As announced previously, Debian GNU/Linux 12 is now in soft freeze

bits from the release team: bookworm in soft freeze

Dear all,

Soft Freeze
===========

Following our release calendar, we have frozen bookworm a bit
[1]. That means that from this week on we expect all uploads to be
small, targeted fixes and no new source packages are allowed into
bookworm. Source packages must also no longer add or drop binary
packages. All packages will have to age at least 10 days in unstable
before they are eligible for migration (including those having
autopkgtests). Quoting from the policy:

"""
Starting 2023-02-12, only small, targeted fixes are appropriate for
bookworm. We want maintainers to focus on small, targeted fixes.

[...]

Please note that new transitions, new versions of packages that are
part of (build-)essential or large/disruptive changes remain
inappropriate.

[...]

Packages that are not in testing will not be allowed to migrate to
testing. This applies to new packages as well as to packages that were
removed from testing (either manually or by auto-removals).

[...]

Dropping or adding binary packages to a source package, moving
binaries between source packages or renaming source or binary packages
is no longer allowed. Packages with these changes will not be allowed
to migrate to testing. These changes are also no longer appropriate in
unstable.

Please note that packages that are in bookworm at the start of the
soft freeze can still be removed if they are buggy. This can happen
manually or by the auto-removals. Once packages are removed, they will
not be allowed to come back.

[...]

Don't upload changes to unstable that are not targeted for
bookworm. Having changes in unstable that are not targeted/appropriate
for bookworm could complicate fixes for your package and related
packages (like dependencies and reverse dependencies).
"""

State of bookworm
=================

The state of bookworm is pretty good. We ask everybody to keep working
on fixing the remaining RC bugs (and please find and file those that
are currently unreported). [2] has the list we should drive down to
zero together. Please try out upgrading your bullseye systems to
bookworm now and report issue you encounter.

General
=======

As always, talk to us, preferably via the bts, if you experience
issues that we need to be aware of or where you need help. Please be
aware it's now a very busy time for us, so bear with us.

Our freeze policy is at [1].

On behalf of the release team,
Paul

[1] https://release.debian.org/testing/freeze_policy.html#soft
[2] https://udd.debian.org/bugs.cgi?release=bookworm&merged=ign&rtbookworm-will-remove=ign&keypackages=only&fnewerval=7&flastmodval=7&rc=1&cpopcon=1&chints=1&ckeypackage=1&ctags=1&cdeferred=1&caffected=1&sortby=last_modified&sorto=asc&format=html#results