I’ve been a fan of bbPress for quite some time; I’ve even contributed code to the project. For those that aren’t familiar with it, bbPress is an open-source forum system written in PHP. It’s fast, lightweight, easy to install and even easier to use. It also scales, quite well.

bbPress was originally written to power the support forums WordPress.org, which get quite a bit of traffic. Later, it was released as a separate project. While it doesn’t have nearly the feature set found in more popular systems such as vBulletin or phpBB; it makes up for it in simplicity. It’s designed to be conversation-centered, where the clear focus is on what people are saying, not the bells and whistles provided by the software.

I’ve used it for a couple sites and couldn’t be more pleased; though now I fear the end may be near.

Automattic, the company behind Wordpress.com (and ListPress.com) has committed to supporting the project; though primarily in context to its role in the WordPress world. bbPress as a separate product has so much potential, though it seems Automattic has little interest in this; instead the interest seems to be in making bbPress just another add-on for WordPress.

At one point there was a lot of excitement and interest surrounding bbPress, though for a project like this to succeed you need input from the community, you need an open and fast paced development process. Unfortunately for bbPress, it had no such process. There were people who had the skill, time, and interest to lead the project and make it a success; but they were pushed away and the project was allowed to stagnate.

Today, there is some activity going on, and I’m glad to see that it won’t fade away completely; though I see little chance that it will live up to what it could have been. I have a lot of respect for Matt and Automattic; they’re very successful and build great products; but they could have done so much more.

bbPress will go on I’m sure; though I believe only as a shadow of what it could have been. Though maybe Matt will prove me wrong, I certainly hope so.

The latest and greatest version of WordPress (the software that powers this site) has been released. This release looks to be mainly small fixes; nothing earth shattering this time around. As always, painless upgrade, and all seems to be working well.

As I didn’t see a package for just the changed files, I went ahead and zipped them up. These are just the changed files from 2.1, so this should make the upgrade process much quicker if you’ve already got 2.1 up and running.

WordPress 2.1 RC1 has been released (about two whole hours after upgrading to Beta 4). So far RC1 is looking quite nice.

I’ve got to say, this may be one of the most impressive WordPress releases I’ve seen yet. From my testing so far, everything seems to be working quite well. Now that 2.1 is at the RC level, I’ll get that review I promised typed up.

If you’re a WordPress user, I’d grab a copy and make sure your theme and plugins work so you’ll be ready when 2.1 goes gold.

Well, WordPress 2.0.7 has been released, and I’ve upgraded this site to WordPress 2.1 Beta 2.

I was excepting a rather painful upgrade; not so much because it is a beta, but the rather large number of changes. After a couple simple tweaks to my custom theme, within 10 minutes it was up and running perfectly. Knowing the effort and quality the WordPress team puts out, I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised.

So far it looks all is working quite well. If you see anything wrong, or just seems odd, please leave a comment so I can look into it.

I’ll be posting a mini-review of WordPress 2.1 here in a couple days.

Just a few days ago the WordPress team announced that 2.0.6 would be the last before the much anticipated 2.1 release. Although now it look like there will be at least one more release before 2.1, if not two. Based on discussions on the wp-testers mailing list, it’s looking like two.

Due to a security issue with some configurations, along with a few other issues (details), the WordPress crew is moving along with a release in the very near future. From the look of the WordPress Trac, it looks like there are also several issues open for 2.0.8.

So after updating a few days ago, looks like we’ll be facing a couple more upgrades. Although, given the choice I’d much rather face additional upgrades rather than these security issues.

Time once again, for a WordPress update, the software that powers this site. This is primary a security update, fixing a few nasty issues as well as cleaning up some other things (here’s the breakdown). If you are running a WordPress blog, I’d recommend going for the update.

It’s a painless update, and so far seems quite stable.