Dear Zope Community, on behalf of Zope Corporation and all Zope 2 developers and contributors I am pleased to announce the release of Zope 2.8.0 b1. Zope 2.8.0 b1 can be downloaded from http://www.zope.org/Products/Zope/2.8.0b1 The release notes can be found at http://www.zope.org/Products/Zope/2.8.0b1/CHANGES.txt For information on using Python 2.4 with Zope 2.8: see doc/INSTALL.txt Every developer is strongly encouraged to test Zope 2.8 beta 1 *now* and not to wait until the final Zope 2.8 release...that's why we have beta releases :-) The quality and stability of the final release depends on *your* testing *now*. This release is a major step towards Zope 2.8.0 final (scheduled for the 3rd week of May 2005) and now includes for the first time the "Five" framework to make some Zope 3 technologies available within Zope 2. So you will be able to use Z3 technologies like interfaces, adapters, schemas and views within your Zope 2 installation and have hopefully the best from the Zope 2 and the Zope 3 world. Andreas Jung Zope 2 Release Manager