Release DataFusion `53.0.0` (Feb 2026 / Mar 2026)

[alamb]

Is your feature request related to a problem or challenge?

Previous release will be #18566 (Jan, 2026) so next major release would be approximately Feb 2026 / Mar 2026

Steps:

• Create a branch-53 branch:
• Update version and changelog:
• Test with DataFusion Python
• Test with DataFusion Comet
• Test with DataFusion Ballista
• Test with delta.rs:
• Test vortex:
• Test with iceberg-rust:
• Test with LakeSail:
• Test with parquet viewer
• Test with datafusion-materialized-views
• Voting Thread:
• Publish to crates.io
• Create ticket for next release:
• Create blog post

Features to mention in the blog (if they make it)

• None yet

Bugs that should be fixed

• None yet

Community Wishlist

• Streaming Aggregate operator not being used in deduplication of pre-sorted Parquet files #16919
• Regression: DataFrameWriteOptions::with_single_file_output produces a directory #13323
• fix(parquet): converting parquet schema with backward compatible repeated struct/primitive with provided arrow schema arrow-rs#8496
• Row group limit pruning for row groups that entirely match predicates #18868