Will there be a release candidate for 18.06.2?
18.06 and 18.06.1 caused a bootloop in the Zyxel NBG6616 (fixed in BUG1724 in the snapshot and in 18.06.2 according to the preliminary changelog) but ever since I regret not having tested any of the RCs of 18.06 so I could have prevented it.
Sorry, I don't know. I only know what is communicated through the admin mailing (http://lists.infradead.org/pipermail/openwrt-adm/). If you want to test in advance you could try building it yourself using the 18.06 branch. It's fairly quick if you have a compatible Linux server (https://openwrt.org/docs/guide-developer/quickstart-build-images). Instructions for checking out the branch are included in the beginners guide: https://openwrt.org/docs/guide-user/additional-software/beginners-build-guide#initial_check_out_of_the_code
The beginners guide will show you how to set up the building system if you're a Windows user and gives some general tips about building.
There will likely be no proper release candidate, but the 18.06 branch buildbot is crunching daily snapshots (just like in master).
You can think the most recent 18.06 snapshot firmware as the current release candidate:
https://downloads.openwrt.org/releases/18.06-SNAPSHOT/targets/
While most "snapshots" don't have LuCI installed, when I took a look at the config.seed for one of these, these specific builds do appear to have LuCi pre-installed.
I can confirm the latest snapshot targets have Luci. Testing on a C7v5 right now and most everything looks good.
Just the WPS function is not functional (or the LED not mapped right, not sure yet).
Be careful how you define that "latest snapshot"...
No change in anything.
The thing is, looking at the changelog it would appear that 18.06.2 on ar71xx is still on kernel 4.9 whereas the snapshot is on 4.14. And looking at this email suggests only certain patches were picked from master to go into 18.06.2. That would make the maintenance release fairly different from the snapshot, right? That is why I thought it would be prudent to test a release candidate instead of a snapshot.
You are mixing things.
The core parts of 18.06 are based on code as in June 2018. Some newer stuff has been backported from master to 18.06 branch, but not the major things like kernel major version changes.
The below graph shows the branching & release naming logic. 18.06.2 will be from the old stable 18.06 branch, not from the current master.
I see, thanks!
Did you read the above, only three-days old?
http://lists.infradead.org/pipermail/openwrt-devel/ will likely be the latest information on the development plans and discussions.
The follow-on message to the one you posted is http://lists.infradead.org/pipermail/openwrt-adm/2019-January/000988.html
unfortunately I need to delay this further, new date is Wednesday, the 30th.
Following the git repository on your local machine, or through the web viewer, would be another good place to get "news" of the release.
https://git.openwrt.org/?p=openwrt/openwrt.git;a=summary
(There is no evidence of a v18.06.2 tag at this time.)
@Merimer Waiting for Linux kernel 5.0 release and upgrade some package, some optimizations to reach the telecommunication level of industrial stability 
Such as clean up some outdated packages and luci on nginx and so on...
Already there, first committed in Summer, 2018, with some clean-up commits through December 11, 2018.
It's going to be a long wait for Kernel 5.x, considering that the next LTS Kernel is 4.19, and there are no 5.x LTS kernels.
What has LuCI on nginx to do with "telecommunication level of industrial stability"? Faster OOM?
Such as luci on nginx and so on...
Sorry for that, I'm just guessing (only half kidding) 
But, the x86_64 architecture is a device that can achieve the telecommunication level of industrial stability.
Thanks @jeff
Things are happening now. The build process has been running for a couple of hours from the looks of it. There are still quite a few devices missing so I guess many of us will have to have some patience...
https://downloads.openwrt.org/releases/18.06.2/
Edit: By the way, I would say it’s probably wise to wait until the official announcement before flashing these builds.
tag is there: https://git.openwrt.org/?p=openwrt/openwrt.git;a=tag;h=refs/tags/v18.06.2
change log is there too: https://openwrt.org/releases/18.06/changelog-18.06.2
I guess the only thing pending is the official announcement once the build/upload completes.
To be notified about new releases you can subscribe to https://github.com/openwrt/openwrt/releases.atom.
Works fine on my Archer C5 v1 for now.
