Tag Archives: planning

Héctor Prieto 5:04 pm on May 18, 2023
Tags: , planning   

WordPress 6.3 Planning Roundup

Following the planning proposal, this post summarizes the release schedule and squad composition for the next major WordPress release – 6.3. The proposal saw an overwhelmingly high number of volunteers; thank you to everybody who raised their hand to participate and help make WordPress the amazing project it is. 🤝

WordPress 6.3 Schedule

The schedule remains as originally proposed. There was some discussion around the date for BetaBeta A pre-release of software that is given out to a large group of users to trial under real conditions. Beta versions have gone through alpha testing in-house and are generally fairly close in look, feel and function to the final product; however, design changes often occur as part of the process. 2 and the US Independence Day: while the planned date stays the same, the final Beta 2 date can be adjusted by the release squad depending on the availability of contributors around that date.

MilestoneDate
Alpha (trunktrunk A directory in Subversion containing the latest development code in preparation for the next major release cycle. If you are running "trunk", then you are on the latest revision. open for 6.3 release)March 9, 2023
Beta 1June 27, 2023
Beta 2July 3, 2023
Beta 3July 11, 2023
Release Candidaterelease candidate One of the final stages in the version release cycle, this version signals the potential to be a final release to the public. Also see alpha (beta). 1July 18, 2023
Release Candidate 2July 25, 2023
Release Candidate 3August 1, 2023
Dry RunAugust 7, 2023
WordPress 6.3 General ReleaseAugust 8, 2023

WordPress 6.3 Release Squad

Thanks once again to everybody that volunteered for the release squad! Considering all applications for the different roles, a release team has been assembled with input from project leadership to ensure all aspects of the release are properly covered.

The release team has been expanded in a few areas. In particular, the Core and Editor Triage Lead roles have been increased compared to past releases, allowing the squad to run bugbug A bug is an error or unexpected result. Performance improvements, code optimization, and are considered enhancements, not defects. After feature freeze, only bugs are dealt with, with regressions (adverse changes from the previous version) being the highest priority. scrubs in different time zones and triage all around the world!

Unfortunately, even such a big release squad cannot accommodate all raised hands. Contributors are more than welcome to ride along with the release process on the #6-3-release-leads SlackSlack Slack is a Collaborative Group Chat Platform https://slack.com/. The WordPress community has its own Slack Channel at https://make.wordpress.org/chat/. channel, especially in preparation for participating in 6.4 and future release squads. However, all release decisions will ultimately be the release team’s to make.

Props to @chanthaboune and @cbringmann

#6-3, #planning

Héctor Prieto 8:41 pm on April 14, 2023
Tags: , planning   

WordPress 6.3 Planning Proposal & Call for Volunteers

After the successful launch of WordPress 6.2, it’s time to start planning for WordPress 6.3, and for WordPress 6.4’s women and non-binary-led release. In preparation, this post includes WordPress 6.3 proposed target dates and a call for its release squad.

The timeline for the second release of 2023 takes into consideration this year’s two remaining flagship events – WordCampWordCamp WordCamps are casual, locally-organized conferences covering everything related to WordPress. They're one of the places where the WordPress community comes together to teach one another what they’ve learned throughout the year and share the joy. Learn more. Europe in early June and WordCamp US and the Community Summit in late August. To avoid having major milestones (Beta1, RC1) conflictconflict A conflict occurs when a patch changes code that was modified after the patch was created. These patches are considered stale, and will require a refresh of the changes before it can be applied, or the conflicts will need to be resolved. with these events, this proposal suggests fitting the release process, from Beta1 to the final release, in the ten-week window between both events.

According to the schedule proposed below and the GutenbergGutenberg The Gutenberg project is the new Editor Interface for WordPress. The editor improves the process and experience of creating new content, making writing rich content much simpler. It uses ‘blocks’ to add richness rather than shortcodes, custom HTML etc. https://wordpress.org/gutenberg/ release cadence, WordPress 6.3 would include up to Gutenberg 16.1 for a total of 10 Gutenberg releases.

