6. If necessary, fix any issues and go back to step 3.
+7. Finalize the release
+8. Promote the release
+
+# Decide to release
+
+Deciding to release and selecting a Release Manager is the first step of the 
release process. This is a consensus-based
+decision of the entire community.
+
+Anybody can propose a release on the dev@ mailing list, giving a solid 
argument and nominating a committer as the
+Release Manager (including themselves). There’s no formal process, no vote 
requirements, and no timing requirements. Any
+objections should be resolved by consensus before starting the release.
+
+In general, the community prefers to have a rotating set of 3-5 Release 
Managers. Keeping a small core set of managers
+allows enough people to build expertise in this area and improve processes 
over time, without Release Managers needing
+to re-learn the processes for each release. That said, if you are a committer 
interested in serving the community in
+this way, please reach out to the community on the dev@ mailing list.
+
+## Checklist to proceed to the next step
+
+1. Community agrees to release
+2. Community selects a Release Manager
+
+# Prepare for the release
+
+Before your first release, you should perform one-time configuration steps. 
This will set up your security keys for
+signing the release and access to various release repositories.
+
+To prepare for each release, you should audit the project status in the JIRA 
issue tracker, and do the necessary
+bookkeeping. Finally, you should create a release branch from which individual 
release candidates will be built.
+
+**NOTE**: If you are
+using [GitHub two-factor 
authentication](https://help.github.com/articles/securing-your-account-with-two-factor-authentication-2fa/)
+and haven’t configure HTTPS access, please
+follow [the 
guide](https://help.github.com/articles/creating-a-personal-access-token-for-the-command-line/)
 to configure
+command line access.
+
+## One-time Setup Instructions
+
+You need to have a GPG key to sign the release artifacts. Please be aware of 
the
+ASF-wide [release signing 
guidelines](https://www.apache.org/dev/release-signing.html). If you don’t have 
a GPG key
+associated with your Apache account, please follow the section below.
+
+### For Linux users
+
+There are 2 ways to configure your GPG key for release, either using release 
automation script(which is recommended), or
+running all commands manually. If using Mac, please see below to handle known 
issues.
+
+#### Use preparation_before_release.sh to setup GPG
+
+- Script: preparation_before_release.sh
+- Usage ./incubator-xtable/release/scripts/preparation_before_release.sh
+- Tasks included
+    1. Help you create a new GPG key if you want.
+    2. Configure git user.signingkey with chosen pubkey.
+    3. Add chosen pubkey into dev KEYS and release KEYS **NOTES**: Only PMC 
can write into release repo.
+    4. Start GPG agents.
+
+#### Run all commands manually
+
+- Get more entropy for creating a GPG key
+    - sudo apt-get install rng-tools
+    - sudo rngd -r /dev/urandom
+- Create a GPG key
+    - gpg --full-generate-key
+- Determine your Apache GPG Key and Key ID, as follows:
+    - gpg --list-keys
+- This will list your GPG keys. One of these should reflect your Apache 
account, for example:
+  ```
+  --------------------------------------------------
+  pub   2048R/935D191 2019-08-29
+  uid   Anonymous Anonymous <anonym...@apache.org>
+  sub   2048R/CD4C59FD 2019-08-29
+  ```
+  Here, the key ID is the 8-digit hex string in the pub line: 845E6689 or more 
than 8-digit hex string like
+  623E08E06DB376684FB9599A3F5953147903948A. Now, add your Apache GPG key to 
the incubator-xtable’s KEYS file both
+  in [dev](https://dist.apache.org/repos/dist/dev/incubator/xtable/KEYS)
+  and 
[release](https://dist.apache.org/repos/dist/release/incubator/xtable/KEYS) 
repositories
+  at [dist.apache.org](http://dist.apache.org/). Follow the instructions 
listed at the top of these files. (**Note**:
+  Only PMC members have write access to the release repository. If you end up 
getting 403 errors ask on the mailing list
+  for assistance.)
