The Camel Riders didn't want to close 2011 without one more release, the awaited camel-2.9.0. After a few last minute fixes we are glad to announce that Apache Camel 2.9.0 was officially released yesterday, hours before many champagne bottles were opened. The 2.9.0 release comes with another record 497 issues resolved, but this is not surprising as the community continues to grow and we lengthened the release cycle for minor releases.

The artifacts are now available in the Maven Central Repository and the official distribution is available for download from the Apache site and its mirrors. The new features, improvements and fixes are too many to mention here, so please check the release notes for details.

Many thanks to all the contributors. We wish you a happy and prosperous 2012!