Hello everyone, As described earlier in the fall, with the GHC 8.4 release we will be trying to hold to a more reliable six-month release cycle. Towards this end we will be generally try to cut major release branches three months before the release date. As GHC 8.4 is slated to be released in February 2018, we are quickly approaching that three-month mark. Consequently I'd like to try cutting a branch next week. There are a few things that need to happen in the interim: * Hadrian needs to be merged (this should be done by the end of the day today) * Tamar's patches bumping our Windows toolchain need to be merged (they are in my merge queue) * A bunch of submodule bumps The remainder of the Trees That Grow work may not be entirely merged by the time we branch but Alan and I will arrange that things are merged after the fact. If you have work that you would like to see merged, please do let me know. If things go according to plan, we will produce our first alpha release shortly after the branch. Cheers, - Ben