WordPress 2.8.1 Beta By End Of The Week

So the WordPress development chat in the dev channel on IRC just took place and here is a brief rundown of the information presented within.

WordPress 2.8.1 Beta aimed to be release by the end of this week

WordPress 2.9 Target date is October 31st

Some fixes to high impact bugs are in.

Investigate lengthening RC periods depending on RC download numbers

Promote upgrading to RCs more

Note that we need help testing with the bazillion plugins in existence

The one thing I took out of the chat is the underlying problem that there are simply too few testers. There needs to be more testing on a scale that matches the kind of environments people use WordPress in when a stable version is released. The same core group of people testing each version are beginning to miss things that other people may have found otherwise. Also, more RC testing on established sites that have plugins would be great as it would provide early detection of plugins which might break due to the new version.

I believe the chat for next week will be focused on WordPress 2.9.