WordPress 2.7 was added to the roadmap in February 2008, with a release date of November 10, 2008. By June, blog entries were popping up all over the Net describing the great features that were coming, how to future-proof your theme in readiness for 2.7, and the countdown to November was in full swing.
On 1st November, WordPress 2.7 Beta 1 was released for testing, along with an announcement that development was two weeks behind schedule:
"Speaking of the final release, it will not be available on November 10th as originally scheduled. We are two weeks behind schedule at the moment. We need a little more time to finish the visual design, do a round of user testing against that finished design, and do a proper round of public beta testing. Our plan is to keep working as if Nov. 10 is still the release date. However, instead of releasing the final 2.7 on the 10th, we will make a release candidate available instead. The release candidate is intended to be a high-quality, almost-finished release that we are comfortable recommending for broad use. After Nov. 10, the focus will be on fixing high impact bugs turned up by those of you testing the release candidate. I suspect 2.7 will be ready for final release by the end of November. A specific date will be set as we progress through the public beta cycle and get a feel for how solid the release is."
November came and went with several more beta releases, and on 1st December Release Candidate 1 was released for testing, with no news as to when 2.7 final would be out. Announcements were made that WordPress.com would be upgrading to WP 2.7 on December, 4th. However, for stand-alone WP installs, the wait continues and on 10th December when Release Candidate 2 came out Matt wrote:
"We feel this release is pretty much exactly what we’re going to ship as 2.7, barring any final bugs or polish tweaks that you report or we find."
Now, 2.7 is a major release and I am certainly not criticising the WordPress core developers for the fluidity of their dates. However, I have to wonder why they set a planned date for releases when its rare that they meet their projected deadline. While many people simply accept that projected deadlines are impractical in volunteer open source projects, WordPress is not the average FOSS project. Backed by Automattic and staffed by employees, WordPress development is not hampered by volunteers who need to fit unpaid development into their free time.
It's not unusual for delays to occur in any software development. But users expect to be kept in the loop so they can make informed decisions about their own sites and, in some cases, the sites they maintain for others.
I am involved in the testing of 2.7 and would love to be able to report on an expected date. Sorry, but I am just as much in the dark as you.
UPDATE:
WordPress 2.7, "Coltrane" has been released today, 11th December.
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