The first beta of KDE 4.9 is available. Here the announcement:

Today KDE released the first beta for its renewed Workspaces, Applications,
and Development Platform. With API, dependency and feature freezes in place,
the KDE team's focus is now on fixing bugs and further polishing new and old
functionality. Highlights of 4.9 include, but are not limited to:

* Qt Quick in Plasma Workspaces -- Qt Quick is continuing to make its way into
the Plasma Workspaces, the Qt Quick Plasma Components, which have been
introduced with 4.8, mature further. Additional integration of various KDE
APIs was added through new modules. More parts of Plasma Desktop have been
ported to QML. While preserving their functionality, the Qt Quick
replacements of common plasmoids are visually more attractive, easier to
enhance and extend and behave better on touchscreens.

* The Dolphin file manager has improved its display and sorting and searching
based on metadata. Files can now be renamed inline, giving a smoother user
experience.

* Deeper integration of Activities for files, windows and other resources:
Users can now more easily associate files and windows with an Activity, and
enjoy a more properly organized workspace. Folderview can now show files
related to an Activity, making it easier to organize files into meaningful
contexts.

* Many performance improvements and bugfixes improve the overall user
experience, making the KDE Applications and Workspaces more productive and
fun to use than ever before.

More improvements can be found in the 4.9 Feature Plan. As with any large
number of changes, we need to give 4.9 a good testing in order to maintain and
improve the quality and our user's user experience when they get the update.
Therefore, in tandem with this first 4.9 beta, we also announce a testing
initiative lead by KDE's Testing Team.
Thorough and Rigorous Beta Testing

The KDE Community is committed to improving quality substantially with a new
program that starts with the 4.9 releases. The 4.9 beta releases of Plasma
Workspaces, KDE Applications, and KDE Platform are the first phase of a
testing process that involves volunteers called “Beta Testers”. They will
receive training, test the two beta releases and report issues through KDE
Bugzilla.
The Beta Testing Team

The Beta Testing Team is a group of people who will do a 'Testapalooza' on the
beta releases, catching as many bugs as possible. This is organized in a
structured process so that developers know clearly what to fix before the
final release. Anyone can help, even people without programming skills.
How It Works

There are two groups of beta testers:

informal testers install the beta from their distribution and use it as
they normally would. They focus on familiar applications and functions, and
report any bugs they can reproduce reliably.
selected functional testing involves a list of applets, new programs and
applications that require full testing. Volunteers will choose from the list
and test according to established beta testing guidelines.

Testing is coordinated to make sure that people's testing time and effort are
used as effectively as possible. Coordination gets the most value out of the
overall testing program.
Get Involved

This is an excellent way for anyone to make a difference for KDE. Continuous
quality improvement sets KDE apart. Assisting developers by identifying
legitimate bugs leverages their time and skills. This means higher quality
software, more features, happier developers. The Beta Testing Program is
structured so that any KDE user can give back to KDE, regardless of their
skill level.

If you want to be part of this quality improvement program, please contact the
Team on the IRC channel #kde-quality on freenode.net. The Team Leaders want to
need to know ahead of time who is involved in order to coordinate all of the
testing activities. They are also committed to having this project be fun and
rewarding.

After checking in, you can install the beta through your distribution package
manager. The KDE Community wiki has instructions. This page will be updated as
beta packages for other distributions become available. With the beta
installed, you can proceed with testing. Please contact the Team on IRC #kde-
quality if you need help getting started.
Training

Effective bug reporting is critical to the success of the Program. Bugzilla is
a valuable tool for developers and increases their efficiency at closing bugs.
Reporting works best when done properly, so the Program includes Bugzilla
training. An IRC bugzilla training will be offered in #kde-bugs (freenode) on
the weekend of June 9th and 10th. Please visit the #kde-quality IRC channel
for information about the Program and the Bugzilla training, or if you have
any questions.

Actual users are critical to maintaining high KDE quality, because developers
simply cannot test every possible configuration. We're counting on you to help
find bugs early so they can be squashed before the final release. Please
consider joining in.

Full announcement at: http://www.kde.org/announcements/announce-4.9-beta1.php
--
sebas