Dear Members of the ILIAS-Community!

The last Jour Fixe (JF) [1] decided to move the release of ILIAS 9 to march 2024. We have received multiple questions concerning the Feature Freeze for ILIAS 9 afterwards. These we want to answer:

* We hereby confirm the decision of the JF and the new schedule for ILIAS 9 as published in the ILIAS Docu Wiki [2]. * We again emphasize that the focus for everyone MUST be on a timely release of ILIAS 8 at the moment. Any further delay on this release will put the timeline for ILIAS 9 in danger. This we can absolutely not afford. Please make sure to leave the developers as much time to get ILIAS 8 ready as they need. Avoid feature workshops as much as possible. We will not compromise on the 98% goal for passed tests. * We will reopen the Feature Wiki for new Requests for ILIAS 9. For the discussion of Features at the Jour Fixe: * We will prioritize components with more than 90% passed tests. If you want to propose a feature for a component not matching this criterion, you may consider offering help to the corresponding tester or the test-coordinator. * We will prioritize feature request focussed on abandoning functionality. * We will prioritize feature request focussed on clarifying and simplifying existing functionality. * We will prioritize requests brought up in the framework of the "Large Developments". * We will keep an especially close eye on proposals for new functionality in components with a lot of unfixed issues. We will veto developments that introduce functionallity we don't believe we can maintain. * We will have another Large Development Jour Fixe once ILIAS 8 is out of beta. We will not add new projects to the list, but try to confirm the existing projects and check for progress therein.

The development of ILIAS 8 generated huge gains in code quality and a general modernization of the code base. But it has also shown us once more that we are in over our heads when it comes to the size of our code base. We are very weary of putting this progress into risk and it is very important to us to continue with the current improvement path.

Thank you for all the great work, looking forward to moving ILIAS forward together, and all the best, Matthias Kunkel and the Technical Board of the ILIAS Society

[1] https://docu.ilias.de/goto.php?target=wiki_1357_JourFixe-2022-09-19 [2] https://docu.ilias.de/goto.php?target=wiki_1357_Release_9