Hey All,
I want to try something different with this dev cycle based on feedback that has been received as well as it being our least predictable cycle thus far. First, I want to thaw trunk to a degree. New features are allowed if they really appear to be "complete"... this means no committing anything that is known to not be fully implemented, introduce regressions, or otherwise has known issues. On top of that, if the author of said feature does not have time to polish/bugfix within a month based on feedback, it's just not the right time to merge it.
Once we are clearly moving forward toward a release, at that time I will propose a freeze. Once all blocker bugs are closed out a release branch will be made. At that point is when string freeze will officially set in on that release branch. 6 wonderful weeks of further bug fixes and translating will then take place.
Yes, it seems like the release is "just sitting there" while getting wrapped up, but one benefit is a planned period to get test builds out in the wild so we can possibly get an even more stable new release out. Regular users always catch our oversights, so the more of them with their hands dirty helps save us some potential bug tracker grief.
Hopefully some other great new stuff has the potential to land in 0.49 now. It's a shame for development to not still charge ahead if people's work is far along enough. We'll see how this works out this time and if appropriate perhaps do the same again in future releases. I will let everyone know when it looks like we should actually go back into feature, but from where I sit, I don't foresee that being too soon.
As usual, any questions, comments, or feedback are welcome.
TL;DR: We're mostly thawed, but commit quality matters more than usual. An update will be posted when it's merited.
Cheers, Josh