It’s almost as if Irony is lost on the good folks over at WordPress. Just 7 working days after ranting about how WordPress is not updated too often and that the next version is not due for months (november infact), Jeff Chandler posts the inside scoop on the new version of WordPress along with screenshots and links to install the beta.
Lets put that in simple terms for a second:
- WordPress 2.5 was released on March 31st
- WordPress 2.5.1 was released 19 working days later
- WordPress 2.6.b was released 24 working days later
- WordPress 2.6 was released 15 working days later
- WordPress 2.6.1 released 23 working days later
- WordPress 2.7.a released 7 working days later.
I appreciate that people will have different opinions on whether the frequency of releases is positive or negative. But the point i feel that many over at WordPress miss out on is that Each new point release (2.3, 2.5, 2.6) requires an offline install, database upgrade, and then upgrade of every plugin – and thats not taking into consideration plugins that get updated over time usually within the first week of a new release, or theme that have to recoded, and CSS changes that are so often neccessary.
Between personal blogs (such as this one) and blogs for clients, i am responsible for 15 WordPress reliant websites. With the current frequency of releases, I have spent 2 days each month dealing with updates to WordPress since the turn of the year. Thats a colossal amount of time spent on very little added functionality, in what are mostly cosmetic upgrades.
Oh, and thats before we mention that WordPress have decided to ONCE AGAIN change the layout, flow, and usability of the administration panel without any warning or consultation with the community. Of course this will break all plugins, and add some additional training/hand-holding with users.
WordPress is a wonderful and powerful tool, and an amazing string to the open-source bow, but the amount of overhead its passing onto the community is getting to be a joke. If 2.7 is released in November as the roadmap suggests, then we will have a minor release to fix bugs before Christmas. That will bring the total stable releases of WordPress for 2008 up to 8.
Can you imagine if Php, MySql or Internet Explorer did that?