+- Configure git to use this key when signing code by giving it your key ID, as 
follows:
+    - git config --global user.signingkey XXXXXXXX
+    - You may drop the --global option if you’d prefer to use this key for the 
current repository only.
+- Start GPG agent in order to unlock your GPG key
+    - eval $(gpg-agent --daemon --no-grab --write-env-file 
$HOME/.gpg-agent-info)
+    - export GPG_TTY=$(tty)
+    - export GPG_AGENT_INFO
+
+### For Mac users
+
+- apt-get is not available. So install gpg using 
[https://gpgtools.org/](https://gpgtools.org/).
+- Create gpg key with your apache emailId and publish to key server 
(referhttps://gpgtools.org/ to the section "Submit
+  your GPG public key into MIT PGP Public Key Server" below)
+- The KEYS file is in 
[https://dist.apache.org/repos/dist/](https://dist.apache.org/repos/dist/)
+    - To checkout you need subversion. If subversion is not available in Mac 
you might have to first install it
+      using `brew install subversion`.
+
+### Access to Apache Nexus repository
+
+Configure access to the Apache Nexus repository, which enables final 
deployment of releases to the Maven Central
+Repository.
+
+1. You log in with your Apache account.
+2. Confirm you have appropriate access by finding org.apache.xtable under 
Staging Profiles.
+3. Navigate to your Profile (top right dropdown menu of the page).
+4. Choose User Token from the dropdown, then click Access User Token. Copy a 
snippet of the Maven XML configuration
+   block.
+5. Insert this snippet twice into your global Maven settings.xml file, 
typically ${HOME}/.m2/settings.xml. The end
+   result should look like this, where TOKEN_NAME and TOKEN_PASSWORD are your 
secret tokens:
+
+```xml
+<settings>
+   <servers>
+     <server>
+       <id>apache.releases.https</id>
+       <username>TOKEN_NAME</username>
+       <password>TOKEN_PASSWORD</password>
+     </server>
+     <server>
+       <id>apache.snapshots.https</id>
+       <username>TOKEN_NAME</username>
+       <password>TOKEN_PASSWORD</password>
+     </server>
+   </servers>
+ </settings>
+```
+
+### Submit your GPG public key into MIT PGP Public Key Server
+
+In order to make yourself have the right permission to stage java artifacts in 
Apache Nexus staging repository, please
+submit your GPG public key into [MIT PGP Public Key 
Server](http://pgp.mit.edu:11371/).
+
+Also send public key to ubuntu server via
+
+```shell
+gpg --keyserver hkp://keyserver.ubuntu.com --send-keys ${PUBLIC_KEY} # send 
public key to ubuntu server
+gpg --keyserver hkp://keyserver.ubuntu.com --recv-keys ${PUBLIC_KEY} # verify
+```
+
+would also refer
+to 
[stackoverflow](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/19462617/no-public-key-key-with-id-xxxxx-was-not-able-to-be-located-oss-sonatype-org)
+
+## Create a release branch in apache/incubator-xtable repository
+
+Attention: Only committer has permission to create release branch in 
apache/incubator-xtable.
+**Skip this step if it is a bug fix release. But do set the env variables.**
+
+Release candidates are built from a release branch. As a final step in 
preparation for the release, you should create the release branch, push it to 
the Apache code repository, and update version information on the original 
branch.
