WordPress News Roundup June 2005: WordPress 1.5.1.3 Patches XML-RPC as Browse Happy Joins WordPress.org

June 2005 was a month of steady growth for WordPress. WordPress.org took on a web standards project, the plugin repository passed 300 registered plugins, and the documentation team gave the Codex a new front page. The month ended with a security release, as the developers kept the 1.5 branch stable while working on the next major version.

WordPress Core Updates

• WordPress 1.5.1.3 (June 29): An important security issue was reported privately, and the team shipped 1.5.1.3 before details were made public. Users who could not upgrade straight away were told to delete xmlrpc.php as a temporary measure.
• Next major release: The announcement confirmed that development had moved on to new features for the next major version, then called 1.6.
• Bug gardeners: At the June 29 IRC meetup the project picked volunteers to triage its bug tracker. Matt Mullenweg said they would be called “bug gardeners” for now.

Other WordPress News

• Browse Happy: On June 1 the Web Standards Project handed Browse Happy, its site encouraging people to switch from Internet Explorer to better browsers, to WordPress.org. WordPress already promoted Firefox in its admin screens, and the site let it recommend other browsers too.
• A new Codex front page: The Codex documentation site got a redesigned front page, and Lorelle VanFossen wrote about the changes.
• 300 plugins: The wp-plugins.org developer repository passed 300 registered plugins, and Mullenweg said it was time to build a proper user-facing directory.
• WordPress MU and themes: Donncha Ó Caoimh showed that WordPress MU, the multi-blog version of WordPress, could use regular WordPress themes. Mullenweg hinted at more MU developments soon.
• Podcasting and the desktop: Chris J. Davis published a short tutorial on podcasting with WordPress. Apple listed WordPressDash, a Mac OS X Tiger Dashboard widget for posting to WordPress blogs.
• Meetups: Mullenweg spoke at Gnomedex in Seattle, and WordPress users met in Seattle and New York.

Security Alerts and Plugin Vulnerabilities

The 1.5.1.3 release was the security news of the month. The team followed what would become its usual practice: fix privately, release, then disclose. The suggestion to delete xmlrpc.php as a stopgap showed that remote publishing over XML-RPC, which desktop blogging clients relied on, was becoming a target.

Industry Trends and Insights

Google launched Google Sitemaps in early June, an XML format site owners could use to tell the search engine which pages existed. Mullenweg found the idea strange but noted that WordPress could already generate sitemaps. The format later became an industry standard, and WordPress added native sitemaps in version 5.5 in 2020.

Plugin of the Month: Google Sitemaps

German developer Arne Brachhold released his Google Sitemaps generator within days of Google’s announcement, with several versions out during June. It built the XML file automatically and updated it as posts were published. Renamed Google XML Sitemaps, it became one of the most installed WordPress plugins of the next decade.

Founder of the Month: Donncha Ó Caoimh

Irish developer Donncha Ó Caoimh created WordPress MU, the multi-user version that let one installation run many blogs. His work in June to make MU compatible with standard themes mattered a great deal: within months MU would power WordPress.com, and Donncha would become one of Automattic’s first engineers.

Looking Ahead to July 2005

The IRC meetups had agreed that the dev blog should carry more community news, so weekly roundup posts written through the Codex were planned for July. Plans for the next major release were also being written up on the Codex.