Proposed WordPress 6.3 Schedule

MilestoneDate
Alpha (trunktrunk A directory in Subversion containing the latest development code in preparation for the next major release cycle. If you are running "trunk", then you are on the latest revision. open for 6.3 release)March 9, 2023
BetaBeta A pre-release of software that is given out to a large group of users to trial under real conditions. Beta versions have gone through alpha testing in-house and are generally fairly close in look, feel and function to the final product; however, design changes often occur as part of the process. 1June 27, 2023
Beta 2July 3, 2023*
Beta 3July 11, 2023
Release Candidaterelease candidate One of the final stages in the version release cycle, this version signals the potential to be a final release to the public. Also see alpha (beta). 1July 18, 2023
Release Candidate 2July 25, 2023
Release Candidate 3August 1, 2023
Dry RunAugust 7, 2023
WordPress 6.3 General ReleaseAugust 8, 2023

*July 4th is the US Independence Day. Although the release schedule can’t adapt to all holidays worldwide, planning a beta release on that day would likely have a low turn of participants on July 4th, given the significant contributor presence in the US.

Please leave your feedback about the schedule in the comments by April 30th.

Release Leads call for volunteers

  • Release Coordinator: TBD
  • CoreCore Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress. Tech Lead: TBD
  • Editor Tech Lead:  TBD
  • Core Triagetriage The act of evaluating and sorting bug reports, in order to decide priority, severity, and other factors. Lead: TBD
  • Editor Triage Lead: TBD
  • Documentation Lead: TBD
  • Marketing & Communications Lead: TBD
  • Test Lead: TBD
  • Design Lead: TBD
  • Performance Lead: TBD

The Performance Lead was first tried as an experiment in WordPress 6.2. Although feedback collection for the WordPress 6.2 release process is still open, positive sentiment around the experiment in the #6-2-release-leads Slack channel suggests repeating the role in 6.3.

All release decisions will ultimately be this release team’s to make and communicate while gathering input from the community.

Join The Squad… or learn from them!

If you are interested in participating in 6.3’s release squad, please show interest in the comments below. Most roles are better shared among more than one person to distribute the responsibilities.

Folks interested in joining the upcoming all-women and non-binary release squad in 6.4 will work with a mentor. While this mentorship is not tied to the 6.3 release squad, nor do mentors need to volunteer in this release, shadowing the 6.3 release process is also recommended preparation for those being part of the following release.

Thanks to @cbringmann, @francina, for the peer review and feedback

#6-3 #planning

Josepha 6:08 pm on April 7, 2023
Tags: , 6-3-release-leads, , planning   

Preparing for the Next Women & Nonbinary Release Squad

Now that we’ve shipped WordPress 6.2 “Dolphy,” it’s time for a little planning for the other major releases this year. Volunteers are needed for the WordPress 6.3 squad (release target mid-July), especially those willing to dedicate time toward mentoring the next round of squad members. I would like to propose that WordPress 6.4 be run entirely by a women and nonbinary squad, a reprise of the historic WordPress 5.6 release, “Simone”, and training cohorts offered during 6.3 are an excellent opportunity for new contributors to prepare for the 6.4 release.

Important Note: I short-hand the release to “women and nonbinary” for easy referencing in our day-to-day collaboration, but the release squad will be open to anyone who identifies as a woman, nonbinary, or gender-expansive. All contributions are welcome as always, regardless of how you identify or what groups you feel part of. 🙂

What’s the Goal?

The primary goal of any release cycle is to ship a stable and enhanced version of the WordPress CMS that ships in scope and on time. The release date for WordPress 6.4 is tentatively slated for November, with the exact dates determined as the 6.3 timeline and the 6.4 release squad is confirmed.

