Gnome 3.8 is the next major release of Gnome desktop environment, and one of its lead developer, Matthias Clasen has published some interesting information about its current status. For our readers, the good news is that most apps are ready for the next release, just some minor fixes here an there. If you want to test the release now, grab the Gnome 3.7.2 sources and compile them. The 3.7.2 tarballs were released just a few days before.

Some updates and status:

• GsettingsMigration: All of the major Gnome applications now can be tweaked by dconf settings. Gnome Terminal has been ported and the only app left is Aisleriot.
• PortToGtkApplication: Slow progress here, but Gnome calculator and gnome Terminal now have app menus accessible by clicking their titles.
• PrintToFile: A few fixes are necessary.
• DesktopFileKeywords: Huge progress here. Some Gnome games need patching.
• HighContrastAppIcons: For those of you like this theme, the good news is that almost all apps have high contrast icons. Except boabab, gnome-disks and gnome-packagekit. If you are good in graphics, why don't you contribute something?
• Python3Porting: A lot of apps do need to be ported to Python 3. Major Gnome apps still using Python 2.
• NotificationSource: Some apps do give notifications, but most don't.

You can read the original report in this mailing list.