+
+Export Some Environment variables in the terminal where you are running the 
release scripts
+
+- export RELEASE_VERSION=<RELEASE_VERSION_TO_BE_PUBLISHED>
+- export NEXT_VERSION=<NEW_VERSION_IN_MASTER>
+- export RELEASE_BRANCH=release-<RELEASE_VERSION_TO_BE_PUBLISHED>
+- export RC_NUM=<release_candidate_num_starting_from_1>
+
+Use cut_release_branch.sh to cut a release branch
+
+- Script: 
[cut_release_branch.sh](https://github.com/apache/incubator-xtable/blob/master/scripts/release/cut_release_branch.sh)
+
+Usage
+
+```shell
+# Cut a release branch
+Cd scripts && ./release/cut_release_branch.sh \
+--release=${RELEASE_VERSION} \
+--next_release=${NEXT_VERSION} \
+--rc_num=${RC_NUM}
+# Show help page
+./incubator-xtable/release/scripts/cut_release_branch.sh -h
+```
+
+## Verify that a Release Build Works
+
+Run "mvn -Prelease clean install" to ensure that the build processes are in 
good shape. // You need to execute this command once you have the release 
branch in apache/incubator-xtable
+
+```shell
+mvn -Prelease clean install
+```
+
+## Checklist to proceed to the next step
+
+- Release Manager’s GPG key is published to 
[dist.apache.org](http://dist.apache.org/).
+- Release Manager’s GPG key is configured in git configuration.
+- Release Manager has org.apache.xtable listed under Staging Profiles in Nexus.
+- Release Manager’s Nexus User Token is configured in settings.xml.
+- JIRA release item for the subsequent release has been created.
+- All test failures from branch verification have associated JIRA issues.
+- There are no release blocking JIRA issues.
+- Release branch has been created.
+- Release Notes  have been audited and added to RELEASE_NOTES.md.
+
+# Build a release candidate
+
+The core of the release process is the build-vote-fix cycle. Each cycle 
produces one release candidate. The Release Manager repeats this cycle until 
the community approves one release candidate, which is then finalized.
+
+Set up a few environment variables to simplify Maven commands that follow. 
This identifies the release candidate being built. Start with RC_NUM equal to 1 
and increment it for each candidate.
+
+1. git checkout ${RELEASE_BRANCH}
+2. Run mvn version to set the proper rc number in all artifacts
+    1. mvn versions:set -DnewVersion=${RELEASE_VERSION}-rc${RC_NUM}
+3. Run Unit tests  and ensure they succeed
+    1. mvn test -DskipITs=true
+4. Run Integration Tests and ensure they succeed
+    1. mvn verify -DskipUTs=true
+5. Commit and push this change to RELEASE branch
+    1. git commit -am "Bumping release candidate number ${RC_NUM}"
+       > There will be some backup files created which needs to be removed.
+       >
+       > You could do "git clean -fd" before doing the commit.
+    2. git push origin ${RELEASE_BRANCH}
+       > If you already have a remote tag with same name as your branch, you 
can try below command.
+       >
+       > git push origin refs/heads/${RELEASE_BRANCH}
+       >
+       > "refs/heads/" refers to a branch.
+       >
+       > "refs/tags/" refers to tag.
+6. Generate Source Release: This will create the tarball under 
incubator-xtable/src_release directory
+    1. git checkout ${RELEASE_BRANCH}
+    2. cd scripts && ./release/create_source_release.sh
+       > If you have multiple gpg keys(gpg --list-keys), then the signing 
command will take in the first key most likely.
+       > You will release this when it asks for a passphrase in a pop up.
+       > When asked for passphrase, ensure the intended key is the one asked 
for.
+       >
+       > Command used in script:
+       >
+       > gpg --armor --detach-sig 
${RELEASE_DIR}/incubator-xtable-${RELEASE_VERSION}.src.tgz
+       >
+       > To use a specific key: update as follows: // replace FINGERPRINT
+       >
+       > gpg --local-user [FINGERPRINT] --armor --detach-sig 
${RELEASE_DIR}/incubator-xtable-${RELEASE_VERSION}.src.tgz
+    3. Verify Source release is signed and buildable
+        1. cd incubator-xtable/src_release
+        2. gpg --verify 
incubator-xtable-${RELEASE_VERSION}-rc${RC_NUM}.src.tgz.asc 
incubator-xtable-${RELEASE_VERSION}-rc${RC_NUM}.src.tgz
+        3. tar -zxvf incubator-xtable-${RELEASE_VERSION}-rc${RC_NUM}.src.tgz 
&& cd incubator-xtable-${RELEASE_VERSION}-rc${RC_NUM} && mvn clean package 
-DskipTests -Pintegration-tests
+        4. If they pass, delete the repository we got from the tar-ball
+            - cd ../ && rm -rf incubator-xtable-${RELEASE_VERSION}-rc${RC_NUM}
+
+7. Create tag
+    1. git tag -s release-${RELEASE_VERSION}-rc${RC_NUM} -m 
"${RELEASE_VERSION}".
