There's still a month left until the
Intrepid Ibex is released (or perhaps better known as
Ubuntu 8.10), but
Mark Shuttleworth has begun outlining the plans for the next Ubuntu release. Following Ubuntu 8.10 "Intrepid Ibex" will be... the Jaunty Jackalope!
The Jaunty Jackalope, or what formally will be called Ubuntu 9.04, is the next iteration of Ubuntu. In this release, Shuttleworth expressed interest in improving the Ubuntu boot-time so that it's "blindly quick" and the blurring of web services and desktop applications. Additional planning will come during the Ubuntu Developer Summit (UDS) in December.
More information can be found in
Mark Shuttleworth's message.