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Date: Tue, 12 Aug 2025 14:47:07 +0200
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Subject: [PHP-DEV] [PHP 8.5] Soft Feature Freeze starting today
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From: edorian@php.net (Volker Dusch)

Hi everyone,

With beta1 getting tagged later today, the annual soft feature freeze start=
s.

The feature freeze policy [1] was recently updated [2]. So we want to
remind you what this means in practice:

Already voted-on RFCs whose implementations are still pending can
still be merged, given approval from the Release Managers (RMs).
For RM approval, please tag the @php/release-managers-85 team on
GitHub. The RM team has decided that for the next two weeks, approval
from any one person on the RM team is enough to move forward.
=E2=80=A8Other changes, like bug fixes, do not require RM approval.

This soft feature freeze will continue until the 23rd of September
2025, when RC1 is tagged two days before its release [3]. Please get
your pending implementations merged until then, if you haven=E2=80=99t
already.

Afterward, the hard feature freeze begins, marking a stabilization and
documentation period [4].

Kind regards and thank you for your work on PHP!

Your RMs,
Volker Dusch, Daniel Scherzer, and Pierrick Charron

[1]: https://github.com/php/php-src/blob/master/docs/release-process.md#sof=
t-feature-freeze
[2]: https://github.com/php/php-src/pull/19148
[3]: https://wiki.php.net/todo/php85
[4]: https://github.com/php/php-src/blob/master/docs/release-process.md#har=
d-feature-freeze