Hi,
What it says in the subject :) I've made the REL1_29 branch from master (as of 273eea7357c546d1a1aafd73320e10e8ddac79eb) and have bumped the version to 1.29.0-rc.0 (from alpha). All extensions, skins and vendor have been branched as well.
I've just landed the change to master that bumps it to 1.30.0-rc.0.
Let the backports begin! (I want to be generous this time too, so bring 'em at me)
-Chad