We are almost ready. In my spare time I am still doing some testing on a larger cluster. My initial tests uncovered some minor issues, which have been fixed. If there are no other issues, we can move forward.
For now I would like to wait for netty release 4.1.107.Final, which Normal tells me should be in the next 2-3 weeks. The reason is that there is a fix for TLS, and 2.6.0 is our first release with TLS. So my checklist at this point is: 1. Continue testing on a larger cluster 2. Resolve fixVersions discrepancies (there are only a few) 3. Update hbase-thirdparty to 4.1.107.Final and create a release of that. 4. Update hbase to use that new release of hbase-thirdparty 5. Create 2.6.0RC0 Let me know if anyone has issues with this timeline. We don't absolutely _have_ to wait for netty, but it would be nice.
