All dates are tentative

• Branch Cut/Feature Freeze: Jan 13th, 2021. Branch cut from 87e8354c4e62a7e28846290cc23cc9aaafe383e4.
• Kick off: Nov 6th, 2021
• Community Async Test Week #1: Jan 18th, 2021
• Community Async Test Week #2: Jan 25th, 2021
• Code Freeze: Feb 1, 2021
• Release Date: Feb 9, 2021

• Shamsher Ansari (Red Hat): @shamsher31
• Steven Landow (Google): @stevenctl
• Jacob Delgado (Aspen Mesh): @jacob-delgado

• Release Notes Draft: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1hpL3of9Nu8xl6C4JVl9f0HmJcmzNkJEr3mnYjnbB4vY/edit
• Upgrade Notes Draft: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1VkAtH0Cp5TDzgy38XiFQbfeobzP1K_fo_W9zufkbv5o

For any new, user facing changes targeting Istio 1.9, please add a note below. Examples can be found from the previous release: https://istio.io/news/2019/announcing-1.3/#release-notes. Please format entries following the Release Note Schema.

On TODO, the release-1.9 branch will be created, based on master. Any changes on master before this date will be included in the release. Any changes after will have to be cherry picked.

To get a PR merged into the release branch, it must first be merged into the master branch. PRs can automatically be cherrypicked by typing by adding the cherrypick/release-1.9 label to the PR.

A PR on the release branch will only be approved if:

• The change is already on master.
  • exception: if a change only applies to the release branch, and should not go to master, a change can be submitted directly to the release branch, but please note this in the PR description.
• The change is a bug fix, documentation enhancement, or testing enhancement.
  • Changes that are risky may require a feature flag, especially after the 1.9.0 release.
  • Any change not meeting the above, such as a new feature or API, may require TOC approval.

Note: on the istio.io repo, changes should go directly to master until after the 1.9.0 launch. The changes will appear on preliminary istio.io.