Alright folks... I just wrestled with CVS for almost an hour to get Alpha 8 out the door at Drupal.org. Get it while it's hot from http://drupal.org/project/ubercart.
Ubercart Alpha 8 brings many new core features to the table, including file downloads, user role promotions, and Workflow-ng integration. Other features have been enhanced or tweaked, and the usual stream of bugfixes have been applied. It feels like cheating to call this a minor release from Alpha 7e, but all these changes have made it in over the last few weeks. Plenty of credit goes to our newest active developer, Shawn, who was able to spring board off the efforts of community developers aymerick, CpILL, torgosPizza, and others.
For those who don't know, Alpha 8 will be our last alpha release. We expect to move into the betas in the not-so-distant future as one or two APIs are revisited and some core features are polished up. Shawn is also hard at work building a reports module that is looking darn good as a default reports module for Ubercart.
To update to this version, you're going to have to install the Workflow-ng module which adds a host of extra functionality to orders, taxes, and shipping quotes. The update should not adversely affect your existing tax and quote rules, but please backup just in case if you're running a live site! Don't say I didn't warn you. 
As always, backup your Ubercart directory and database prior to updating. Make sure Workflow-ng has been installed (you'll need to enable the Workflow-ng and Workflow-ng UI modules). Upload the new files and run update.php. Have fun exploring the new features!
Hopefully, it will all go smoothly. If our past releases anything to go by, you might just be downloading Alpha 8b in a few days. 
Post bug reports and feedback in this thread.
P.S. - If you think this is cool news, you should vote for Ubercart at Cool Software.
