We've recently fixed the Linux O_DIRECT mess, as well as several nasty
crash and potential-data-loss issues. The core committee has agreed
that it would be a good idea to get these fixes into the field before
people disappear for the holiday season. Since time for that grows
short, we will follow the somewhat unusual plan of wrapping tarballs
this Monday, 12/13, for public announcement on Thursday 12/16.
As a reminder, this set of releases will include the final release in
the 8.1.x series, since 8.1 is now past its announced EOL date of
November 2010. Community maintenance of 8.1 will stop after this
release.
regards, tom lane