prepare release notes for EasyBuild v4.4.0 + bump version to 4.4.0

Author: migueldiascosta

RELEASE_NOTES

@@ -4,6 +4,64 @@ For more detailed information, please see the git log.
 These release notes can also be consulted at https://easybuild.readthedocs.io/en/latest/Release_notes.html.
 
 
+v4.4.0 (June 2nd 2021)
+----------------------
+
+feature release
+
+- various enhancements, including:
+  - performance improvements for easyconfig parsing and eb startup (#3555)
+  - add support for multiple PRs in --from-pr (#3605, #3707)
+  - update setup.py to indicate compatibility with Python 3.8 and 3.9 (#3647)
+  - add support for prepending custom library paths in RPATH section (#3650)
+  - allow amending easyconfig parameters which are not the default (#3651)
+  - update HMNS for Intel OneAPI compilers (#3653)
+  - add support for --sanity-check-only + also run sanity check for extensions when using --module-only (#3655)
+  - add support for running commands asynchronously via run_cmd + complete_cmd functions (#3656)
+  - add support for using oneAPI versions of 'intel' toolchain components (#3665)
+  - add toolchain definition for gofbf (foss with FlexiBLAS rather than OpenBLAS) (#3666)
+  - add support for using ARCH constant in easyconfig files (#3670)
+  - honor keyboard interrupt in 'eb' command (#3674)
+  - add toolchain definition for Fujitsu toolchain (#3677, #3704, #3712, #3713, #3714, #3717)
+  - extend sanity check step to check whether specific libraries are not linked into installed binaries/libraries (#3678)
+  - add locate_solib function to locate Linux shared libraries (#3682)
+  - add system agnostic function to locate shared libraries (#3683)
+  - add update_build_option function to update specific build options after initializing the EasyBuild configuration (#3684)
+  - use unload/load in ModuleGeneratorLua.swap_module, since 'swap' is not supported by Lmod (#3685)
+  - update HierarchicalMNS to also return 'Toolchain/<name>/<version>' as $MODULEPATH extension for cpe* Cray toolchains (#3686)
+  - allow opting out of recursively unloaded of modules via recursive_module_unload easyconfig parameter (#3689)
+  - check for correct version values when parsing easystack file (#3693)
+  - run post-install commands specified for a specific extension (#3696)
+  - add support for --skip-extensions (#3702)
+  - include PR title in output produced by --merge-pr (#3706)
+- various bug fixes, including:
+  - enhance apply_regex_substitutions to allow specifying action to take in case there are no matches (#3440)
+  - avoid metadata greedy behaviour when probing for external module metadata (#3559)
+  - catch problems early on if --github-user is not specified for --new-pr & co (#3644)
+  - re-enable write permissions when installing with read-only-installdir (#3649)
+  - improve logging when failing to load class from exts_classmap (#3657)
+  - fix use of --module-only on existing installations without write permissions (#3659)
+  - correct help text for subdir-user-modules (#3660)
+  - pin GitPython version for Python<3.6, don't test bootstrap script against Python 3.8/3.9 (#3675)
+  - avoid picking up easyblocks outside of sandbox in framework tests (#3680)
+  - make get_config_obj return a copy rather than a reference (#3692)
+  - make sure that $TAPE is unset when using piped tar (#3698)
+  - fix extending message for changed files in new_pr_from_branch (#3699)
+  - enhance sched_getaffinity function to avoid early crash when counting available cores on systems with more than 1024 cores (#3701)
+  - correctly strip extension from filename in extract_cmd and back_up_file functions (#3705)
+  - fix crash in create_test_report with --upload-test-report --from-pr when one or more test installations failed (#3708)
+- other changes:
+  - deprecate adding a non-existing path to $MODULEPATH (#3637)
+  - bump cryptography requirement from 3.2.1 to 3.3.2 (#3643, #3648)
+  - test bootstrap script in separate workflow, and limit test configurations a bit (#3646)
+  - replace log_error parameter of which() by on_error (#3661, #3664)
+  - don't skip sanity check for --module-only --rebuild (#3645)
+  - move disable_templating function into the EasyConfig class (#3668)
+  - tweak foss toolchain definition to switch from OpenBLAS to FlexiBLAS in foss/2021a (#3679)
+  - suggest missing SSH key when not able to read from remote repository in --check-github (#3681)
+  - drop support for Python 2.6 (#3715)
+
+
 v4.3.4 (April 9th 2021)
 -----------------------
 

easybuild/tools/version.py

@@ -43,7 +43,7 @@
 # recent setuptools versions will *TRANSFORM* something like 'X.Y.Zdev' into 'X.Y.Z.dev0', with a warning like
 #   UserWarning: Normalizing '2.4.0dev' to '2.4.0.dev0'
 # This causes problems further up the dependency chain...
-VERSION = LooseVersion('4.3.5.dev0')
+VERSION = LooseVersion('4.4.0')
 UNKNOWN = 'UNKNOWN'