It's been a while since we released 2.8.3.Final, so it's time to start talking about 2.8.4.Final. As you can see on the list of issues, there are a few bugs slated to be fixed and one very important new feature: a utility for migrating the content in a 2.8.x repository to a 3.x repository. We're hoping to spend a week or two focusing on these so that we can get 2.8.4 out the door. If you're interested in helping out, please holler.

As we've said previously, we anticipate that this 2.8.4.Final release may be the last of the 2.x releases. Over the last months, only a few issues were opened against 2.x, and we've said before that new features were pretty unlikely. After all, most of the contributors for the last year have been focusing all of their time and efforts on the 3.x codebase, and we have many users (both old and new) that have switched to ModeShape 3. (BTW, if you haven't tried ModeShape 3, please do. It's far more scalable, performant, powerful, and capable than ModeShape 2!)

So even though we don't currently plan on additional 2.x releases, the community may intend otherwise. ModeShape is and will remain an open source project, and we very much welcome anyone who wants to help out! That means that anyone interested in fixing bugs, adding features, or wanting new releases can do so -- even on 2.x. Simply log an issue and submit a pull-request with the proposed fixes. We'll happily triage and manage the 2.x issues in JIRA, answer questions on our forums and IRC, offer suggestions and tips for fixes, review/merge your pull-requests, and when the time comes cut additional releases.

So to sum up: expect 2.8.4.Final relatively soon, and get involved if you're interested in taking 2.x farther. If not, start playing with ModeShape 3 so that when migration is available you can work toward switching to ModeShape 3.