That depends on the number of bugs discovered in this release candidate and their severity. As explained in our release schedule (www.qubes-os.org/doc/ver…n-scheme) documentation, our usual process after issuing a new release candidate is to collect bug reports, triage the bugs, and fix them. This usually takes around five weeks, depending on the bugs discovered. If warranted, we then issue a new release candidate that includes the fixes and repeat the whole process again. We continue this iterative procedure until we’re left with a release candidate that’s good enough to be declared the stable release. No one can predict, at the outset, how many iterations will be required (and hence how many release candidates will be needed before a stable release), but we tend to get a clearer picture of this with each successive release candidate, which we’ll share in this section in future release candidate announcements. In the case of Qubes 4.2.0 specifically, we already know that there will be a second release candidate (in order to test the in-place upgrade procedure, if nothing else). As mentioned above, we expect to announce that second release candidate in approximately five weeks. The results of that second release candidate will determine whether a third one is required. What is a release candidate? A release candidate (RC) is a software build that has the potential to become a stable release, unless significant bugs are discovered in testing. Release candidates are intended for more advanced (or adventurous!) users who are comfortable testing early versions of software that are potentially buggier than stable releases. You can read more about Qubes OS supported releases (https://www.qubes-os.org/doc/supported-releases/) and the version scheme (https://www.qubes-os.org/doc/version-scheme/) in our documentation. What is a minor release? The Qubes OS Project uses the semantic versioning (https://semver.org/) standard. Version numbers are written as ... Hence, releases that increment the second value are known as “minor releases.” Minor releases generally include new features, improvements, and bug fixes that are backward-compatible with earlier versions of the same major release. See our supported releases (https://www.qubes-os.org/doc/supported-releases/) for a comprehensive list of major and minor releases and our version scheme (https://www.qubes-os.org/doc/version-scheme/) documentation for more information about how Qubes OS releases are versioned.