FYI - I have the release related strings in https://bitbucket.org/petsc/petsc/branch/balay/release-3.9 This change should be similar to what was done for 3.8 release https://bitbucket.org/petsc/petsc/commits/0e50f9e530a7b78427514d3e384f6941d4... For now - I'm using tomorrow's date [but will update it when we are ready to do the release] This branch will be rebased as needed. Satish