It wasn't my intention to open up the whole question of scheduled releases. HP has a regular release schedule, and there were many good discussions leading up to it. As for the timing of those releases, last time we looked into this there was no good release time that worked for all the common Linux distro's release schedules. Perhaps GNOME has figured this one out - they release stable end of September and end of March. We could aim to glide toward that.
Back to this release:
GHC 7.8 won't be ready for inclusion in an HP for quite some time. We haven't even seen the first release yet! If it has stabilized by end of February, then it could make it into the next HP (assuming we don't move the schedule up to match GNOME). But I think realistically, one shouldn't expect a GHC 7.8 as part of an HP release until 2014.4.0.0. [Aside: If the community wants to see closer tracking, then we probably need to start talking about a different way of producing GHC - with both stable and experimental releases happening... when this idea has been raised in the past, GHC central hasn't had the person-power to do it.]
The next Mac OS X is indeed right around the corner (no official date from Apple, just "this Autumn") - the GM release candidate of both OS X Mavericks and Xcode 5 are already in developers (and my) hands. My understanding is that current HP just won't work on it - which means we really should get something out to support it.
SO, back to concrete ideas:
A) Minor release
• Minor rev: since GHC and most packages haven't changed, and we won't be adding anything, just roll it as normal now.
• Bump for Mac: immediately after, roll HP 2013.4.1.0 which has GHC 7.6.3 + patches (perhaps named 7.6.4?), so this works w/Xcode 5
—or—
B) Delay release
• New packages: running the normal process, just a month late
• Bump for Mac: get GHC central to put out 7.6.4 which has what is needed to support Xcode 5
—or—C) Skip a release
• Go for 7.8: push everyone (GHC central, library maintainers) to get 7.8 stable ASAP
• Big Push for Packages: use the time to push for a significant increase in the packages in the Platform
• Release in March: aiming to sync with GNOME, assuming they're on to something!
As attractive as some aspects of C are, it leaves anyone with a Mac out in the cold for six months: They either can't upgrade, or can't Haskell.
A requires duplicate effort (mostly on my part), but is otherwise mechanical... and not that exciting.
B deviates from our schedule, but if GHC can roll a 7.6.4, might get us an HP with some new packages.