+       > If you run into some issues, and if want to re-run the same candidate 
again from start, ensure you delete existing tags before retrying again.
+       >
+       > // to remove local
+       >
+       > git tag -d release-${RELEASE_VERSION}-rc${RC_NUM}
+       >
+       > // to remove remote
+       >
+       > git push --delete origin release-${RELEASE_VERSION}-rc${RC_NUM}
+    2. if apache repo is origin.
+       > git push origin release-${RELEASE_VERSION}-rc${RC_NUM}
+       >
+       > If a branch with the same name already exists in origin, this command 
might fail as below.
+       >
+       > error: src refspec release-0.5.3 matches more than one
+       >
+       > error: failed to push some refs to 
'https://github.com/apache/incubator-xtable.git'
+       >
+       > In such a case, try below command
+       >
+       > git push origin refs/tags/release-${RELEASE_VERSION}-rc${RC_NUM}
+
+8. [Stage source 
releases](https://www.apache.org/legal/release-policy.html#stage) on 
[dist.apache.org](http://dist.apache.org/)
+    1. If you have not already, check out the incubator-xtable section of the 
dev repository on [dist.apache.org](http://dist.apache.org/) via Subversion. In 
a fresh directory
+    2. if you would not checkout, please try svn checkout 
[https://dist.apache.org/repos/dist/dev/incubator/xtable](https://dist.apache.org/repos/dist/dev/incubator/xtable)
 again.
+        1. svn checkout 
[https://dist.apache.org/repos/dist/dev/incubator/xtable](https://dist.apache.org/repos/dist/dev/incubator/xtable)
 --depth=immediates
+    3. Make a directory for the new release:
+        1. mkdir 
incubator-xtable/incubator-xtable-${RELEASE_VERSION}-rc${RC_NUM}
+    4. Copy incubator-xtable source distributions, hashes, and GPG signature:
+        1. mv <incubator-xtable-dir>/src_release/* 
incubator-xtable/incubator-xtable-${RELEASE_VERSION}-rc${RC_NUM}
+    5. Add and commit all the files.
+        1. cd incubator-xtable
+        2. svn add incubator-xtable-${RELEASE_VERSION}-rc${RC_NUM}
+        3. svn commit
+    6. Verify that files are 
[present](https://dist.apache.org/repos/dist/dev/incubator/xtable)
+    7. Run Verification Script to ensure the source release is sane
+        1. For RC: cd scripts && ./release/validate_staged_release.sh 
--release=${RELEASE_VERSION} --rc_num=${RC_NUM} --verbose
+        2. For finalized release in dev: cd scripts && 
./release/validate_staged_release.sh --release=${RELEASE_VERSION} --verbose
+
+9. Deploy maven artifacts and verify
+    1. This will deploy jar artifacts to the Apache Nexus Repository, which is 
the staging area for deploying jars to Maven Central.
+    2. Review all staged artifacts (https://repository.apache.org/). They 
should contain all relevant parts for each module, including pom.xml, jar, test 
jar, source, test source, javadoc, etc. Carefully review any new artifacts.
+    3. git checkout ${RELEASE_BRANCH}
+    4. ./scripts/release/deploy_staging_jars.sh 2>&1 | tee -a 
"/tmp/${RELEASE_VERSION}-${RC_NUM}.deploy.log"
+        1. when prompted for the passphrase, if you have multiple gpg keys in 
your keyring, make sure that you enter the right passphase corresponding to the 
same key (FINGERPRINT) as used while generating source release in step f.ii.
