[$] The end of the 5.5 merge window

By the end of the merge window, 12,632 non-merge changesets had beenpulled into the mainline repository for the 5.5 release. This is thus abusy development cycle - just like the cycles that preceded it. Just overhalf of those changesets were pulled after the writing of our first 5.5 merge-window summary. As isoften the case later in the merge window, many of those changes wererelatively boring fixes. There were still a number of interesting changes,though; read on for a summary of what happened in the second half of thismerge window.