Upmerge 3.x into 4.x for release prep (#10544)

Co-authored-by: Josh Hanley <josh@hitsystems.com.au>
Co-authored-by: Claude Opus 4.8 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Co-authored-by: Matthew de Haan <140334719+mevfiew@users.noreply.github.com>
Co-authored-by: Stefan <stefan@beierl.at>
Co-authored-by: Hamdy Elbatal <elbatalhamdy77@gmail.com>
Co-authored-by: Lazizbek Ergashev <lazerg2@gmail.com>
Co-authored-by: Phillip Kalusek <pkalusek@byte5.de>
Co-authored-by: Rihulfa Akbar <151924216+ghabriel25@users.noreply.github.com>
Co-authored-by: Alan Lam <68211972+lam0819@users.noreply.github.com>
Co-authored-by: SF <info@solutionforest.net>