Dear developers and contributors,
We are getting close to the 8.5.0 release. As some of you may recall, we postponed the release to include and improve the additions of JSON output and parallelization of many tools.
The release is definitively one of our large releases because it also includes a new Python API, concurrent raster masks, and MkDocs documentation with Markdown source code. Please add here your thoughts on what should be highlighted in the release notes.
As you are able, review pending issues and PRs. Resolve them, merge them, or move them to the next appropriate milestone (8.5.1, 8.6.0, 9.0.0, or Future). Attend especially to those you are already involved in, but your help is appreciated anywhere.
8.5.0 PRs | 8.5.0 issues | 8.5.0 milestone
Since this is a minor release (x.Y.z), we will be branching off a branch in Git at the time of RC1. This will happen mid January. The final release will happen late January. Things unrelated to the release can be merged to the main branch now before branching off; they either need to be safe for the release or easy to revert on the branch, but it might be simpler to just hold off the merge for couple weeks.
Let everyone know here if you have any questions or concerns.
Best,
Vaclav