Canonical and the Ubuntu Release Team have implemented an important policy change for Ubuntu flavors moving forward. If they are to have an official release, they must now successfully submit a beta release.

Ubuntu flavors like Ubuntu Kylin, Ubuntu Studio, Ubuntu MATE, etc, must now submit successful beta releases per the scheduled timeline if they are looking to have an official release for a given Ubuntu Linux cycle.

Up to now rare exceptions were granted if an Ubuntu flavor wasn't ready in time for the beta milestone, but moving forward this is being treated as a hard requirement with no exceptions to be granted. Ubuntu Kylin was cited as the latest example of a flavor obtaining an exception on delivering a beta release while still shipping a final ISO release for the Ubuntu 26.04 LTS release. The hope is this leads to better testing and quality of Ubuntu flavor releases.

More details on this change for those interested can be found via the Ubuntu release mailing list.