WordPress has announced that the third major version release for 2021 will be delayed until January 25th, 2022.
The race to publish WordPress 5.9 in 2021 had fallen behind significantly to an extent where core contributors spoke up about their concerns regarding the feasibility of meeting the initial deadline.
It’s reported that many key components for an easy to use block-based editor were nowhere near ready for release. As such, WordPress was faced with two decisions:
- Roll out a significantly diminished version of WordPress and meet the deadline
- Push back the deadline and release the full and intended version of WordPress 5.9
WordPress states that certain issues arose that proved overwhelming and therefore delayed the release of version 5.9:
“Near the end of the original alpha release cycle, issues arose that related to multiple major features planned for the 5.9 release, including:
Full Site Editing (FSE), which is a collection of features, such as global styles interface, Navigation Block, block themes, template editors, and site editing flows.
The Twenty Twenty-Two (TT2) theme, which depends on these FSE features.”
5.9 Was Being Dangerously Rushed
Core contributors recently raised their concerns, saying that the project was being dangerously rushed forward, which is not wrong; releasing a major version upgrade over the year-end holidays is never a good idea. The potential for something to go wrong is always there and over a shopping season rush, it’s bound for disaster.
“The decision to delay 5.9 to January 2022 has been met with positive feedback from all sides, and many following the progress have expressed their appreciation of the team’s transparency throughout the decision-making process. It’s reassuring to see the release leads acting in the interest of users and contributors, instead of forcing something half-baked forward.”
Whilst we all wait in anticipation for WordPress 5.9, take a sneak peak at some of the newer features we can expect to see come 2022:
