14 DAY TRIAL // Debian developers have announced that the Debian 8.0 "Jessie" development cycle has been frozen and all the updates that will land from on now will consist only of bug fixes.
Most Linux distributions that follow a schedule or at least the regular development pattern have this kind of intermediary stage. Others call it feature freeze, but the meaning is the same for everyone.
Landing new features in the distribution is no longer accepted and the devs start concentrating on bug fixes. This is actually a good idea and allows the team to focus on quality more than anything else.
Debian is considered to be a very stable operating system and it's being used as a base for numerous projects, including Ubuntu and Linux Mint, just to name a couple of the most important ones. The developers have a real interest in keeping this distro as good as possible and that can only be achieved by fixing all the issues before the stable launch.
Debian 8.0 "Jessie" is now in feature freeze
Debian devs will still be able to push changes for the latest version of the distribution if something really important needs to be implemented. There are mechanisms in place that allow new stuff to be added, but it will have to be pretty important and it will go through an approval process.
"The release team is pleased to announce that Debian 8.0 'Jessie' is frozen. Further updates to this release will be restricted to bug fixes only. Valid candidates for unblocks are divided into five categories. Please ensure that you are familiar with the policy and the permitted changes. The dates stated in the policy are guidelines. We reserve the right to adjust them along the way, for example if the supply of candidates dries up."
"Since many updates (hopefully, the vast majority) will be via unstable, changes there can be disruptive if they would be unsuitable for Jessie. Please be mindful of this, particularly if you maintain a library or key package," writes Jonathan Wiltshire on the official mailing list.
The devs are now working towards the first Release Candidate version and there are 310 RC bugs marked right now for Debian 8.0 "Jessie."
If the development cycle follows the same trend, we should have the final version of the operating system in about six months. This is just an estimate, because the final release date hasn't been set, so no one really knows when it will be ready.