0.8.1 and forward release notes with Gradle
mkdir 0.8.1_RELEASE
cd 0.8.1_RELEASE/
git clone http://git-wip-us.apache.org/repos/asf/kafka.git kafka_0.8.1-src
cd kafka_0.8.1-src/
git checkout 0.8.1
Go to JIRA and prepare/format the txt release notes (configure to change from html)
git tag -a 0.8.1
git push --tags
cd ..
mv kafka_0.8.1-src old
git clone http://git-wip-us.apache.org/repos/asf/kafka.git kafka_0.8.1-src
cd kafka_0.8.1-src/
git checkout 0.8.1
0.8.0 and below with SBT
0) Make sure you are using JDK 6
1) Your Key needs to be signed into the KEYS file http://svn.apache.org/repos/asf/kafka/KEYS
2) clone the repository to kafka-X.Y.Z-src
3) checkout the branch to release if releasing not off trunk
4) java -jar ../../apache-rat-0.8/apache-rat-0.8.jar (forgot to-do this in rc1,2,3 will do before running 4)
5) tag the branch and append (git tag -a releaseVersion) the "release notes" from JIRA
6) git push --tags
7) now get rid of git, rm -fr .git/* && rmdir .git && rm -f .gitignore
8) cd ..
9) tar -czvf kafka-X.Y.Z-src.tgz kafka-X.Y.Z-src/*
10) sign the src
...