WordPress News Roundup November 2008: WordPress 2.6.5 Release, Three WordPress 2.7 Betas, Project Icon and the Skipped 2.6.4

November 2008 was the busiest month of the year on the WordPress blog. WordPress 2.7 went into public beta on November 1 and two more betas followed. The community voted on new admin icons through Project Icon, and a security release jumped straight from 2.6.3 to 2.6.5 because a fake 2.6.4 was circulating. WordPress.org also launched a Showcase of notable sites and a blog for WordPress MU.

Mergers, Acquisitions, and Investments

No new deals were announced, but September’s IntenseDebate acquisition bore fruit. Matt Mullenweg announced on November 13 that IntenseDebate had reopened, with a new WordPress plugin that synced comments back to the local database. Later in the month he noted that Change.gov had adopted IntenseDebate for its comments.

WordPress Core Updates

• WordPress 2.7 Beta 1 (November 1): The first public beta introduced the new visual design, described as nearly complete. A poll the next day asked testers which feature they liked most.
• Beta 2 (November 6): Fixes included an upload button that did not always appear, a dashboard JavaScript freeze on blogs with no comments, incorrect times in Recent Drafts and several autosave problems.
• Beta 3 (November 15): More than 160 changes since Beta 2, including style refinements, relocated admin notices and fixes to saving dashboard widgets, according to the announcement.
• Project Icon: More than a dozen designers answered the call for 2.7 icons. In a community vote, Ben Dunkle’s set won with 35%, and Verena Segert’s runner-up set was planned for the alternate colour scheme, as the results post explained on November 17.
• WordPress 2.6.5 (November 25): A security and bug-fix release. The project skipped 2.6.4 because a fake release with that number was being spread, stating there was not and never would be a 2.6.4.

Other WordPress News

• Showcase: WordPress.org launched a Showcase of notable sites using WordPress MU, WordPress.com, WordPress.com VIP and self-hosted WordPress.
• A blog for WordPress MU: The first blog on the wordpress.org domain dedicated to WordPress MU launched.
• Three million: The download counter for the 2.6 series passed three million, Mullenweg noted on November 14.
• WordCamp Australia: Mullenweg travelled to Sydney for WordCamp Australia at the end of the month.

Security Alerts and Plugin Vulnerabilities

WordPress 2.6.5 fixed a cross-site scripting flaw reported by Jeremias Reith that affected IP-based virtual servers running Apache 2.x, along with three bugs, including one that could save post meta to a revision and a missing user ID check in bulk deletes. The bigger danger was the counterfeit 2.6.4: by refusing ever to use that number, the team made it easy for users to recognise the fake.

Industry Trends and Insights

Open betas, polls and a public icon contest made 2.7 one of the most participatory releases WordPress had attempted. The Showcase and the MU blog showed the project presenting itself as a family of products, from personal blogs to multi-site networks to enterprise hosting, rather than a single download. Change.gov’s use of IntenseDebate also showed Automattic’s platform-agnostic services reaching some of the most closely watched sites on the web.

Theme of the Month: Hybrid

Justin Tadlock announced his Hybrid theme framework on November 12. Built to be extended with child themes and packed with hooks and widget areas, it joined Thematic and Carrington in a fast-growing field of frameworks.

Plugin of the Month: IntenseDebate

The relaunched IntenseDebate plugin addressed a common worry about hosted comment systems by syncing comments into the WordPress database, so site owners kept a local copy of their conversations.

Founder of the Month: Justin Tadlock

Justin Tadlock launched Theme Hybrid this month as the home of his framework. He would go on to become one of the most influential voices on WordPress theme development.

Looking Ahead to December 2008

December was expected to bring a 2.7 release candidate and then the final release, complete with the winning icons from Project Icon. Planning for the following release, WordPress 2.8, was also expected to begin once 2.7 shipped.