Django 1.3 alpha 1 -- Update

Astute observers will have noted that October 18 has come and gone, but Django 1.3 alpha 1 hasn't been released.

There are two reasons for this. Firstly, we landed a number of big features very close to the original planned release date, including class-based views, a static media framework, and a context manager for transactions. However, we're still seeing some sporadic bug reports for these features. We don't expect that the alpha will be bug-free, but we'd like to avoid cutting a release with any completely boneheaded mistakes in it, so we're going to wait a little bit for the dust to settle before we produce the alpha.

Secondly, James Bennett, our release manager, has been particularly busy of late, and hasn't been in a position to turn the crank handle that makes the release. Although our bus factor for making releases is low, it is greater than 1 -- if James is unable to find time to make the release once the time comes, there are a couple of other people on the core team (including myself and Jacob) that know how to produce a release should the need arise.

This delay only affects the alpha -- it doesn't change the overall schedule. With any luck, we should have an alpha by this time next week. After that, we're still targeting a beta (and full feature freeze) at the end of November, and a final release for January 17 next year. If you have a little feature that you want to see in Django 1.3, now is the time to make sure the your patch is in good condition, and join us on the Django-developers mailing list or on #django-dev on IRC to advocate for the features your want to see.