GHC 8.0.1 status

[Ben Gamari]

tl;dr. Stabilizing the ghc-8.0 is taking a bit longer than was anticipated.
       The release schedule is being pushed back a bit.


Hello everyone,

As you likely know we are currently in the depths of the 8.0 release. In
fact, under more ideal circumstances I would probably be cutting another
release candidate right now instead of writing this email, in
preparation for a final release next week or so.

However, our world is far from ideal as evidenced by the number
[1] of significant bugs present on the 8.0 branch. This isn't altogether
unexpected; we knew we were taking a bit of a risk in merging so many
high-impact patches in one release. However, we thought that given a
longer-than-usual period between first-candidate and the final release,
we'd have enough time to smooth out the wrinkles. Sadly, this has taken
a bit longer than we anticipated.

Of course, the last thing we want is to push a known buggy release out
the door. Consequently, we won't be delivering the 8.0.1 release next
week as originally planned. Instead, we'll be pushing the release back
by about three weeks. This will give developers a bit more breathing
room in which to work out the remaining issues. Hopefully in a few weeks
the tree will be in such a state that we can push out yet another
candidate which, with luck, will be the last before the release.

If you'd like to expedite the process (and have fun in the process), you
could do worse than to having a look at Trac [1], choosing a bug of your
liking, and trying your hand at solving it.

Thanks to everyone who has contributed to this effort thusfar.
If you have any questions about the release process or how you can help,
don't hesistate to ask.

Cheers,

- Ben


[1] https://ghc.haskell.org/trac/ghc/wiki/Status/GHC-8.0.1
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