+<h3><a name="release-admin">Release Administrative Tasks</a></h3>
+
+<div>
+
+<p>This section describes a few administrative tasks that need to be done for
+ the release process to begin. Specifically, it involves:</p>
+
+<ul>
+ <li>Creating the release branch,</li>
+ <li>Setting version numbers, and</li>
+ <li>Tagging release candidates for the release team to begin testing</li>
+</ul>
+
+<!-- ======================================================================= -->
+<h4><a name="branch">Create Release Branch</a></h4>
+
+<div>
+
+<p>Branch the Subversion trunk using the following procedure:</p>
+
+<ol>
+ <li><p>Remind developers that the release branching is imminent and to refrain
+ from committing patches that might break the build. E.g., new features,
+ large patches for works in progress, an overhaul of the type system, an
+ exciting new TableGen feature, etc.</p></li>
+
+ <li><p>Verify that the current Subversion trunk is in decent shape by
+ examining nightly tester and buildbot results.</p></li>
+
+ <li><p>Create the release branch for <tt>llvm</tt>, <tt>clang</tt>,
+ the <tt>test-suite</tt>, and <tt>dragonegg</tt> from the last known good
+ revision. The branch's name is <tt>release_<i>XY</i></tt>,
+ where <tt>X</tt> is the major and <tt>Y</tt> the minor release
+ numbers. The branches should be created using the following commands:</p>
+
+<div class="doc_code">
+<pre>
+$ svn copy https://llvm.org/svn/llvm-project/llvm/trunk \
+ https://llvm.org/svn/llvm-project/llvm/branches/release_<i>XY</i>
+
+$ svn copy https://llvm.org/svn/llvm-project/cfe/trunk \
+ https://llvm.org/svn/llvm-project/cfe/branches/release_<i>XY</i>
+
+$ svn copy https://llvm.org/svn/llvm-project/dragonegg/trunk \
+ https://llvm.org/svn/llvm-project/dragonegg/branches/release_<i>XY</i>
+
+$ svn copy https://llvm.org/svn/llvm-project/test-suite/trunk \
+ https://llvm.org/svn/llvm-project/test-suite/branches/release_<i>XY</i>
+</pre>
+</div></li>
+
+ <li><p>Advise developers that they may now check their patches into the
+ Subversion tree again.</p></li>
+
+ <li><p>The Release Manager should switch to the release branch, because all
+ changes to the release will now be done in the branch. The easiest way to
+ do this is to grab a working copy using the following commands:</p>
+
+<div class="doc_code">
+<pre>
+$ svn co https://llvm.org/svn/llvm-project/llvm/branches/release_<i>XY</i> llvm-<i>X.Y</i>
+
+$ svn co https://llvm.org/svn/llvm-project/cfe/branches/release_<i>XY</i> clang-<i>X.Y</i>
+
+$ svn co https://llvm.org/svn/llvm-project/dragonegg/branches/release_<i>XY</i> dragonegg-<i>X.Y</i>
+
+$ svn co https://llvm.org/svn/llvm-project/test-suite/branches/release_<i>XY</i> test-suite-<i>X.Y</i>
+</pre>
+</div></li>
+</ol>
+