Release timelines:

Following timeline is based on everything goes well.(Added some buffer time)

Step	Tasks	Completed by	Comments
Code Freeze and release start	Track ongoing PRs	November 27, 2018

Cut the release branch	Check license headers	November 29, 2018	Depending on stability
	Make code changes with necessary version updates	November 29, 2018
	Cut the release branch	November 29, 2018
	Update the version on master	November 29, 2018
Test the release and tag the release	Nightly test, Jenkins CI	December 4, 2018
	RAT check	part of CI
	Tag RC0

Package artifacts and validate	Create release artifacts	December 6, 2018
	Validate release package	December 6, 2018
	Test release package	December 6, 2018
	Scala release process

Begin apache voting	Start vote on dev@	December 7, 2018
	Start vote on general@	December 11, 2018

Finalizing and posting the release	Create the final release tag on github	December 17, 2018
	Rename, resign and upload the src tar to final dir	December 17, 2018
	Update the website using tag	December 17, 2018
	Release the official pip package	December 17, 2018
	Release the official docker images	December 17, 2018
	After 24 hrs, validate the packages are uploaded	December 18, 2018
	Draft the offical announce email and review
	Send out the email on announce@	December 18, 2018
	Update the apache blog	December 18, 2018
	update the aws blog	December 18, 2018
	send internal announcement	December 18, 2018

Open PRs to track:

PR	Title	Contributor	Status