Elastic Stack has announced the release of its 8.0.0-rc1, the first release candidate following the last beta release, aimed at gathering user feedback for improvement before its general availability. Users are encouraged to participate in the Pioneer Program by testing various components like Elasticsearch, Kibana, Beats, Logstash, and APM, and reporting any bugs found. This release is not intended for production use, and compatibility with future versions, including the eventual 8.0.0 general availability release, is not guaranteed. The Elastic community is available for support regarding upgrades, and users are encouraged to explore and download the new release, with comprehensive release notes provided for each component of the Elastic Stack.