Ix.NET for .NET 8

[isidpllc]

When is .NET 8 release planned for Ix.NET?
The pull request #2135 was merged half a year ago, but there was no release.

[idg10]

The existing release supports .NET 8.0, and has done since the day .NET 8.0 shipped.

There are two important points to understand here:

1. .NET 8.0 (and .NET 9.0) fully support loading of components that target net6.0 (and older). So there's no technical requirements for a version of Ix.NET that targets net8.0.
2. We run our test suites on the latest versions of .NET to ensure that they do in fact work in practice, and we support the use of all Rx and Ix libraries on the latest versions of .NET.

The PR you refer to implemented 2: it enabled us to build Rx.NET and Ix.NET on the .NET 8.0 SDK so that we could execute the test suite on .NET 8.0. Since all the test pass, and since we are currently unaware of any problems that occur on newer versions of .NET, there was no need to make a new release.

At some point we will release a version that targets net8.0, but that's not because .NET 8.0 needs it. It's because .NET 6.0 is out of support. So we will effectively be signalling that Rx.NET also no longer supports .NET 6.0 by raising the target framework to net8.0. In other words, when we do eventually release a net8.0-targeting version, it will be entirely driven by the fact that .NET 6.0 is now out of support.