Hey all,

This is a quick note to highlight that in three weeks' time, the REL1_44
branch will be created for MediaWiki core and each of the extensions and
skins in Wikimedia git, with some (the 'tarball') included as sub-modules
of MediaWiki itself[0]. This is the first step in the release process for
MediaWiki 1.44, which should be out in June 2025, approximately six months
after MediaWiki 1.43.

The branches will reflect the code as of the last 'alpha' branch for the
release, 1.44.0-wmf.26, which will be deployed to Wikimedia wikis in the
week beginning 20 April 2025 for MediaWiki itself and those extensions
and skins available there.

After that point, patches that land in the main development branch of
MediaWiki and its bundled extensions and skins will be instead be slated
for the MediaWiki 1.44 release unless specifically backported[1].

If you are working on a new feature that you wish to land for the release,
you now have a few days to finish your work and land it in the development
branch; feature changes should not be backported except in an urgent case.
If your work might not be complete in time, and yet should block release
for everyone else, please file a task against the `mw-1.44-release` project
on Phabricator.[2]

If you have tickets that are already tagged for `mw-1.44-release`, please
finish them, untag them, or reach out to get them resolved in the next few
weeks.

We hope to issue the first release candidate, 1.44.0-rc.0, two weeks after
the branch point, and if all goes well, to release MediaWiki 1.44.0 a few
weeks after that.

[0]: <https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Bundled_extensions_and_skins>
[1]: <https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Backporting_fixes>
[2]: <https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/tag/mw-1.44-release/>