Mapserver 4.8.0 was released on February 2nd, 2006. The release plan is still available below for reference.

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This 4.8 release plan was voted by the TSC. Information below may still change slightly as the release progresses.

Planned Dates
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Based on our experience with the other 4.x releases, we will plan for 3 betas over a 6 weeks period after the code freeze. This will lead us to a final release mid December:

* Feature freeze - Oct 31st, 2005
* 4.8.0-beta1 - Nov 4th (done on Nov 7th)
* 4.8.0-beta2 - Nov 18th (done on Nov 23rd)
* 4.8.0-beta3 - Dec 2nd (done on Dec 16th)
* 4.8.0-rc1 - Dec 9th (done on Dec 22nd)
* 4.8.0-rc2 - ... (done on Jan 9th, 2006)
* 4.8.0-rc3 - ... (done on Jan 25th)
* 4.8.0 (final) - Dec 16th (done on Feb 2nd, 2006)

CVS Tags/Branches?
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* The main trunk (HEAD) in CVS is currently the 4.7 development version that we plan to release as 4.8
* The stable CVS branch for this release will be called "branch-4-8" (not created yet).
* Current proposed date for creating "branch-4-8" is the date of the 4.8.0 release (around Dec 16th)
* If post-4.8 developments require earlier branching then please bring up your request for branching on the -dev list.
* The betas will be tagged in CVS as "rel-4-8-0-beta1", "rel-4-8-0-beta2", ... and the releases as "rel-4-8-0", "rel-4-8-1", etc... 

Bugzilla Conventions
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In order to facilitate querying the bugzilla database for bugs that still need to be addressed for this release, we try to stick to the following conventions:

* Bugs to be addressed for this release must have their target milestone set to "4.8 release"
* Bugs/Enhancements? that can't make it in this release but that we may want to address at a later time should be marked with the "FUTURE" target milestone with a comment explaining that the bug is postponed and if possible a quick analysis
* The target milestone on a bug should be set by the developers (bug owners) and not by the users (reporters). 

Other good practices when dealing with bugs:

* Please file bugs for any non-trivial bugfix or change to the software. This is so that we keep a trace for future reference of all bugfixes and changes that were made (why and how).
* Please mark bugs ASSIGNED as soon as you start working on them
* Please when marking a bug fixed include a comment describing the fix, the version of the software in which it was done, and any other relevant information. This will just make our lives easier in a few months/years when questions come up about this issue.
* When committing to CVS, please include the bug number in your CVS change log comment.
* Keep documentation in mind when fixing/changing things: if you cannot update the documentation yourself then please create a documentation bug describing the new feature/change and which document(s) should be updated. 

The following query returns all currently open bugs that are tagged with the "4.8 release" target milestone: http://mapserver.gis.umn.edu/bugs/buglist.cgi?target_milestone=4.8+release&bug_status=NEW&bug_status=ASSIGNED&bug_status=REOPENED

Related RFCs
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* MS RFC 2: Creating line features and/or shapes using WKT
* MS RFC 3: Layer Plug-in Architecture
* MS RFC 4: MapServer Raster Resampling
* MS RFC 5: MapServer Horizon Reprojection Improvements
* MS RFC 6: Color Range Mapping of Continuous Feature Values 
* MS RFC 8: Pluggable External Feature Layer Providers

Open Tasks
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None.

Completed Tasks
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Once completed, the tasks above should be moved down here.

* Documentation updates - Coordinate with all documentation contributors to bring all documents up to date for the release
   * Resp: Kari
   * Bug #:
   * Status: Completed by the website team