To Merge Or Not To Merge?

Well, what can I say other than plenty of other people throughout the community picked up on the same message I did from WordCamp San Francisco regarding the merging of WordPress.org and WordPress MU. In fact, there is even a slide that goes with the presentation that says: WPMU and WordPress.org … merging. After that slide was presented, take a look at what anyone paying attention saw on Twitter.

#wordcampsf WordPress MU and wordpress.org are merging. For those of you who are into MU, these must be interesting news.

WPMU and WordPress.org are merging! The codebases are being combined. (per @photomatt) #WordCamp

This was on top of all the websites that reported on the same thing announcing that perhaps by the time WordPress 3.0 would ship (speculation regarding version number) that the codebases between WordPress MU and WordPress would be merged.

Today, we learn from Lorelle on the BlogHerald.com that we possibly tuned into the wrong message. According to Lorelle:

While I’m waiting confirmation, my understanding from Matt’s announcement is that the long time home of all things WordPress, known by many as the WordPress dot org site, will become a WordPressMU site, with nothing impacting the downloadable versions of WordPress.

So, I dived into the WordPress Developers IRC channel to see if anyone had any inside knowledge on the announcement. Most of the people who responded didn’t quite have the answers I was looking for, that is until Donncha chimed in. I ended up having a little conversation with him to see if I could get the details regarding the announcement and this is what he had to say:

donncha – Sure, MU will be merged into WP. That’s basically the whole story
jeffr0 – Majority of people believe a merging of the two projects. WordPress and WordPress MU into one project with a rumored completion of WordPress 3.0. Now posts like Lorelle’s on the blogherald are creeping up suggesting no, WordPress.org will be powered by WordPress MU or something like that. No one knows anything
donncha – It’s just MU -> WP. Everything else is speculation.
jeffr0 – So WPMU becomes WP and that’s that?
donncha – basically, yes.

So how it will happen or when is still up in the air but at least it looks like most of us who jumped the gun and believed that the announcement meant the merging of both projects into one was correct. However, it will be interesting to see what Lorelle comes up with after she receives her confirmation to see if her post changes to match Donncha’s answers.