Having a release squad comprised of folx we don’t typically see in technology also has a goal of increasing the number of underrepresented people who have experience maintaining, managing, and shipping software in an open sourceOpen Source Open Source denotes software for which the original source code is made freely available and may be redistributed and modified. Open Source **must be** delivered via a licensing model, see GPL. project. All contributions to the release and release process are welcome.

What’s the Plan?

I would like to repeat the process we used leading up to WordPress 5.6, with some slight modifications. The WordPress 5.6 release squad had the opportunity to learn the major releasemajor release A release, identified by the first two numbers (3.6), which is the focus of a full release cycle and feature development. WordPress uses decimaling count for major release versions, so 2.8, 2.9, 3.0, and 3.1 are sequential and comparable in scope. cycle process by acting as understudies to the folx that lead the WordPress 5.5 release. The 5.6 squad was able to progressively level up their skills by watching how the 5.5 squad worked, assisting on things while guided by 5.5 leads, and finally leading a minor releaseMinor Release A set of releases or versions having the same minor version number may be collectively referred to as .x , for example version 5.2.x to refer to versions 5.2, 5.2.1, 5.2.3, and all other versions in the 5.2 (five dot two) branch of that software. Minor Releases often make improvements to existing features and functionality. with assistance where needed.

  1. Prepare and Plan
    1. Gather nominations for the 6.4 team and ensure the 6.3 and 6.4 release timing works for each. Participation in 6.3 is optional, but it has been successful when others tried the process before leading the process.
    2. Confirm volunteers’ alignment to release squad roles.
    3. Identify additional volunteers for any remaining release squad roles.
    4. Gather mentors for each release squad group.
  2. Join Release 6.3
    1. Join meetings, triagetriage The act of evaluating and sorting bug reports, in order to decide priority, severity, and other factors. sessions, etc., and ask questions in the public #6-3-release-leads channel to feel comfortable heading into the 6.4 release.
  3. Navigate Release 6.3.x
    1. Collaborate with the 6.3 release squad to navigate a point releaseMinor Release A set of releases or versions having the same minor version number may be collectively referred to as .x , for example version 5.2.x to refer to versions 5.2, 5.2.1, 5.2.3, and all other versions in the 5.2 (five dot two) branch of that software. Minor Releases often make improvements to existing features and functionality. and ask every question.
  4. Drive Release 6.4
    1. Drive the release while collaborating with some established women and nonbinary contributors as well as the 6.3 mentors.

How Can You Help?

If you would like to learn more about what participating in a release this way would mean (or want to volunteer right away!), please leave a comment letting me know. You can also feel free to DM me or any of these original supporters of WP5.6: @francina @jeffpaul @desrosj. We’re interested to hear from:

  • Anyone who wants to be a part of the WP6.4 release process.
  • Anyone who wants to be a mentor leading up to or during WP6.4
  • Anyone who has questions about how this will work. 🙂

Props to the following editors and co-creators of this post: @jeffpaul @cbringmann @daisyo @ironprogrammer @bph @desrosj @priethor

#6-3, #6-4, #planning

Héctor Prieto 2:07 am on January 17, 2023
Tags: , planning   

WordPress 6.2 Planning Roundup

Following up on the WordPress 6.2 planning proposal and based on the feedback and comments received, this post intends to summarize the release schedule and release squad composition for the next major WordPress release.

WordPress 6.2 Schedule

As a reminder, the WordPress 6.2 release cycle introduces a fourth planned betaBeta A pre-release of software that is given out to a large group of users to trial under real conditions. Beta versions have gone through alpha testing in-house and are generally fairly close in look, feel and function to the final product; however, design changes often occur as part of the process. to accommodate WordCampWordCamp WordCamps are casual, locally-organized conferences covering everything related to WordPress. They're one of the places where the WordPress community comes together to teach one another what they’ve learned throughout the year and share the joy. Learn more. Asia, providing an extra buffer between the event and two of the biggest release milestones (Beta1 and RC1).

