Everyone is encouraged to try and vote on HBase release candidates. Only the votes of PMC members are binding. PMC members, please read this WIP doc on policy voting for a release candidate, Release Policy. “Before casting +1 binding votes, individuals are required to download the signed source code package onto their own hardware, compile it as provided, and test the resulting executable on their own platform, along with also validating cryptographic signatures and verifying that the package meets the requirements of the ASF policy on releases.” Regards the latter, run mvn apache-rat:check to verify all files are suitably licensed. See HBase, mail # dev - On recent discussion clarifying ASF release policy. for how we arrived at this process.