This is the release schedule for FreeBSD 8.0. For more information about the release engineering process, please see the Release Engineering section of the web site.
General discussions about the pending release and known issues should be sent to the public freebsd-current mailing list. MFC requests should be sent to re@FreeBSD.org.
| Action | Expected | Actual | Description |
| Initial release schedule announcement | - | 29 March 2009 | Release Engineers send announcement email to developers with a rough schedule. |
| Release schedule reminder | - | 5 May 2009 | Release Engineers send reminder announcement e-mail to developers with updated schedule. |
| Code slush | 1 June 2009 | 1 June 2009 | Release Engineers announce a slowdown in feature development for the release -- developers are requested to coordinate any non-refinement changes or late-arriving features with the release engineering team. |
| Code freeze begins | 25 June 2009 | 27 June 2009 | Release Engineers announce that all further commits to the head (and forthcoming RELENG_8 branch) will require explicit approval. Certain blanket approvals will be granted for narrow areas of development, documentation improvmeents, etc. |
| BETA1 | 29 June 2009 | 6 July 2009 | First beta test snapshot. |
| BETA2 | 6 July 2009 | 17 July 2009 | Second beta test snapshot. |
| RELENG_8 branch | - | 3 August 2009 - in progress | Subversion branch created, propagated to CVS and Perforce; future release engineering proceeds on this branch although code freeze/ slush continue for some time on head. |
| BETA3 | 13 July 2009 | 24 August 2009 | Third beta test snapshot. |
| BETA4 | 5 September 2009 | 7 September 2009 | Begin BETA4 builds. |
| RC1 | 14 September 2009 | 21 September 2009 | First release candidate. |
| RC2 | 21 September 2009 | 28 October 2009 | Second release candidate. |
| RC3 | - | 12 November 2009 | Third release candidate. |
| RELEASE build | 28 September 2009 | 22 November 2009 | 8.0-RELEASE built. |
| RELEASE announcement | TBD | 25 November 2009 | 8.0-RELEASE press release. |
| Turn over to the secteam | TBD | 01 December 2009 | RELENG_8_0 branch is handed over to the FreeBSD Security Officer Team in one or two weeks after the announcement. |