Release date
============

We plan to release on 2019-07-06.

If you want to celebrate it, please consider attending a Debian release
party, or hosting your own! See
https://wiki.debian.org/ReleasePartyBuster for more information.


The final weeks up to the release
=================================

In the last week prior to the freeze, testing will be completely
frozen and only emergency bug fixes will be considered in this period.
Please consider Tuesday the 2019-06-25 at 13:00 UTC the absolute last
moment for submitting unblock requests for buster.

Changes that are not ready to migrate to testing at that time will
not be included in buster for the initial release. However, you can
still fix bugs in buster via point releases if the changeset follows
the rules for updates in stable.

Starting now, we will be even more strict when considering unblock
requests. Please check the details below and make sure to only upload
well-tested *targeted* fixes.

In summary:

vvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvv
* **Unblock request** deadline: > 2019-06-25 13:00 UTC <
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
- You must submit your unblock request *before* then
- Your changes must be ready to migrate to buster at that time
- Upload several days *before* the deadline

* If a change is late, it may still be applicable for an update via
a point release after buster has been released.

* Please note that the automatic removals are still in effect and may
still remove packages up to that date. Also, some packages will be
removed manually before the auto-removal deadline.

Please fix bugs today rather than shortly before the deadline. Simple
mistakes (no manner how trivial) or busy buildd queue can end up
causing your upload to miss the buster release.

Future updates to buster up to the freeze
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

As we are entering the final part of the freeze, please keep future
changes and unblock requests limited to:

* RC bugs
* Patches for crashes/memory leaks/etc.
* Security bug fixes
* Regressions compared to stretch
* stretch to buster upgrade issues
* Documentation fixes + translation updates (preferably bundled with
a fix for at least one of the problems listed above and nothing
else)

We will only accept targeted fixes. Requests including other changes
will not be accepted. Please do not upload new upstream versions to
unstable.


For the release team,
Niels