2.9.0 status update (10/20/2017)

[Subru Krishnan <su...@apache.org>]

Today was the feature freeze date and we are glad to inform that all the
major planned features are merged in branch-2:
https://cwiki.apache.org/confluence/display/HADOOP/Roadmap#Roadmap-Plannedfeatures
:

Kudos to everyone who pulled through multiple blockers and made this
happen. Special shoutout to Vrushali, Varun (both :)), Wangda, Inigo,
Sunil, and Jonathan.

I have set up a nightly build for branch-2 (hopefully):
https://builds.apache.org/job/hadoop-qbt-branch2-java7-linux-x86/

We have 5 blockers and 10 other jiras in development that have to be
addressed by *27th October 2017* following which we plan to cut branch-2.9:
Blockers - https://issues.apache.org/jira/issues/?filter=12342048
WIP JIRAs - https://issues.apache.org/jira/issues/?filter=12342468

We'll be following up with each of the above JIRAs individually next week,
lets make sure that we complete them by next Friday.

-Subru/Arun