Per recent development chats, we’ve worked out a project schedule for 3.0. The plan:
| January 7, 2010 |
|
| January 18, 2010 |
|
| February 15, 2010 | Feature freeze |
| **From this point forward, there will be no more commits for enhancements or feature requests in this release cycle, only bug fixes.** | |
| March 1, 2010 | Begin public beta |
| March 29, 2010 | Begin RC |
| April 13, 2010 | Launch WordPress 3.0 |
So: if you have made a 2010 new year’s resolution to get involved in WordPress core development, now’s the time to head on over to Trac and pick a ticket (that sounds kind of like a carnival game, doesn’t it?). Get your patches done and submitted as soon as possible, then drum up people to test the patches and leave feedback on the ticket. As stated above, no patches for enhancements or feature requests will be committed after freeze, so that we can all focus on squashing bugs and hopefully deliver the most bug-free WordPress to date. Wish us luck!
Pranoy Sinha, and 16 others are discussing. 
Proposed timeline - WPMU Tutorials 5:37 pm on January 14, 2010 Permalink
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Andrea_r 5:39 pm on January 14, 2010 Permalink
I’m tired just looking at the list.
trent 6:21 pm on January 14, 2010 Permalink
I am excited about the 18th!
Aaron Brazell 6:31 pm on January 14, 2010 Permalink
While I understand this process, I’m not a fan of this superfast iteration. Seems… too much.
Jane Wells 6:33 pm on January 14, 2010 Permalink
Which part seems superfast? It’s 5 weeks to build initial features (all of the ones officially in scope have developers assigned to them), then almost two months to fix them and hit bugs.
Aaron Brazell 8:30 pm on January 14, 2010 Permalink
Yah, I know. It is just a change so maybe my perception is out of whack. The core devs cooled their heels for 2 weeks after the 2.9 launch and then, in essence, give 1.5 months to new features (granted they are big – the merge, run for the hills, its the end of the world!) and 2 months for testing and bugfixing. Seems mis-proportioned.
Brian Layman 6:46 pm on January 14, 2010 Permalink
We’ll probably need those two months for proper testing too. The mu integration is exciting!
TobiasBg 6:51 pm on January 14, 2010 Permalink
Thanks for this schedule! What exactly does “enhancements” cover in this context?
Is it UI additions, or even small things like an additional argument added to a do_action?
Would they have to be connected to the new features?
Ryan 6:57 pm on January 14, 2010 Permalink
Tickets that have a type of “enhancement”. These are not defects but requests to add something new. It can be something big or something trivial. If it’s not a fix for a particular bug, it’s an enhancement.
TobiasBg 7:55 pm on January 14, 2010 Permalink
Okay, that’s a clear line that is drawn then. Somehow I don’t really like it though as even trivial things (as the mentioned additional do_action parameter or a phpdoc update) would not be commited for over 2 months! That’s a long time for such trivial things, in my mind.
Maybe an exception to the rule should be made for such things (if they have proven to not cause problems in the past)?
James Collins 10:12 pm on January 14, 2010 Permalink
Ryan, if I have an enhancement (with simple patch), should I leave as “Future Release”, or move it to the 3.0 milestone so the devs can commit or punt it?
Thanks
scribu 10:41 pm on January 14, 2010 Permalink
I think enhacements with patches are good for 3.0 (as opposed to feature requests)
Jane Wells 9:15 pm on January 17, 2010 Permalink
@James Colles, scribu: patches for enhancements may submitted against 3.0 milestone until early February. After freeze, all enhancements will automatically be punted to the next version so we can start testing in earnest without the chance on introducing new bugs.
WordPress 3.0 devrait sortir en avril | WordPress Francophone 7:50 pm on January 14, 2010 Permalink
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Shane 12:28 am on January 15, 2010 Permalink
We need a countdown timer here on wpdevel.
Jane Wells 9:15 pm on January 17, 2010 Permalink
Patches welcome.
Frank 9:53 am on January 15, 2010 Permalink
Good luck, hard timeline.
hakre 3:08 pm on January 15, 2010 Permalink
Are all Bugs found in the public beta (start date: March 1, 2010) to be fixed in RC1? Or is the beta period only for collecting bugs that can be fixed past-3.0?
hakre 3:10 pm on January 15, 2010 Permalink
What does RC actuall mean? Isn’t this the same as the beta? What is to be done between Begin RC (March 29, 2010) and Launch WordPress 3.0 (April 13, 2010). What is planned in that period, I mean for what are these days? What is to be planned to be done with a RC? How does the RC differ from a Beta?
Alex M. 7:52 pm on January 15, 2010 Permalink
You should really read http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_release_life_cycle
Beta = contains all of the features, but may have some bugs left that have yet to be fixed
RC = release candidate. It could be put out the door right then and there, but it’s sent to testers first to make sure all bugs were caught. Basically an internal final product release.
hakre 2:27 am on January 17, 2010 Permalink
Well, I know what those terms mean and how they are generally used. But I wanted to have a clear statement from the WordPress project on how those terms are used here. Whenever it comes to the end of day, things that won’t happen in standard release cycles happen in the WordPress way of dealing with it.
That’s why I’m asking explicitly but even Jane who posted about the topic here, was not able to clarify things precicesly until now.
Jane Wells 3:13 pm on January 15, 2010 Permalink
I believe RC means we believe we’ve fixed all the important bugs, and RC is just a last chance to see if anything slipped through and to be extra sure, but Ryan would answer this better. There’s also a string freeze consideration between the two, I think.
hakre 2:28 am on January 17, 2010 Permalink
It would be nice if ryan could clarify this here or you talk with him and answer the questions here then later.
WordPress Dev Chat For 1-14-10 9:22 pm on January 15, 2010 Permalink
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Jon Valencia 1:44 am on January 16, 2010 Permalink
I can’t wait for the release of WP 3.0
WordPress 3.0 im April 2010 | WordPress, Release, April, Mitte, Falle, Termin | Blog | blokster.de 10:57 pm on January 16, 2010 Permalink
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arena 4:24 pm on January 17, 2010 Permalink
Hi Jane, are you the “timekeeper” ?
18th is tomorrow, still on time or project needs a new schedule ?
What about bugs with patch scheduled for 2.9.2 ?
What about 2.9.2 ? discarded ?
What about PHP4 support ? i’d love to see WP 3.0 going 100% PHP5
thanks for your answers
Jane Wells 9:17 pm on January 17, 2010 Permalink
I would expect Ryan or Ron to post tomorrow with an answer re the merge.
2.9.2 is separate from 3.0. This schedule is only for 3.0. 2.9.2 is a branch in case of security issues that need to be patched before 3.0, so there is no “schedule” for it.
Moving to PHP5 has been discussed in the weekly dev chats many times, and each time the result is the same: we will not be requiring a higher version of PHP in WP 3.0.
First Rule of Collaboration: If You Can’t Link To It, It Didn’t Happen @ Joseph Scott 6:34 pm on January 18, 2010 Permalink
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Pranoy Sinha 7:13 pm on May 27, 2010 Permalink
You guys are genius… I am excited and can’t wait for the final release.
Bob 9:31 am on June 17, 2010 Permalink
WordPress 3 RC3 is now out so the final should be here very soon
Dan 3:57 am on August 27, 2010 Permalink
Enjoying WP 3
I’ll keep up with the bug fixes, thanks