Preparing for Apache Karaf 2.2.9

The ninth maintenance release of the Apache Karaf 2.2.x branch will be soon entering the planning phase, as such I'm preparing for the release management role.

To prepare I've selected a bottle of Groom Bush Block Zinfandel 2008 to decant while listening to some Arkells albums.

Current high lights of this patch include a multitude of updates to Maven plugins, Felix Framework 3.2.2, and a planned patch for a null pointer exception that only occurs when using Java 1.6.0 update 33 or Java 1.7.0 update 5. A complete change log will be created for the Release Candidate once the community is ready to put it to vote.

The wine will of course only be sampled after being gave proper time to breath in its container, after the first release candidate has be up loaded for voting (see our release guide for more details on our process).

Unfortunately I can't share the wine with you, but I can share a few links to some Arkells videos. I'm looking forward to starting the 2.2.9 release process soon.

I'll be posting updates to our Twitter stream (#karaf) and on our IRC channel (irc.codehaus.org #karaf).