MilestoneDate
Alpha (trunktrunk A directory in Subversion containing the latest development code in preparation for the next major release cycle. If you are running "trunk", then you are on the latest revision. open for 6.2 release)October 18, 2022
Beta 1 & Feature FreezeFebruary 7, 2023
Beta 2February 14, 2023
Beta 3February 21, 2023
Beta 4February 28, 2023
Release Candidaterelease candidate One of the final stages in the version release cycle, this version signals the potential to be a final release to the public. Also see alpha (beta). 1March 7, 2023
Release Candidate 2March 14, 2023
Release Candidate 3March 21, 2023
Dry RunMarch 27, 2023
WordPress 6.2 General releaseMarch 28, 2023

WordPress 6.2 Release Squad

Thanks to everybody that volunteered for the release squad! Considering all applications for the different roles, a release team has been assembled with project leadership to ensure all areas are properly covered.

Based on the positive feedback received by the proposal of this new role in the call for volunteers for the release squad, this release will trial a new role — Performance Lead. In this first iteration, the Performance Lead will run early performance testing in WordPress trunk and act as an advisor, flagging performance regressions before they are shipped, helping solve them, and providing guidance to the rest of the release squad on performance-related discussions.

Release LeadRelease Lead The community member ultimately responsible for the Release.: Matt Mullenweg
Release Coordinators: Francesca Marano, Héctor Prieto
CoreCore Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress. Tech Co-Leads: Tonya Mork, Jb Audras
Editor Tech Co-Leads: George Mamadashvili, Nik Tsekouras
Core Triagetriage The act of evaluating and sorting bug reports, in order to decide priority, severity, and other factors. Co-Leads: Colin Stewart, Mukesh Panchal
Editor Triage Co-Leads: Anne McCarthy, Nick Diego
Design Lead: Rich Tabor
Documentation Co-Leads: Birgit Pauli-Haack, Femy Praseet, Milana Cap, Abha Thakor
Marketing & Communications Co-Leads: Jonathan Pantani, Lauren Stein, Mary Baum
Test Co-Leads: Robin, Adel Tahri
Performance Lead: Felix Arntz

All release decisions will ultimately be this release team’s to make. However, contributors are more than welcome to follow along with the release process on the #6-2-release-leads Slack channel.

Props to @cbringmann for peer review.

#6-2, #planning

Héctor Prieto 10:24 am on December 27, 2022
Tags: , planning   

WordPress 6.2 Planning Schedule Proposal

As we wrap 2022 with three major releases, it’s time to look ahead and start planning for the following year. In preparation, this post includes proposed target dates and a call for the release squad for WordPress 6.2, the first major release of 2023.

The first-ever WordCampWordCamp WordCamps are casual, locally-organized conferences covering everything related to WordPress. They're one of the places where the WordPress community comes together to teach one another what they’ve learned throughout the year and share the joy. Learn more. Asia will take place in February 2023. To accommodate it and avoid having major milestones (Beta1, RC1) very close to the event, the proposed schedule consists of a betaBeta A pre-release of software that is given out to a large group of users to trial under real conditions. Beta versions have gone through alpha testing in-house and are generally fairly close in look, feel and function to the final product; however, design changes often occur as part of the process. period consisting of four planned Beta releases, as opposed to the three planned Betas in recent major releases.

According to the schedule proposed below and the GutenbergGutenberg The Gutenberg project is the new Editor Interface for WordPress. The editor improves the process and experience of creating new content, making writing rich content much simpler. It uses ‘blocks’ to add richness rather than shortcodes, custom HTML etc. https://wordpress.org/gutenberg/ release cadence, WordPress 6.2 would include up to Gutenberg 15.1 for a total of 10 Gutenberg releases.

