Blender 2.56 (beta)

Short term roadmap prediction:

- March: 2.57 release (with at least a week an RC for test)
Being our 'first' 2.5 official release, it could align with a make-
over of blender.org!
- April/May: 2.58 as final for the 2.5 project (based on 2.57 feedback?)

In May we then can move svn to 2.60, and start merging it with at the
urgent waiting branches;
- render branch (sintel)
- bmesh (how's it going?)
- GSoC projects, like rigid body anim

During the next months the branch devs can report here on how stable
migrations are, to make a planning that doesn't break 2.6 immediately,
but do this in smaller steps and releases.

I then would also like to start the recode for our shader system (in
branch at first)
And will have to wrap up the python api, especially for UI customizing
and render api.

Exciting times ahead,

-Ton-