Yes, first item of business - the official announcement of news that has been showing up here and there already. The upcoming release, that was previously referred to as 2.3 has been renamed to 3.0. :-) After long discussions we decided that the return of CiviReport, together with many other changes and improvements that have been introduced in this release deserve a major version number. Robust reporting abilities, introduction of major changes in thhe user interface, and an abundance of other new features - we think it's a big step forward and want to underline it.

The whole team has been busy finishing up the functionality for the 3.0 release, but we're getting to the end of the path. The first alpha release for 3.0 is scheduled for Wednesday, August 5th (which is one week from now). We estimate that the first beta is going to be released 4 weeks after that, on August 26h.

There is also another reason for introducing a major version number. A lot of new functionality and changes in the code means the possibility of introducing bugs. 3.0 has a lot of new cool features, but also requires thorough testing. As we move forward with alphas and betas, we will be asking everyone in the community to support this effort. We already have some contributors working on testing the release (Venuslabs), and we will be calling for more help on this. Help can come in many forms:

• Banging on your favorite features on the 3.0 Sandbox
• Downloading and upgrading a copy of your site to 3.0 - and then banging on critical features
• Helping to write unit tests (more on this soon)

Please get ready to join us in making this release shiny and bug free starting next week!