The GNOME developer team revealed the release plan of GNOME 46!
GNOME 46 is due to release on March 20, 2024. It will be an IMPORTANT release, since Ubuntu 24.04 LTS (which has 5 years support) will most probably take use it as default desktop environment. As well, it may also be default in Fedora 40 Workstation.
Before the stable release, there will be a alpha, beta, and rc releases for testing purpose. See the table below more details:
GNOME 46 Release Schedule
| January 6, 2024 | GNOME 46, Alpha Release |
| February 10, 2024 | GNOME 46, Beta Release. UI, Feature, ABI/API Freeze |
| February 24, 2024 | String Freeze |
| March 2, 2024 | GNOME 46, RC Release |
| March 13, 2024 | Soft translation deadline |
| March 20, 2024 | GNOME 46 Stable Release |
| April 20, 2024 | GNOME 46.1 Release |
As you see in the table, the release date of GNOME 46 Beta is also the UI, feature and API/ABI freeze. Meaning no UI changes, no new features and functions may be made without approval from the release-team. Developers focus on stability, and bug-fixes for the existing features. So does the ‘String Freeze’ on February 24.
via: GNOME Wiki.