Proposed WordPress 6.2 Schedule

MilestoneDate
Alpha (trunktrunk A directory in Subversion containing the latest development code in preparation for the next major release cycle. If you are running "trunk", then you are on the latest revision. open for 6.2 release)October 18, 2022
Beta 1 & Feature FreezeFebruary 7, 2023
Beta 2February 14, 2023
Beta 3February 21, 2023
Beta 4February 28, 2023
Release Candidaterelease candidate One of the final stages in the version release cycle, this version signals the potential to be a final release to the public. Also see alpha (beta). 1March 7, 2023
Release Candidate 2March 14, 2023
Release Candidate 3March 21, 2023
Dry RunMarch 27, 2023
WordPress 6.2 General releaseMarch 28, 2023

Please leave your feedback about the schedule in the comments by January 10.

Proposed WordPress 6.2 Release Leads

Release LeadRelease Lead The community member ultimately responsible for the Release.: Matt Mullenweg
Release Coordinator: TBD
CoreCore Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress. Tech Lead: TBD
Editor Tech Lead:  TBD
Core Triagetriage The act of evaluating and sorting bug reports, in order to decide priority, severity, and other factors. Lead: TBD
Editor Triage Lead: TBD
Documentation Lead: TBD
Marketing & Communications Lead: TBD
Test Lead: TBD
Design Lead: TBD

All release decisions will ultimately be this release team’s to make and communicate while gathering input from the community.

Join The Squad!

If you are interested in being a part of 6.2’s release squad, please show interest in the comments below. Roles can be shared among more than one person!

Thanks to @cbringmann for the peer review.

#6-2, #planning

Héctor Prieto 2:11 pm on June 23, 2022
Tags: , planning   

WordPress 6.1 Planning Roundup

WordPress 6.1 will be the third major release of 2022. Following WordPress 6.0 Arturo, 6.1 will aim to refine those experiences found in Arturo and in 5.9 Joséphine [ref]. In preparation, this post includes target dates, features, and a call for the release’s squad.

This release cadence will consist of a long alpha and two short betaBeta A pre-release of software that is given out to a large group of users to trial under real conditions. Beta versions have gone through alpha testing in-house and are generally fairly close in look, feel and function to the final product; however, design changes often occur as part of the process. periods before the release candidaterelease candidate One of the final stages in the version release cycle, this version signals the potential to be a final release to the public. Also see alpha (beta). phase. According to the schedule proposed below and the GutenbergGutenberg The Gutenberg project is the new Editor Interface for WordPress. The editor improves the process and experience of creating new content, making writing rich content much simpler. It uses ‘blocks’ to add richness rather than shortcodes, custom HTML etc. https://wordpress.org/gutenberg/ release cadence, WordPress 6.1 would include up to Gutenberg 14.1 for a total of 11 Gutenberg releases, the same amount as WordPress 6.0 included.

Proposed WordPress 6.1 Schedule

MilestoneDate
Alpha (trunktrunk A directory in Subversion containing the latest development code in preparation for the next major release cycle. If you are running "trunk", then you are on the latest revision. open for 6.1 release)May 3, 2022
Beta 1 & Feature FreezeSeptember 20, 2022
Beta 2September 27, 2022
Release Candidate 1October 4, 2022
Release Candidate 2October 11, 2022
Release Candidate 3October 18, 2022
Dry RunOctober 24, 2022
WordPress 6.1 General releaseOctober 25, 2022

Proposed WordPress 6.1 Release Leads

Release LeadRelease Lead The community member ultimately responsible for the Release.: Matt Mullenweg
Release Coordinator: TBD
CoreCore Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress. Tech Lead: TBD
Editor Tech Lead:  TBD
Core Triagetriage The act of evaluating and sorting bug reports, in order to decide priority, severity, and other factors. Lead: TBD
Editor Triage Lead: TBD
Documentation Lead: TBD
Marketing & Communications Lead: TBD
Test Lead: TBD
Design Lead: TBD

All release decisions will ultimately be this release teams’ to make and communicate while gathering input from the community.

Join The Squad!

