Spring Batch 1.0.0.m4 is available today via the s3 Milestone repository (browse at http://s3browse.com/explore/maven.sp...ramework/batch). See the Spring Batch downloads page for more information (http://static.springframework.org/spring-batch).

As usual, we have had a lot of good feedback from the community, and from a large number of Accenture projects that are using or evaluating Spring Batch. There have been quite a few internal API changes since m3, mainly to support an anticipated easy implementation of multi-process concurrent processing shortly after 1.0. Single JVM concurrent processing remains an option, and we have at least one project using Spring Batch this way (plus a sample in the distro). There is a section on the website describing in detail how to migrate from 1.0.0.m3 to 1.0.0.m4 (http://static.springframework.org/sp...1.0-m3-m4.html).

We have re-jigged the release schedule to squeeze in an additional milestone, to which Ben and Lucas are dedicated, so 1.0.0.m5 will be out in the next 10-14 days. We also have a new committer in Bratislava; Robert Kasanicky is a colleague of Lucas's who has made many contributions to the project, through patches and forum activity. Then we just have time for an rc1, with some contingency for rc2 if necessary, before the expected March 20 final release.