A final release announcement would give developers a reason to start polishing their apps for Fremantle.

Developing against a moving target like Fremantle that is hard to test in the current situation isn't fun:

• No task switcher in SDK (developer can't test integration of their apps)
• On-device software more recent than SDK contents (at least with beta1 this was the case for several weeks)
• Slow test cycles: upload, ask testers, wait for reply, ...
• On-device situations that are unreproducible in the SDK
• On-device features that are not emulated by the SDK
• Uncertain release date of final/frozen version

Having some kind of feature freeze or release announcement would help developers have a clear picture of what to expect in the end product and when to expect it. FLOSS developers write software in their free time.

Again, developers would have good reasons to get their apps running in Fremantle if they know the SDK contents are frozen (feature complete; only bugfixes) and they can expect a release in e.g. one month or whatever the timeframe is.