Development Focus -----------------

The Release Candidate (RC) deadline is next Thursday, September 14. Work should be focused on fixing any release-critical bugs.

General Information -------------------

All deliverables released under a cycle-with-rc model should have a first release candidate by the end of the week, from which a stable/2023.2 branch will be cut. This branch will track the 2023.2 Bobcat release.

Once stable/2023.2 has been created, the master branch will be ready to switch to 2024.1 Caracal development. While the master branch will no longer be feature-frozen, please prioritize any work necessary for completing 2023.2 Bobcat plans. Release-critical bugfixes will need to be merged in the master branch first, then backported to the stable/2023.2 branch before a new release candidate can be proposed.

Actions -------

Early in the week, the release team will be proposing RC1 patches for all cycle-with-rc projects, using the latest commit from the master branch. If your team is ready to go for cutting RC1, please let us know by leaving a +1 on these patches.

If there are still a few more patches needed before RC1, you can -1 the patch and update it later in the week with the new commit hash you would like to use. Remember, stable/2023.2 branches will be created with this, so you will want to make sure you have what you need included to avoid needing to backport changes from the master branch (which will technically then be 2024.1 Bobcat) to this stable branch for any additional RCs before the final release.

The release team will also be proposing releases for any deliverable following a cycle-with-intermediary model that has not produced any 2023.2 Bobcat release so far.

Finally, now is a good time to finalize release highlights. Release highlights help shape the messaging around the release and make sure that your work is properly represented.

Upcoming Deadlines & Dates --------------------------

RC1 deadline: September 14 (R-3 week) Final RC deadline: September 28 (R-1 week) Final 2023.2 Bobcat release: October 4