diff --git a/NEWS b/NEWS
index b3bfb53..77fd5fb 100644
--- a/NEWS
+++ b/NEWS
@@ -1,3 +1,10 @@
+* fuse-overlayfs-1.8
+
+- main: honor user.overlay. xattrs.  Native overlay uses user.overlay
+  to store the overlay metadata instead of trusted.overlay, let's
+  honor it as well.
+- main: add a mount flag to disable ACLs.
+
 * fuse-overlayfs-1.7.1
 
 - set FUSE_CAP_POSIX_ACL only when it is supported by FUSE.
diff --git a/configure.ac b/configure.ac
index 56309b1..1b79f96 100644
--- a/configure.ac
+++ b/configure.ac
@@ -1,5 +1,5 @@
 AC_PREREQ([2.69])
-AC_INIT([fuse-overlayfs], [1.8-dev], [giuseppe@scrivano.org])
+AC_INIT([fuse-overlayfs], [1.8], [giuseppe@scrivano.org])
 AC_CONFIG_SRCDIR([main.c])
 AC_CONFIG_HEADERS([config.h])