diff --git a/doc/HowToRelease.txt b/doc/HowToRelease.txt
index 81eae40d..5c365f94 100644
--- a/doc/HowToRelease.txt
+++ b/doc/HowToRelease.txt
@@ -35,13 +35,20 @@ up-to-date (e.g. using ./autogen.sh) before generating the archives!
 II. How to prepare a new ngIRCd release?
 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
 
-a) Make sure the source tree is in a releasable state ;-)
-    - is the AUTHORS file up to date?
-
-b) Make sure you have working versions of GNU autoconf and GNU automake
+a) Make sure you have working versions of GNU autoconf and GNU automake
    installed on the system you use for generating the release:
-   as of October 2010 we are using GNU autoconf 2.67 and GNU automake 1.11.1
+   as of May 2020 we are using GNU autoconf 2.69 and GNU automake 1.11.6
    which seem to work just fine.
+   NOTE: new releases of GNU automake DO NOT work, as they lack support for
+   the "ansi2knr" wrapper and "de-ANSI-fication" support!
+
+b) Make sure the source tree is in a releasable state ;-)
+    - Are all branches & patches merged? Check GitHub issues, pull requests
+      and milestones!
+    - Run as many tests as you can!
+    - Is the AUTHORS file up to date? This command may be helpful:
+      "( grep '>$' AUTHORS; git shortlog -se | cut -c8- ) | grep -Ev \
+       '(alex@barton.de|fw@strlen.de)' | LC_ALL=de_DE.UTF-8 sort -u"
 
 c) Update the files describing the new release:
     - ChangeLog