It's been a while since we provided a status update. And because not all of you are subscribed to the development mailing list or keep track of the issue queue, I figured a quick status update would be in order. Here is a list of some of the key features that already made it into the development version of Drupal and that will be part of the final Drupal 6 release:

1. Various theme system improvements: modules will be able to provide template files (.tpl.php) for their themes without having to create theme_ functions. In addition, Drupal will automatically pick up template files in the theme directories without having to write a single line of code. Just copy the template file from the module directory to your theme directory and start modifying your theme's copy. That's all you'll have to do.
2. Moved various internationalization features into core. Language setup screens are now separated from interface translation. It is also possible to have arbitrary path prefixes or domains set up for different languages. Posts can have languages associated with them. Multilingual websites have been a key focus for Drupal 6 and will continue to be for the remainder of the development cycle.
3. Improved logging functionality. We made it possible to have custom logging functionality, via your own modules. This is useful for large Drupal sites because it lets you customize how you want to get notified about certain events. For example, you could now configure Drupal to send a SMS or text message to your cell phone when someone leaves a comment, as well as integrate with external monitoring infrastructure, such as syslog, and enterprise network monitoring applications. Logging to the watchdog table is now optional (but on by default), so large sites can decrease database load by disabling the new dblog module and using something else instead (e.g syslog module).
4. Various usability improvements: made the installer look pretty, made it easier to deal with teasers, made signature support optional , etc.
5. We rewrote the menu system from scratch. The code of the new system is easier to understand and maintain and Drupal will require much less memory meanwhile performing at least as good as Drupal 5.

There are a lot of other things that are still being worked on, but more about these later once they hit the development version of Drupal.

The code freeze for Drupal 6 was originally scheduled for June 1 (4 weeks from now), and I think that by then, we'll have a couple more nice improvements. We'll see how things go but all in all, things are shaping up nicely, and we're well on track to make Drupal 6 another great release. Of course, there is still time to champion your favorite patches, or to get improvements into Drupal 6. Best to start working on this now, as things gets super-busy as we get closer to the code freeze.