diff --git a/dependencymanager/release/README.release b/dependencymanager/release/README.release
index bfc4434..b51a640 100644
--- a/dependencymanager/release/README.release
+++ b/dependencymanager/release/README.release
@@ -18,6 +18,7 @@
 
 Before you can start staging a release candidate, you must:
 
+* increment the ext.dmRelease parameter in release/build.gradle, if not already done.
 * make sure there are no dependencies on snapshots/unreleased versions;
 * create a tagged version of the sources in preparation of the release candidate.
 
diff --git a/dependencymanager/release/build.gradle b/dependencymanager/release/build.gradle
index 9fd512a..87fc467 100644
--- a/dependencymanager/release/build.gradle
+++ b/dependencymanager/release/build.gradle
@@ -23,7 +23,7 @@
 import aQute.bnd.build.Workspace
 
 // Our release number, which has to be monotonically incremented each time we make a new release.
-ext.dmRelease = "r3"
+ext.dmRelease = "r4"
 
 // Our Apache svn Staging repo
 ext.svnStagingPath = "https://dist.apache.org/repos/dist/dev/felix"