Recognition, and news about the 3.5 cycle

Before we kick off 3.5 development tomorrow with the scope session, there are a few quick announcements!

Andrew Nacin’s prolific contributions, encyclopedic knowledge of the codebase, and his increasing development leadership have undoubtedly been known to you all. We’re now recognizing that leadership by promoting Nacin to a Lead Developer!

Daryl Koopersmith has had temporary commit for the past few release cycles, and should be known to you for his work on nifty features such as the theme customizerCustomizer Tool built into WordPress core that hooks into most modern themes. You can use it to preview and modify many of your site’s appearance settings., distraction-free writing, and our fast-fast-fast linking dialog. We want him to keep bringing it for many releases to come, so we’re dropping the “temporary” bit and letting him keep ongoing commit access.

Next, Jon Cave (“duck_”) is having his temporary commit extended once again for the 3.5 cycle. Jon’s keen eye has been quite helpful, especially when it comes to improving WordPress security.

Finally, we’re trying something a little bit different for the 3.5 cycle. We’re going to have a specific release leader — someone who has both primary authority and primary responsibility for the release. They’ll lead the scope discussion, they’ll coördinate the development process, they’ll crack the whip when people aren’t delivering on things they promised, and they’ll make the hard decisions about whether features stick or get punted. If this works, we can make this a rotating gig.

For the 3.5 cycle, Andrew Nacin will take the lead, and Daryl Koopersmith will be his second-in-command. These are your point people for this release. I, for one, am excited to see what they (and you) can accomplish!

#3-5, #release-lead