People can download it here (or use this direct link to the .tar.gz file.)

There probably will be a couple of betas after this, followed by a couple of release candidates before the official release of Drupal 5.0. Starting in the next couple of weeks, we'll start using Drupal 5.0 as the development foundation for new sites we develop that won't launch before December or January and don't depend heavily on the hundreds of the contributed modules in the Drupal community. For sites wanting a lot of those functions, we'll either work off of Drupal 4.7 or work module upgrades into the sites' development processes.

We'll review Drupal 5.0 in the coming days and weeks and post a run-down of some highlights. Existing clients and other Drupal users might want to consider planning for an upgrade sometime in the first half of next year.