+           > If the prompt is not for the same key (by default the 
maven-gpg-plugin will pick up the first key in your keyring so that could be 
different), then add the following option to your ~/.gnupg/gpg.conf file
+        2. make sure your IP is not changing while uploading, otherwise it 
creates a different staging repo
+        3. Use a VPN if you can't prevent your IP from switching
+        4. after uploading, inspect the log to make sure all maven tasks said 
"BUILD SUCCESS"
+    5. Review all staged artifacts by logging into Apache Nexus and clicking 
on "Staging Repositories" link on left pane. Then find a "open" entry for 
apachextable
+    6. Once you have ensured everything is good and validation of step 7 
succeeds, you can close the staging repo. Until you close, you can re-run 
deploying to staging multiple times. But once closed, it will create a new 
staging repo. So ensure you close this, so that the next RC (if need be) is on 
a new repo. So, once everything is good, close the staging repository on Apache 
Nexus. When prompted for a description, enter
+       > Apache incubator-xtable, version `${RELEASE_VERSION}`, release 
candidate `${RC_NUM}`.
+    7. After closing, run the script to validate the staged bundles again:
+       ```shell
+       ./scripts/release/validate_staged_bundles.sh 
orgapachextable-<stage_repo_number> ${RELEASE_VERSION}-rc${RC_NUM} 2>&1 | tee 
-a /tmp/validate_staged_bundles_output.txt
+       ```
+
+## Checklist to proceed to the next step
+
+1. Maven artifacts deployed to the staging repository of repository.apache.org
+2. Source distribution deployed to the dev repository of dist.apache.org and 
validated
+
+# Vote on the release candidate
+
+Once you have built and individually reviewed the release candidate, please 
share it for the community-wide(dev@incubator-xtable ) review. Please review 
foundation-wide voting guidelines for more information.
+
+Start the review-and-vote thread on the dev@ mailing list. Here’s an email 
template; please adjust as you see fit.
+
+```
+From: Release Manager
+
+To: d...@incubator-xtable.apache.org 
+
+Subject: [VOTE] Release 1.2.3, release candidate #3
+
+ 
+
+Hi everyone,
+
+Please review and vote on the release candidate #3 for the version 1.2.3, as 
follows:
+
+[ ] +1, Approve the release
+
+[ ] -1, Do not approve the release (please provide specific comments)
+
+ 
+
+The complete staging area is available for your review, which includes:
+
+* JIRA release notes [1],
+
+* the official Apache source release and binary convenience releases to be 
deployed to dist.apache.org [2], which are signed with the key with fingerprint 
FFFFFFFF [3],
+
+* all artifacts to be deployed to the Maven Central Repository [4],
+
+* source code tag "1.2.3-rc3" [5],
+
+ 
+
+The vote will be open for at least 72 hours. It is adopted by majority 
approval, with at least 3 PMC affirmative votes.
+
+ 
+
+Thanks,
+
+Release Manager
+
+ 
+
+[1] link
+
+[2] link
+
+[3] https://dist.apache.org/repos/dist/release/incubator/xtable/KEYS
+
+[4] link
+
+[5] link
+
+[6] link
+```
+
+If there are any issues found in the release candidate, reply on the vote 
thread to cancel the vote, and there’s no need to wait 72 hours if any issues 
found. Proceed to the Fix Issues step below and address the problem. However, 
some issues don’t require cancellation. For example, if an issue is found in 
the website, just correct it on the spot and the vote can continue as-is.
+
+If there are no issues, reply on the vote thread to close the voting. Then, 
tally the votes in a separate email. Here’s an email template; please adjust as 
you see fit.
+
+```
+From: Release Manager
+
+To: d...@xtable.apache.org
+
+Subject: [RESULT] [VOTE] Release 1.2.3, release candidate #3
+
+ 
+
+I'm happy to announce that we have unanimously approved this release.
+
+ 
+
+There are XXX approving votes, XXX of which are binding:
+
+* approver 1
+
+* approver 2
+
+* approver 3
+
+* approver 4
+
+ 
+
+There are no disapproving votes.