If you are interested in being a part of 6.1’s release squad, please show your interest in the comments below. Roles can be shared among more than one person!

#6-1, #planning

Héctor Prieto 7:33 pm on March 11, 2022
Tags: , planning   

WordPress 6.0 planning update

With one month to the first WordPress 6.0 BetaBeta A pre-release of software that is given out to a large group of users to trial under real conditions. Beta versions have gone through alpha testing in-house and are generally fairly close in look, feel and function to the final product; however, design changes often occur as part of the process., let’s review the WordPress 6.0 cycle status.

Live-streamed walkthrough and feature freeze

As an iteration over WordPress 5.8 and 5.9’s Go/No Go demo, WordPress 6.0 will offer a hosted  walkthrough on April 5th. In this event, placed closer to Beta than past demos, WordPress leads will review the features ready for the next major releasemajor release A release, identified by the first two numbers (3.6), which is the focus of a full release cycle and feature development. WordPress uses decimaling count for major release versions, so 2.8, 2.9, 3.0, and 3.1 are sequential and comparable in scope. together with the community in a live, moderated stream.

As a result of this demo and to address contributor feedback received in the last two major release cycles, the effective feature freeze will happen with Beta 1 on April 12th.

This adjustment will give core contributorsCore Contributors Core contributors are those who have worked on a release of WordPress, by creating the functions or finding and patching bugs. These contributions are done through Trac. https://core.trac.wordpress.org. two extra weeks over the original schedule. Together with the live demo, they will offer enough buffer time to identify and address any last-minute blockerblocker A bug which is so severe that it blocks a release. issues found during the walkthrough, reducing the amount of backports post- Beta 1.

5 April 2022Live-streamed walkthrough
12 April 2022Beta 1, effective Feature Freeze
19 April 2022Beta 2
26 April 2022Beta 3
3 May 2022Release candidaterelease candidate One of the final stages in the version release cycle, this version signals the potential to be a final release to the public. Also see alpha (beta). 1
10 May 2022Release candidate 2
17 May 2022Release candidate 3
23 May 2022Dry run
24 May 2022WordPress 6.0 stable release

Release team

With the exception of the AccessibilityAccessibility Accessibility (commonly shortened to a11y) refers to the design of products, devices, services, or environments for people with disabilities. The concept of accessible design ensures both “direct access” (i.e. unassisted) and “indirect access” meaning compatibility with a person’s assistive technology (for example, computer screen readers). (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accessibility) Lead, the release team is nearly complete. Thanks to all participating volunteers!

All release decisions will ultimately be this release teams’ to make and communicate while gathering input from the community. Coordination between the whole squad primarily occurs in the public #6-0-release-leads SlackSlack Slack is a Collaborative Group Chat Platform https://slack.com/. The WordPress community has its own Slack Channel at https://make.wordpress.org/chat/. channel, and contributors are welcome to join the release team in this process.

How To Help

If you are still interested in being a part of 6.0’s release squad or shadowing a lead to participate in future releases, please show your interest in the comments below or the #6-0-release-leads Slack channel. If you want to dive deeper into 6.0, join the weekly meetings in the #core Slack channel, which occur every Wednesday at 20:00 UTC.

#6.0, #planning

#6-0

Chloe Bringmann 4:39 pm on February 16, 2022
Tags: planning   

WordPress 6.0 Planning Roundup

WordPress 6.0 will be the second major release of 2022. Following WordPress 5.9 Joséphine, 6.0 will aim to refine and iterate on the customization tools introduced earlier this year. In preparation, this post includes target dates, features, and squads.

This release will follow the same cadence as 5.9, with a long alpha and short betaBeta A pre-release of software that is given out to a large group of users to trial under real conditions. Beta versions have gone through alpha testing in-house and are generally fairly close in look, feel and function to the final product; however, design changes often occur as part of the process. periods before the release candidaterelease candidate One of the final stages in the version release cycle, this version signals the potential to be a final release to the public. Also see alpha (beta). phase.

