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.
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.
I have a couple of pull requests addressing CMake issues, which (when merged) will bring the CMake build nearly on par feature wise with the current Autotools build (albeit still experimental).
Might as well tighten up the gunittest threshold for CMake in CI now that extensions are working. Also, the pytest tests aren’t running for CMake CI yet. So there’s some part not checked yet.
Today February 5, between 14:00 and 22:00 UTC, we are planning to make preparations for the release. Please refrain from pushing commits or new pull requests during this time period. For a painless process as possible, we need the CI slots to be free.