diff --git a/NEWS b/NEWS
index 90b2ce7..bec50f3 100644
--- a/NEWS
+++ b/NEWS
@@ -1,3 +1,24 @@
+Overview of changes leading to 2.7.0
+Saturday, July 25, 2020
+====================================
+- Use an implementation for round that always rounds up, some minor fluctuations
+  are expected on var font specially when hb-ot callback is used.
+- Fix an AAT's `kerx` issue on broken rendering of Devanagari Sangam MN.
+- Remove AAT's `lcar` table support from _get_ligature_carets API, not even much
+  use on macOS installed fonts (only two files).  GDEF support is the recommended
+  one and expected to work properly after issues fixed two releases ago.
+- Minor memory fixes to handle OOM better specially in hb-ft.
+- Minor .so files versioning scheme change and remove stable/unstable scheme
+  differences, was never used in practice (always default to stable scheme).
+- We are now suggesting careful packaging of the library using meson,
+  https://github.com/harfbuzz/harfbuzz/wiki/Notes-on-migration-to-meson
+  for more information.
+- Distribution package URL is changed, either use GitHub generated tarballs,
+  `https://github.com/harfbuzz/harfbuzz/archive/$pkgver.tar.gz`
+  or, even more preferably use commit hash of the release and git checkouts like,
+  `git+https://github.com/harfbuzz/harfbuzz#commit=$commit`
+
+
 Overview of changes leading to 2.6.8
 Monday, June 22, 2020
 ====================================
diff --git a/configure.ac b/configure.ac
index e933476..1f94273 100644
--- a/configure.ac
+++ b/configure.ac
@@ -1,6 +1,6 @@
 AC_PREREQ([2.64])
 AC_INIT([HarfBuzz],
-        [2.6.8],
+        [2.7.0],
         [https://github.com/harfbuzz/harfbuzz/issues/new],
         [harfbuzz],
         [http://harfbuzz.org/])
@@ -503,11 +503,8 @@
 
 AC_MSG_NOTICE([
 
-Autotools still is our main and recommended build system for
-building *nix package out of the library yet we encourage
-packagers to experiment with our brand new meson port and
-give us feedback as our effort to migrate and unify all
-the other build systems we have tools to meson.
+Autotools is no longer our supported build system for building the library
+for *nix distributions, please migrate to meson.
 
 ])
 
diff --git a/meson.build b/meson.build
index f53ac84..c87f02c 100644
--- a/meson.build
+++ b/meson.build
@@ -1,14 +1,12 @@
 project('harfbuzz', 'c', 'cpp',
   meson_version: '>= 0.53.0',
-  version: '2.6.8',
+  version: '2.7.0',
   default_options: [
     'cpp_std=c++11',
     'wrap_mode=nofallback', # https://github.com/harfbuzz/harfbuzz/pull/2548
   ],
 )
 
-warning('Meson is not our main build system for building *nix packages yet we encourage packagers to test it and give us feedback about it.')
-
 hb_version_arr = meson.project_version().split('.')
 hb_version_major = hb_version_arr[0].to_int()
 hb_version_minor = hb_version_arr[1].to_int()
diff --git a/src/hb-version.h b/src/hb-version.h
index 8903612..8084839 100644
--- a/src/hb-version.h
+++ b/src/hb-version.h
@@ -37,10 +37,10 @@
 
 
 #define HB_VERSION_MAJOR 2
-#define HB_VERSION_MINOR 6
-#define HB_VERSION_MICRO 8
+#define HB_VERSION_MINOR 7
+#define HB_VERSION_MICRO 0
 
-#define HB_VERSION_STRING "2.6.8"
+#define HB_VERSION_STRING "2.7.0"
 
 #define HB_VERSION_ATLEAST(major,minor,micro) \
 	((major)*10000+(minor)*100+(micro) <= \