Proposed WordPress 6.0 Schedule

MilestoneDate
Alpha (trunktrunk A directory in Subversion containing the latest development code in preparation for the next major release cycle. If you are running "trunk", then you are on the latest revision. open for 6.0 release)January 4, 2022
Feature freeze/Bug FixesMarch 29, 2022
Beta 1April 12, 2022
Beta 2April 19, 2022
Beta 3April 26, 2022
Release Candidate 1May 3, 2022
Release Candidate 2May 10, 2022
Release Candidate 3May 17, 2022
Dry RunMay 23, 2022
WordPress 6.0 General releaseMay 24, 2022

Proposed WordPress 6.0 Scope

Take a look at the 6.0 preliminary roadmap, which includes Editor refinement, Pattern expansion, Navigation BlockBlock Block is the abstract term used to describe units of markup that, composed together, form the content or layout of a webpage using the WordPress editor. The idea combines concepts of what in the past may have achieved with shortcodes, custom HTML, and embed discovery into a single consistent API and user experience. refinement, block exploration, and design tooling.

Proposed WordPress 6.0 Release Leads

  • Release LeadRelease Lead The community member ultimately responsible for the Release.: Matt Mullenweg
  • Release Coordinator: Héctor Prieto
  • CoreCore Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress. Tech: Peter Wilson
  • Editor Tech: 
  • Triagetriage The act of evaluating and sorting bug reports, in order to decide priority, severity, and other factors. Lead: 
  • Documentation Lead: Birgit Pauli-Haack
  • Marketing & Communications Lead: Dan Soschin
  • Test Lead: 
  • Design Lead:
  • AccessibilityAccessibility Accessibility (commonly shortened to a11y) refers to the design of products, devices, services, or environments for people with disabilities. The concept of accessible design ensures both “direct access” (i.e. unassisted) and “indirect access” meaning compatibility with a person’s assistive technology (for example, computer screen readers). (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accessibility) Lead:

All release decisions will ultimately be this release teams’ to make and communicate while gathering input from the community.

How To Help!

If you are interested in being a part of 6.0’s release squad, please show your interest in the comments below. In particular, open roles that need volunteer support include:

  1. Editor Tech
  2. Triage Lead
  3. Test Lead
  4. Any additional support on existing squad roles

#6.0, #planning

Josepha 10:40 pm on January 27, 2022
Tags: planning   

Proposal: 2022 Major Release Timing

After our initial discussion about potential release timing for the year, I would like to suggest two additional 2022 releases:

  • 6.0 – Late May
  • 6.1 – Mid October

I believe that the relationship between WP5.9 and WP6.0 will be similar to the relationship between WP5.0 and WP5.1 in that there will be copious user feedback to process so that we can extend, refine, and in some cases even rework the user experience with the vast new feature set introduced in 5.9. By aiming to release WP6.0 in late May, we can let WP5.9 breathe a little, work through the rest of the Phase 2 roadmap, and prioritize WordPress-wide needs as we encounter them.

Given the complexity of our last pair of similar releases, I would love to see some Five for the Future sponsored project manager-ish people* join @jeffpaul and @priethor in addition to our usual release squad. If you’re interested in participating in a squad and want to know more, you can pingPing The act of sending a very small amount of data to an end point. Ping is used in computer science to illicit a response from a target server to test it’s connection. Ping is also a term used by Slack users to @ someone or send them a direct message (DM). Users might say something along the lines of “Ping me when the meeting starts.” @chanthaboune, @jeffpaul, @priethor or any former release squad member you know!

*So as not to startle anyone or overpromise anything—I’m not suggesting that we need a bunch of people to show up and boss around all of our brave and generous contributors. I’m suggesting that a 19-year-old project can no longer be fully tracked by a person or two and the people who are tracking all of our moving parts could use some support.

