Update status module
Update (status) module is what notifies end users if there are new available releases for any of their installed modules and themes, notifies them about missing security updates, and is what provides the data used for the project usage statistics. This module is currently maintained by dww, though a co-maintainer would be greatly appreciated and welcomed! Here are the issues (full update.module issue queue) that would be really great to tackle before the D7 code freeze:
Important bug fixes
#456088: Sub-themes not notified of security updates for base themes
#499828: Wrong release date on multi-module projects
#391264: Update XML parse errors make installation fail
#361563: Update Notifications causes SQL Server to go away
Other tasks
#253501: Tests for update.module
#555362: Support multiple download links in the available updates report (e.g. tar.gz + zip packages on drupal.org)
#238950: Reduce RAM resource consumption
-- Split up the APIs so that more of the code processes a single project at a time, instead of everything processing the full array of projects.
New features
#197486: GHOP #65: Add "available update" indicator to installed modules
#158541: Integrate update.module with actions.module
Bug fixes that will break the string freeze
#237608: "Recommended version" for unsupported branch
#210144: If currently installed release is not found, update.module prints bogus information
#208766: Latest release from maintainer's recommended branch called "Also available", not "Recommended"
#166333: Visually display a warning if there are version mismatches within a single project