towards alpha2

Hi,

So alpha1 is out the door. Johannes and I still need to get some
routine with this release business. First lesson is to package on
Wednesday for a release on Thursday. And I need to be more careful
when I update the various PHP sites. Anyways due to the various last
minute changes, we broke too many things for the windows guys, so
official builds will only come with alpha2, though snaps.php.net is
pushing out windows builds for 5.3 for those who cannot wait.

While I still have not had time to sit down and schedule alpha2, it
has coem to my attention that Derick and Scott are planning vacations
in the next weeks. While Scott can probably complete all of his
current alpha2 items, the same might not be the case for Derick. So
before Johannes and I try to make a date solid (we originally
envisioned a 2-3 week time frame, and due to the many items for alpha2
and the more or less final feature freeze, I figured we would package
on the 20th), it would be good to hear from all of the people with
items for alpha2 by then they estimate they can complete the given
task (some items have links to explain the context, please check on
the wiki [1] for these urls, if the item in this email is unclear):

• Windows binary releases and snaps: stabilize, review, fix and make
  it maintainable (first official new builds planed for the end of July)
  IN PROGRESS
  • make mysqlnd the default mysql lib
  • remove pdo_oci8 (only keep pdo_oci)
• add openssl_parse_csr (Pierre)
• pat3 "OpenLDAP C API cleanup patch" and pat44 "LDAP control
  support" (Pierre)
• Cleanup code to use the new zend_parse_parameters API (Alexey,
  Felipe, Olivier, David) IN PROGRESS
• Add all missing arg infos to make Reflection more informative
  (Felipe) IN PROGRESS
• Algorithm Optimizations - string search (Scott)
• Zend Signal Handling (Lucas/Dmitry)
• Bundle unix man pages for functions, methods and class references
  (Hannes, Rudy)
• shutdown order issues (Greg)
• unix path separators in spl (Steph/Greg/Marcus)
• GD
  • Remove GD1 and Freetype1 support (Scott)
  • Merge gd 2.1 to the bundled library
  • Enable all features as long as the minimum GD version is
    available (2.0.36 for 5.3) (Pierre)
• fix open issues in phar (Greg)
  • fix modification of virtual directories
  • some performance concerns over non-code files
• solve issues with ext/soap and errors in the ctor (Noah/Dmitry)
• apply patches to ODBC for bug #43666, bug #43668, bug #43669 (Derick)
• htscanner: move the common part out of fcgi and enable it in the
  other sapis (or move it to the global SAPI) (Jani/Pierre)
• Openssl: allow signing to work with buffers and add helpers to
  create signed mails (Pierre)
• drop ereg usage (browser cap, etc.) (Nuno)
• exception handling, two new functions and a modified one plus a
  structure change (Marcus)
• change the error mode to prevent wrong error handling mode for inner
  call in some cases (Marcus)
• update to re2c 0.14.0 (Marcus)
• make ext/ming compile with libming 0.3 again
• additional re2c tweaks
• MFH lightspeed SAPI

Note the last 3 items have no names after them.
So please let us know offlist by when you can complete given item or
if you do not understand the item or do not feel like the right person
for the job. Of course if the item is already complete please also let
us know.

Furthermore if you feel an item still needs discussion please feel
free to open a new thread to discuss the item.
Finally if something is missing please also shoot an email.

regards,
Lukas Kahwe Smith
mls@pooteeweet.org