+
+ 
+
+Thanks everyone!
+```
+
+## Checklist to proceed to the finalization step
+
+Community votes to release the proposed candidate, with at least three 
approving PMC votes
+
+# Fix any issues
+
+Any issues identified during the community review and vote should be fixed in 
this step.
+
+Code changes should be proposed as standard pull requests to the master branch 
and reviewed using the normal contributing process. Then, relevant changes 
should be cherry-picked into the release branch. The cherry-pick commits should 
then be proposed as the pull requests against the release branch, again 
reviewed and merged using the normal contributing process.
+
+Once all issues have been resolved, you should go back and build a new release 
candidate with these changes.
+
+## Checklist to proceed to the next step
+
+Issues identified during vote have been resolved, with fixes committed to the 
release branch.
+
+# Finalize the release
+
+Once the release candidate has been reviewed and approved by the community, 
the release should be finalized. This involves the final deployment of the 
release candidate to the release repositories, merging of the website changes, 
etc.
+
+## Current follow the below steps to finalize the release.
+
+1. Drop all RC orgapachextable-XXX in [Apache Nexus Staging 
Repositories](https://repository.apache.org/#stagingRepositories).
+2. change the version from ${RELEASE_VERSION}-rc${RC_NUM} to 
${RELEASE_VERSION} against release branch, use command `mvn versions:set 
-DnewVersion=${RELEASE_VERSION}`, e.g. change 0.5.1-rc1 to 0.5.1.
+3. Commit and push the version change to release branch.
+    1. git commit -am "[MINOR] Update release version to reflect published 
version  ${RELEASE_VERSION}"
+    2. git push origin release-${RELEASE_VERSION}
+4. Repeat the steps from **_Generate Source Release (f) to Stage source 
releases on [dist.apache.org](http://dist.apache.org/) (i)_**. Including 
staging jars with the release version and uploading source release.
+   > **Note that make sure remove the -rc${RC_NUM} suffix when repeat the 
above steps. and please also verify the steps.  Ensure git tag is also done 
without -rc${RC_NUM}**
+5. One more step is to [deploy source code to 
release](https://www.apache.org/legal/release-policy.html#upload-ci) dist. 
[https://dist.apache.org/repos/dist/release/incubator/xtable](https://dist.apache.org/repos/dist/release/incubator/xtable).
+   Only PMC will have access to this repo. So, if you are not a PMC, do get 
help from somone who is.
+    1. svn checkout 
https://dist.apache.org/repos/dist/release/incubator/xtable --depth=immediates, 
if you would not checkout, please try svn checkout 
https://dist.apache.org/repos/dist/release/incubator/xtable again.
+    2. Make a directory for the new release:
+       ```shell
+       mkdir incubator-xtable/${RELEASE_VERSION}
+       ```
+    3. Copy incubator-xtable source distributions, hashes, and GPG signature:
+       ```shell
+       mv <incubator-xtable-dir>/src_release/* 
incubator-xtable/${RELEASE_VERSION}
+       ```
+    4. Add and commit all the files.
+       ```shell
+       cd incubator-xtable
+       svn add ${RELEASE_VERSION}
+       svn commit
+       ```
+    5. Verify that files are 
[present](https://dist.apache.org/repos/dist/release/incubator/xtable)
+6. Use the Apache Nexus repository to release the staged binary artifacts to 
the Maven Central repository. In the Staging Repositories section, find the 
relevant release candidate orgapachextable-XXX entry and click `Release`.
+   > Note: make sure and check you click `Release` repo, it cannot be 
withdrawn.
+7. Drop all other release candidates that are not being released. It can take 
up to 24 hours for the new release to show up in [Maven Central 
repository](https://search.maven.org/search?q=g:org.apache.xtable).
+8. In Jira, go to Releases → <Release Version> and ensure that all Jiras for 
the release are 'Closed' state, if not transition all 'Resolved' jiras to 
'Closed'.

Review Comment:
   This step needs to be updated, as we do not use JIRA.



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