#planning

Josepha 9:51 pm on September 3, 2021
Tags: , planning   

WordPress 5.9 Planning Roundup

Happy September no matter where you are in the world! Since we’re halfway through the alpha period for the next big release of WordPress, it’s time to gather all the pieces of planning into one place. This post will include all the best guesses and targets for dates, features, and squads.

This release will follow the same general cadence as the other releases this year, with a long alpha period (132 days) and a short betaBeta A pre-release of software that is given out to a large group of users to trial under real conditions. Beta versions have gone through alpha testing in-house and are generally fairly close in look, feel and function to the final product; however, design changes often occur as part of the process. period (14 days) before the release candidaterelease candidate One of the final stages in the version release cycle, this version signals the potential to be a final release to the public. Also see alpha (beta). phase.

Proposed WordPress 5.9 Schedule

These are my best guesses at the milestones:

MilestoneDateDays from
Alpha (trunktrunk A directory in Subversion containing the latest development code in preparation for the next major release cycle. If you are running "trunk", then you are on the latest revision. open for 5.9 release)June 30, 2021
Go/no go DateOctober 12, 2021
October 14, 2021		104 days after Alpha
Feature freeze/Bug FixesNovember 9, 202142 days after go/no go
Beta 1November 16, 20217 days after Feature Freeze
Release Candidate 1November 30, 202114 days after Beta 1
General releaseDecember 14, 202114 days after RC1
WP5.9 Schedule

This schedule puts Beta 1 the week of a major US holiday and a few major commerce dates worldwide. It does avoid putting RC1 during that week.

Proposed WordPress 5.9 Scope

The main goal for 2021 is getting full site editing to all WordPress users. For WP5.9 the following features are in the suggested roadmap:

  • Blocks + intrinsic web design
  • Navigation menus
  • Interface for theme.jsonJSON JSON, or JavaScript Object Notation, is a minimal, readable format for structuring data. It is used primarily to transmit data between a server and web application, as an alternative to XML.
  • Refining editing flows for blockBlock Block is the abstract term used to describe units of markup that, composed together, form the content or layout of a webpage using the WordPress editor. The idea combines concepts of what in the past may have achieved with shortcodes, custom HTML, and embed discovery into a single consistent API and user experience. themes
  • New default theme
  • Additional design tools

There are also a few roadmap hopefuls out there.

  • Pattern insertion + creation
  • Unzip/Rollback Failsafes
  • PHPUnit Tests
  • Improved compatibility with PHPPHP The web scripting language in which WordPress is primarily architected. WordPress requires PHP 5.6.20 or higher 8.0 and 8.1

Proposed WordPress 5.9 Leads

  • Release LeadRelease Lead The community member ultimately responsible for the Release.: Matt Mullenweg
  • Release Coordinators:
  • Triagetriage The act of evaluating and sorting bug reports, in order to decide priority, severity, and other factors. Lead:
  • Editor Tech:
  • Editor Design:
  • CoreCore Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress. Tech:
  • Theme Lead:
  • Technical Writer: Jonathan Bossenger
  • Docs Lead:
  • Marketing & Comms: Josepha Haden
  • AccessibilityAccessibility Accessibility (commonly shortened to a11y) refers to the design of products, devices, services, or environments for people with disabilities. The concept of accessible design ensures both “direct access” (i.e. unassisted) and “indirect access” meaning compatibility with a person’s assistive technology (for example, computer screen readers). (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accessibility) Lead:
  • Test Lead:

How to help!

I think we will need a slightly larger release squad for this final release of the year, so I’m opening calls for volunteers. As we approach the go/no go date and get a better idea of what features will really land in the release, we’ll get more squad leads assigned.

However, there are a couple of roles we really could use some volunteers for right now:

  1. Triage Lead
  2. Release Coordinators

If you’re interested in lending a hand, please share your interest in the comments!

Props to @francina for early versions of this post, and @jeffpaul + @desrosj for wrestling calendars with me.

#5-9, #planning