to use gs3-release maker: 1. compile the customised ant cd apache-ant-1.6.5 ./build.sh -Ddist.dir=../ant dist cd .. 2. install the customised ant cd ant export ANT_HOME=`pwd` export PATH=$ANT_HOME/bin:$PATH put this (using absolute paths) in your .profile to make it permanent if you want. the customised ant will run any other ant script just fine. 3. customise the build.properties file for the current release 4. start using it e.g., ant -Dexecute=false create-release