+1 (non binding)...
I have written the procedure I used to validate the release here: https://github.com/clebertsuconic/activemq-artemis/blob/master/docs/hacking-guide/en/validating-releases.md I have download the binary, executed a lot of the artemis examples, installed servers, tried windows services.. ran the examples directly from the release using a brand new maven repository on both windows, Linux and Mac.
