The GHC development team is pleased to announce the first (and likely final) release candidate of GHC 8.4.1. The usual release artifacts are available from https://downloads.haskell.org/~ghc/8.4.1-rc1 This release will likely be the last release before the final 8.4.1 release, which, if things go well, will be released one week from today. Due to user demand we now offer a binary distribution for 64-bit Fedora 27, which links against ncurses6. This is in contrast to the Debian 8 distribution, which links against ncurses5. Users of newer distributions (Fedora 27, Debian Sid) should use this new Fedora 27 distribution. Also due to user demand we have reintroduced compatibility with GCC 4.4, which earlier alphas had dropped due to #14244. Note that this release candidate is still affected by #14705, although this will certainly be resolved before the final release is made. === Notes on release scheduling === The 8.4.1 release marks the first release where GHC will be adhering to its new, higher-cadence release schedule [1]. Under this new scheme, major releases will be made in 6-month intervals with interstitial minor releases as necessary. In order to minimize the likelihood of schedule slippage and to ensure adequate testing, each major release will be preceded by a number of regular alpha releases. We will begin issuing these releases roughly three months before the final date of the major release and will issue roughly one every two weeks during this period. This high release cadence will allow us to quickly get fixes into users' hands and more quickly identify potential issues. As always, do let us know if you encounter any trouble in the course of testing. Thanks for your help! Cheers, - Ben [1] https://ghc.haskell.org/trac/ghc/blog/2017-release-schedule