Now that Drupal 8 is in beta, we are narrowing the changes we allow to Drupal 8 core to accelerate our progress toward Drupal 8's release. The Drupal 8 branch maintainers have established a policy on the allowed changes during the Drupal 8 beta to help contributors understand what changes are no longer allowed. All core contributors should review this policy and try to apply it in each issue.

Key updates for core contributors

1. To take full advantage of the sprints at DrupalCon Amsterdam, we allowed one month after the initial beta release for many changes to go in. The deadline for those issues was October 27, so now all issues are subject to the beta policy.
2. Many changes will now be postponed to a later release, especially many types of normal tasks that do not directly help make Drupal 8 releasable. See the policy issue for specifics.
3. We will also be more rigorous about issue priority settings. For example, many issues that are currently major tasks will be reassessed and possibly downgraded to normal (and subsequently may be postponed).

Flowchart for evaluating issues

See the beta changes policy for details.

Next steps for core contributors

Read over the new policy, and take special note of how to evaluate issues. Help by posting on your issues with where they fall under the policy.