As could be expected this has poked a hornets nest of opposition because of its implications regarding backward compatibility of extensions we use. Many of us are hoping for a fork based on the current release that will continue to evolve and be maintained and which values backward compatibility first and foremost.

Users can snapshot the current 40.0 release by copying the installation directory and creating a cloned profile for it with updates disabled. Personally I find the 42.0a2 development channel release to be backwards compatible with all extensions and to have superior memory management.