You may have noticed over the weekend that Liferay released a first "Release Candidate" build named RC1. Download it here:

• Tomcat Bundle
• GlassFish Bundle
• JBoss Bundle
• Other Files
• Documentation
• JavaDoc
• Properties Docs (new!)
• Other reference docs

This is a build that could potentially be promoted to the first GA release! From here on out, Liferay's release and QA teams will be testing each RC, and if issues are found that need to be fixed (characterized as a "Show Stopper" bug), another RC will be done the following week, and repeat. Once a suitable RC is produced, it will simply be renamed GA1 and the party can begin. So we are officially on "Release Watch".

Around 220 fixes and 37 "Stories" (minor improvements) have been committed to this RC since the last development release. And, as usual, the community has been a huge help with finding, fixing, and writing regression tests for all those issues that Liferay can never find - issues that occur in your specific environments and upgrade scenarios that will help us improve the product and make your transition to the release (or the first impression for newcomers) that much better! So kudos to the many of you that have contributed to this release - it is a testament to open source and to the enthusiasm and passion shared by those in our community (if you contributed, be sure to add your name to the Community Contributor Hall of Fame!).

In this post, I'd like to briefly share some statistics from the community about this release, as well as some stats from our various community programs that offered a diverse and focused way to give something back.

Overall 6.2 Contributions by non-Liferay staff

• 1025 New Bugs filed (885 Bugs, 114 Feature Request Ideas, 690 total Resolved)
• 224 Community Contributions (!)
• 10,000+ Issues resolved (since Jan 6, 2012, the day 6.1 was released, and including all ticket types like bugs, features, stories, tasks, etc, regardless of origin)

Community Verifiers in 6.2

• 691 Bugs Verified
• 645 Resolved
• 46 Unresolved

Bugsquad in 6.2

• 333 new Bugs found
• 303 Resolved
• 30 Unresolved
• 110 actual code fixes

6.2 Translations (for Portal and Plugins)

• A sum total of over 100,000 combined individual new submissions, suggested modifications, and approval actions (The version of Pootle used by the Translation Team is not good at generating statistics, so this is a sum total of all users and their actions, including contributions of string translations, as well as "approvals", via a screen-scrape!).

6.2 Community Beta Program

• 72 Participants
• 130 Issues reported
• 81 Issues Resolved

As you can see, a lot of work went into this release, both from Liferay staff and our generous and ambitious community, and I would like to personally congratulate and thank each and every person who contributed to this release. I've been using the new release for a couple of months for day-to-day tasks and have to say it is well worth the upgrade.

If you're curious what the new release is all about, check out the RC build, and read the official docs to learn more about the release. A lot of blood, sweat, and tears has gone into this release, and I hope you find that it meets or exceeds your needs! As always, keep an eye on the Release Dashboard for up-to-the-minute information about the final builds and ultimate release.