On November 5th, it was announced that the future and highly anticipated Debian 9 has entered the freezing phase, a phase that precedes the stable release of the application , which does not yet have a date.
A freezing phase is a gradual phase in which all distribution packages are "frozen," meaning that no further changes are allowed unless they are intended to correct serious errors.
The phase began on the 5th and will last until February 5th , at which point Debian 9 will be completely frozen. This phase is further divided into different transition stages, during which package developers are asked to finalize their packages.
This phase is crucial for developing an operating system , as it allows for a degree of control over the packages that will be installed. Since an operating system has so many interconnected packages, modifying one of them can affect the functionality of the entire distribution and necessitate changes to all packages.
For this reason, it is "frozen" so that all packages can be tested and checked for stability as soon as possible. As changes are not allowed except due to force majeure, the only task that those responsible for development will have to do is to check that everything is going well.
Once it's been verified that everything is working correctly and no security changes are needed , the distribution is released as a stable version. In the case of Debian 9, we don't have a fixed date yet, but I estimate it will be released around summertime.
That said, even though we don't know a fixed date, we will be covering Debian 9 news at all times , so when something is known you will be the first to find out as always.