It's been a big week for GeoTools releases, with both 2.6-RC1 and 2.5.8 hitting the streets.
GeoTools 2.5.8 has seen a number of changes including:

• Improvements Shapefile locking
• Various fixes to ImageMosaic stability
• Support for JDBC aggregate functions

To try out the latest release, head on over to the downloads page .

GeoTools 2.6 has finally reached release candidacy, with the resolution of a few key issues, including:

• Solving a crash when reading ECW files
• Updated the WCS 1.1 EMP model
• Resolved a reader exception caused by FastBBox filters
• The long-awaited return of the Javadoc build

For more information look to the 2.6.x branch page.