The monthly Drupal core bug fix release window is this Wednesday, and since there have been enough fixes recently (and especially since the last bug fix release in August), I've decided to go ahead and plan to release Drupal 7.17 on that date. Per our release policy, this will be a bug fix release only (no security fixes).
The final patches for 7.17 have been committed and the code is frozen (excluding documentation fixes and fixes for any regressions that may be found in the next couple days). So, now is a wonderful time to update your development/staging servers to the latest 7.x code and help us catch any regressions in advance.
The relevant change records for Drupal 7.17 are listed below. This is not the full list of changes, rather only a list of notable API additions and data structure changes that might affect a number of other modules, so it's a good place to start looking for any problems:
- Added hook_entity_view_mode_alter() to allow modules to change entity view modes on display
- Added hook_taxonomy_term_view() and standardized the process for displaying taxonomy terms
You might also be interested in the tentative list of important changes that will be highlighted in the Drupal 7.17 release notes.
If you do find any regressions, please report them in the issue queue.
Thanks!
(Note: The release windows for Drupal core are a newly-instituted policy. For more information, see the documentation on release timing and security releases, and the discussion that led to this policy being implemented.)