Dear QGIS community

We know that many of you were waiting patiently for the next LTR release based on QGIS 4.x and Qt6.

However, there are still a number of issues with the 4.x builds which leave us hesitant to assign LTR status to a 4.2.x release as originally planned. To address this, we will be taking the following steps:

• Create a new LTR 4.x Blocker tag for issues that need to be resolved
• Request developers to tag any breaking features with the new blocker tag so we have a clear sense of what needs to be done
• Keep feature freeze until all blockers are gone.
• Stick to current schedule — but QGIS 4.2 will no longer be LTR
• Extend the QGIS 4.4 paid bug fixing period to 6 weeks instead of 4 (and retain 4 week feature freeze)
• Disable broken features if needed and communicate the feature regressions as part of the changelog
• If there are still remaining blockers that we cannot simply disable at the end of the 6 weeks we will extend the release (last resort option)

As per the table above, the currently anticipated date for the QGIS 4.4.4 release (which is scheduled to become LTR) is 5 March 2027.

For now, future LTR releases are keeping their original schedule. Please watch the news feed in QGIS for further updates if you want to keep track of our progress. You can also follow our plans on the release roadmap page.

Thank you,

Tim Sutton, on behalf of the QGIS PSC