WordPress News Roundup August 2013: WordPress 3.6 “Oscar” Ships With Twenty Thirteen

August 2013 opened with the release WordPress had been waiting on all summer. WordPress 3.6 “Oscar” shipped on August 1, without the Post Formats UI that had dominated its development but with a new default theme, much safer autosaves and native audio and video. Within days, work on the next two releases was under way using the new features-as-plugins model announced at WordCamp San Francisco.

The business side of WordPress had its own drama, as WooThemes restructured its pricing and Photocrati faced a backlash over NextGEN Gallery 2.0.

For context, 3.6 had originally been pencilled in for late April. The three-month slip, largely caused by the Post Formats UI, was the main reason the project decided to try shorter cycles and feature plugins for 3.7 and 3.8.

Mergers, Acquisitions, and Investments

No significant acquisitions or funding rounds were announced in the WordPress ecosystem in August.

WordPress Core Updates

• WordPress 3.6 “Oscar”: WordPress 3.6, named for jazz pianist Oscar Peterson, was released on August 1. It shipped Twenty Thirteen, a revamped revisions browser showing who changed what and when, post locking and per-author autosave streams stored locally and on the server, a built-in HTML5 audio and video player, an easier menu editor, and embeds for Spotify, Rdio and SoundCloud. Developers gained an audio/video metadata API, optional HTML5 markup for forms and comments, and finer control over revisions. More than 700 tickets were closed, and the release was led by Mark Jaquith and Aaron D. Campbell.
• 3.7 and 3.8 kick off: Planning meetings started straight after the release. On August 8 the core team held its first 3.8 meeting to gather feature plugin proposals, while 3.7 focused on infrastructure.
• Automatic updates take shape: By the end of August, automatic background updates for minor and security releases were being discussed as a likely feature of 3.7, one of the most significant changes in the project’s history.
• A new default theme in view: Work began on bringing a magazine-style design, originally created as a theme called Further, into core as the default theme for 3.8.

Other WordPress News

• WooThemes pricing changes: On August 1 WooThemes announced higher prices across themes, plugins and extensions, and a consolidated licensing system. After a strong customer reaction, it published a follow-up with apologies and clearer options for existing customers.
• Matt’s Reddit AMA: Matt Mullenweg answered questions in a Reddit “Ask Me Anything” on release day, and the same day published his thoughts on 3.6 and the State of the Word.
• NextGEN Gallery’s open letter: After users criticised the NextGEN Gallery 2.0 rewrite, its developer Photocrati published an open letter acknowledging the problems and outlining fixes.
• Jetpack 2.4: Jetpack added Widget Visibility, letting site owners show or hide widgets on specific pages, categories or tags without a separate plugin.
• WordPress Weekly returns: Jeff Chandler revived the WordPress Weekly podcast in mid-August, and WP Tavern ran a survey on how people used the dashboard to inform future design work.
• A trophy case for WordPress.com: WordPress.com added a trophy case of achievements for bloggers, prompting WP Tavern to ask whether WordPress.org profiles might one day get something similar.
• Jobs board redesign: The official WordPress Jobs site was redesigned.

Security Alerts and Plugin Vulnerabilities

• Mollom security breach: Mollom, the anti-spam service often mentioned as an Akismet alternative, disclosed in late August that one of its servers had been breached, reset all account passwords and advised customers to monitor their financial records.
• Safer editing in core: 3.6’s post locking and dual autosave were not security fixes as such, but they addressed a long-standing data-loss risk for multi-author sites.

Industry Trends and Insights

• Commercial pricing growing up: WooThemes’ changes showed that sustaining support for large plugin portfolios required recurring revenue, a lesson other companies watched closely.
• Self-updating software: Automatic background updates promised to close the window in which millions of sites ran outdated, vulnerable versions.
• Media goes native: Built-in audio and video support reduced reliance on Flash players and external services just as mobile browsing grew.

Theme of the Month: Twenty Thirteen

Twenty Thirteen finally shipped as the default theme in WordPress 3.6. Its modern-art-inspired colours and single-column layout were designed for media-rich blogging, and even without the Post Formats UI it made strong use of every format WordPress supported.

Plugin of the Month: Jetpack

Jetpack 2.4’s Widget Visibility module solved a request that had long required separate plugins, and it showed how Jetpack was becoming a bundle of WordPress.com conveniences for self-hosted sites, for better or worse depending on who you asked.

Founder of the Month: Jeff Chandler

Jeff Chandler founded WP Tavern in 2009 and parted ways with the site in January. His return to podcasting with WordPress Weekly this month brought one of the community’s longest-running voices back, and it set the stage for WP Tavern’s busier coverage in the months ahead.

Looking Ahead to September 2013

WordPress 3.7 Beta 1 is expected in September, with automatic background updates the feature to test. Feature plugin teams for 3.8, including MP6, will report progress, and a maintenance release for 3.6 is likely.