Saturday, September 17 is Software Freedom Day. To that end, a few announcements about this weekend’s hackathon and WordCamp Portland.

3.3 Hackathon

WordPress 3.3 is about to hit feature freeze. This means it’s the last chance to squeeze in features that haven’t quite been finished, and enhancements and fixes that no one has had time to address yet. Around this time, there are often dozens of tickets that have patches, but the patches have not been tested enough to be committed to core. Then the contributors who worked hard on the patches are disappointed that their code doesn’t make it into the current release. You can help us prevent this!

This weekend, we’ll be running a has-patch needs-testing marathon for the 3.3 milestone. Basically, we’re looking for people who can help test patches and/or refresh patches that need updating. Lead developers and core contributors will be hanging around in the #wordpress-dev channel on irc.freenode.net to answer questions as needed, and will be committing patches as they get enough verification. As you test the patches, report your findings on the trac tickets in question. If all developers who make a living working with WordPress helped out for even an hour or two this weekend, we could clear the 200 tickets or so that are in this situation. To make it fun, why not get together with other WordPress devs and have an in-person hackathon meetup?

WordCamp Portland

At WordCamp Portland this weekend, some of the WordPress core team will be in attendance, including me, Nacin, and Koop. In addition to giving presentations and participating in the unconference sessions, we’ll be involved with a couple of other cool things at WCPDX:

• Hacker Room. There will be room set aside for people to work on core bugs and features slated for the 3.3 release. Hopefully PDX developers will hang out in here some of the time helping with the marathon.
• Welcome Free Software Projects! Normally WordCamps are 100% focused on WordPress, but in light of Software Freedom Day, the WC PDX organizers, in conjunction with the WordPress Foundation, would like to extend an invitation to all free software projects to participate in WordCamp Portland. There are a couple of rooms set aside that can be used for unconference sessions and/or hacker rooms for other projects. It would be great to have local representatives from a bunch of projects there — almost a micro version of OS Bridge or OSCON — to maximize the free software love and cross-pollinate ideas. Developers from other projects are also welcome in the WP hackathon room if they’d like to pitch in. Saturday will also feature the Software Freedom Day Happy Hour at the end of sessions. For more information or to get your project involved, contact the event organizers via the WordCamp Portland website or email support at wordcamp dot org.
• Usability Testing of 3.3 Alpha. As mentioned, we’re about to hit freeze, so we’ll be giving WordCamp Portland attendees a sneak peek at 3.3, seeing how they adjust to the new features, and getting feedback to help us with our last round of fixes before we get to Beta. There will be a signup sheet to participate.

So, if you live it the Portland/Seattle area and haven’t already bought a ticket to attend WordCamp Portland, hurry up, as it’s going to be a great celebration of Software Freedom Day and WordPress.

Howdy! The second release candidate for WordPress 3.2 is now available. If you haven’t tested WordPress 3.2 yet, now is the time — please though, not on your live site unless you’re extra adventurous.

We’ve handled a number of issues since RC1, including additional Twenty Eleven tweaks, a new theme support option for defaulting to randomized headers, and various RTL fixes.

Plugin and theme authors, please test your plugins and themes now, so that if there is a compatibility issue, we can figure it out before the final release. Users are also encouraged to test things out. If you find problems, let your plugin/theme authors know so they can figure out the cause. If you are testing the release candidate and think you’ve found a bug, there are a few ways to let us know:

• Post it to the Alpha/Beta area in the support forums or wp-testers
• Join the development IRC channel and tell us live at irc.freenode.net #wordpress-dev
• File a bug ticket on the WordPress Trac

To test WordPress 3.2, try the WordPress Beta Tester plugin (you’ll want “bleeding edge nightlies”). Or you can download the release candidate here (zip).

If any known issues crop up, you’ll be able to find them here. If you’d like to know which levers to pull in your testing, check out a list of features in our Beta 1 post.

The first release candidate (RC1) for WordPress 3.2 is now available.

An RC comes after the beta period and before final release. We think we’re done, but with tens of millions of users, a variety of configurations, and thousands of plugins, it’s possible we’ve missed something. So if you haven’t tested WordPress 3.2 yet, now is the time! Please though, not on your live site unless you’re extra adventurous.

Things to keep in mind:

• With more than 350 tickets closed, there are plenty of changes. Plugin and theme authors, please test your plugins and themes now, so that if there is a compatibility issue, we can figure it out before the final release.
• Users are also encouraged to test things out. If you find problems, let your plugin/theme authors know so they can figure out the cause.
• Twenty Eleven isn’t quite at the release candidate stage. Contents may settle.
• If any known issues crop up, you’ll be able to find them here.

If you are testing the release candidate and think you’ve found a bug, there are a few ways to let us know:

• Post it to the Alpha/Beta area in the support forums or wp-testers
• Join the development IRC channel and tell us live at irc.freenode.net #wordpress-dev
• File a bug ticket on the WordPress Trac

To test WordPress 3.2, try the WordPress Beta Tester plugin (you’ll want “bleeding edge nightlies”). Or you can download the release candidate here (zip).

Happy testing!

If you’d like to know which levers to pull in your testing, check out a list of features in our Beta 1 post.

WordPress 3.0.5 is now available and is a security hardening update for all previous WordPress versions.

This security release is required if you have any untrusted user accounts, but it also comes with important security enhancements and hardening. All WordPress users are strongly encouraged to update.

Three point oh point five
Enhances security
Three point one comes soon

The release addresses a number of issues and provides two additional enhancements:

Two moderate security issues were fixed that could have allowed a Contributor- or Author-level user to gain further access to the site.

One information disclosure issue was addressed that could have allowed an Author-level user to view contents of posts they should not be able to see, such as draft or private posts.

Two security enhancements were added. One improved the security of any plugins which were not properly leveraging our security API. The other offers additional defense in depth against a vulnerability that was fixed in previous release.

Thanks to Nils Jueneman and Saddy for their private and responsible disclosures to security@wordpress.org for two of the issues. The others were reported or repaired by our security team.

Download 3.0.5 or update automatically from the Dashboard > Updates menu in your site’s admin area. Please update immediately.

WordPress 3.1 Release Candidate 4 is also now available.

The Release Candidate 4 build includes the security fixes and enhancements included in 3.0.5 and addresses about two dozen additional bugs. This includes fixes for:

• Deleting a user and reassigning their posts to another user.
• Marking multiple users or sites as spam in multisite.
• PHP4 compatibility.

As outlined in previous RC posts, if you are testing the release candidate and think you’ve found a bug, there are a few ways to let us know:

• Post it to the Alpha/Beta area in the support forums
• Report it to the wp-testers mailing list
• Join the development IRC channel and tell us live at irc.freenode.net #wordpress-dev
• File a bug ticket on the WordPress Trac

To test WordPress 3.1, try the WordPress Beta Tester plugin (you’ll want “bleeding edge nightlies”). Or you can download the release candidate here (zip). If any new issues become known, you’ll be able to find them here.

After nearly five months of development and testing, we think we’re very close to a final release. Users and developers, please test your themes and plugins.

Download WordPress 3.1 RC4 or WordPress 3.0.5 now.