Before Drupal 4.7 is released, 'release candidates' (RCs) are made available. RCs are the next step on from beta releases, with the addition that they generally should not have any critical bugs in them. In theory, if new bugs don't come up during an RC, then the RC gets released as the real thing after a few weeks. Generally though, there will be three or four RCs before the full release.

Currently Drupal 4.7 is still at the beta stage because of around 6 critical bugs. So far we've found it difficult to fix all critical bugs, as new bugs pop up at around the same speed old ones are fixed.

If you want to help 4.7 come out quicker, go download the latest beta and report any bugs you may find. If you're a developer, be sure to help try and fix the critical bugs. If you want to become a Drupal developer, give the relevant handbook pages a once over.

Drupal version: Drupal 4.7.x