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WordPress 4.9 will be the second “major” release of 2017 with the theme of editing code, managing plugins and themes, a user-centric way to customize a site, and polishing some recently added features over this last year. Mel Choyce and Weston Ruter are the co-Release Leads for 4.9.

Release Schedule

June 8, 2017 Trunktrunk A directory in Subversion containing the latest development code in preparation for the next major release cycle. If you are running "trunk", then you are on the latest revision. is open for business. (Post-4.8)
August 2, 2017 4.9 Kickoff meeting.
September 27, 2017 (+8w) Last chance to merge feature projects.
October 5, 2017 (+8d)
October 4, 2017 (+1w)
BetaBeta A pre-release of software that is given out to a large group of users to trial under real conditions. Beta versions have gone through alpha testing in-house and are generally fairly close in look, feel and function to the final product; however, design changes often occur as part of the process. 1 and feature project merge deadline.
From this point on, no more commits for any new enhancements or feature requests in this release cycle, only bugbug A bug is an error or unexpected result. Performance improvements, code optimization, and are considered enhancements, not defects. After feature freeze, only bugs are dealt with, with regressions (adverse changes from the previous version) being the highest priority. fixes and inline documentation. Work can continue on enhancements/feature requests not completed and committed by this point, and can be picked up for commit again at the start of WordPress 5.0.
October 12, 2017 (+1w)
October 11, 2017 (+1w)
Beta 2.
October 19, 2017 (+1w)
October 18, 2017 (+1w)
Beta 3.
October 25, 2017 (+6d)
October 23, 2017 (+5d)
Beta 4.
October 31, 2017 (+6d)
October 30, 2017 (+5d)
Release candidaterelease candidate One of the final stages in the version release cycle, this version signals the potential to be a final release to the public. Also see alpha (beta). and soft string freeze.
November 7, 2017 (+1w)
November 6, 2017 (+1w)
Final release candidate if needed and hard string freeze.
November 14, 2017 (+1w) Release candidate 3.
November 13, 2017 (+1w) Dry run for release of WordPress 4.9 and 24 hour code freeze.
November 15, 2017 (+1d)
November 14, 2017 (+1d)
🎶 Target date for release of WordPress 4.9 “Tipton”. 🎶

Contributing

To get involved in WordPress coreCore Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress. development, head on over to TracTrac An open source project by Edgewall Software that serves as a bug tracker and project management tool for WordPress. and pick a 4.9 ticket. Need help? Check out the Core Contributor Handbook. Get your patches done and submitted as soon as possible, then help find people to test the patches and leave feedback on the ticketticket Created for both bug reports and feature development on the bug tracker.. Patches for enhancements will not be committed after the dates posted above, so that we can all focus on squashing bugs and  deliver the most bug-free WordPress ever. If you want to dive deeper into 4.9, development is discussed at a weekly meeting in the #core SlackSlack Slack is a Collaborative Group Chat Platform https://slack.com/. The WordPress community has its own Slack Channel at https://make.wordpress.org/chat/. channel and occurs next at Wednesday at 20:00 UTC. Wish us luck!