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As we greet a new year, WordPress’ Executive Director writes a letter to the project and community that speaks to the hopes of the year ahead.

Have a question you’d like answered? You can submit them to wpbriefing@wordpress.org, either written or as a voice recording.

Credits

• Editor: Dustin Hartzler
• Logo: Beatriz Fialho
• Production: Chloé Bringmann
• Song: Fearless First by Kevin MacLeod

Transcript

Josepha Haden Chomphosy  00:10

Hello, everyone, and welcome to the WordPress Briefing. The podcast where you can catch quick explanations of the ideas behind the WordPress open source project, some insight into the community that supports it, and get a small list of big things coming up in the next two weeks. I’m your host, Josepha Haden Chomphosy. Here we go!

Josepha Haden Chomphosy  00:40

Yesterday marked three years since the WordPress project welcomed me as their executive director. As I start my fourth year, I’ve spent a bit of time considering what the next five years will bring us. WordPress will turn 19 this year, which means that we will soon be a whopping 20 years old; for some of the people who have been with the project since the beginning, that can represent two-thirds of their whole life. And even if you were not that young when you got here, two decades as an open source project is really a cause for celebration. 

Josepha Haden Chomphosy  01:10

I am not in that group that has been here forever. I showed up for the first time in 2009, as a community organizer, self-sponsored, and I learned so much about myself as a person and as a leader while I was doing that. So when I arrived as a sponsored contributor in 2015, I already knew exactly what made this work so fulfilling for me was these three things: 

Josepha Haden Chomphosy  01:34

First, the ability to lend a hand in those moments where I wish someone had lent a hand. 

Josepha Haden Chomphosy  01:40

Second is the delight of seeing people’s first successes and the joy of watching them grow over time. 

Josepha Haden Chomphosy  01:48

And the third was a chance to be part of something great, which turned out to be something greater; greater than me or you or a CMS. 

Josepha Haden Chomphosy  01:58

This list is still at the heart of what I feel I get out of the WordPress project. But it has also grown substantially in my seven years as a sponsored contributor. I now also love how we as a community of contributors get to foster a better way to lead and a better way to collaborate. And through those things help people find a way to have a better life. Not just through WordPress, the CMS, but through WordPress, the people, and WordPress, the project. 

Josepha Haden Chomphosy  02:25

And so when I think of what I want for WordPress in its 19th year, so that we can head with confidence and dignity into our 20th year, it is this: 

Josepha Haden Chomphosy  02:35

I want you to remember that you are not alone here. People come together in the world often because of a shared location. But WordPress fosters this beautiful experience of bringing us together because of what we care about. Whether you care about PHP standards, diversity in technology, helping people with their first big wins, making WordPress more secure. I mean, if what you care about is being able to write the most arcane and complex apps on top of WordPress that the world has ever seen. Then there are others out there who want to do that with you, too. We have so many things to connect about. And fortunately, we support a great piece of software for getting our thoughts out in the world. Take some time to see who else shares your thoughts and potentially learn a bit about the view from the other side. 

Josepha Haden Chomphosy  03:26

And speaking of the other side, I also want us to approach our discussions as the US versus the Problem TM. WordPress may be 20 years old, and we may stand on the shoulders of giants, but right now, the people who are here you, you are explorers and creators and guides toward the best possible future for WordPress. The tension that we witness between teams is always about the best possible answers for the people who use our software. It is about securing the freedoms of the open web for everyone who comes after us whether they know they need those freedoms or not. 

Josepha Haden Chomphosy  04:04

And finally, I want us to expand our reasons for doing this at all. If you are a member of the community of contributors, We frequently talk about how we give back because WordPress gave to us. Or if you are part of a Five for the Future group. You have heard that companies who have experienced success because of WordPress should commit 5% of their resources back to the project to ensure WordPress’ long-term success. But the reason that I keep doing this, and hopefully a new reason for you to keep doing this is that we can take part in securing opportunities for future users of WordPress. 

Josepha Haden Chomphosy  04:42

Yes, I want WordPress to be the best CMS. Yes, I want this community to be vibrant and engaged. Yes, I want WordPress to be a shining beacon of how to work remotely. And I want all of that because I know it is our careful and tireless stewardship of this project that lets us continue to lend a hand in those moments where people wish for someone to lend a hand. 

Josepha Haden Chomphosy  05:11

Those are my hopes for WordPress in 2022 to move us forward into WordPress of the future. I hope you all will come with me and we can continue our journey together. 

Josepha Haden Chomphosy  05:23

Thanks again for listening. I’m Josepha Haden and this is the WP Briefing. See you again in a couple of weeks.

The second Release Candidate (RC2) for WordPress 5.9 is now available! 

“Release Candidate” means the new version of the software is ready for release. It helps the community check that nothing is missed, given the thousands of plugins and themes and differences in how millions of people use the software.

Thank you to everyone who has contributed thus far towards testing and filing bugs to help make WordPress 5.9 a great release. WordPress 5.9 is slated for release in just two weeks on January 25, 2022. There’s still time to help! Since RC1 was released, six bugs have been found and fixed. There were 13 bug fixes backported from Gutenberg.

Testing the release

You can test the WordPress 5.9 release candidate in three ways:

Option 1: Install and activate the WordPress Beta Tester plugin (select the “Bleeding edge” channel and “Beta/RC Only” stream).

Option 2: Direct download the beta version here (zip).

Option 3: When using WP-CLI to upgrade from Beta 1, 2, 3, 4, or RC1, on a case-insensitive filesystem, please use the following command sequence:

Command One:

wp core update --version=5.9-RC2

Command Two:

wp core update --version=5.9-RC2 --force

Your help to test the second Release Candidate is vital: the more testing that happens, the more stable the release, and the better the experience for users and developers—and the entire WordPress community.

Thank you to all of the contributors who tested the RC1 release and gave feedback. Testing for bugs is not just a critical part of polishing every release, it is also a great way to contribute to WordPress.

How to Help

Help test WordPress 5.9 features – a guide to how you can take part.

Can you write in another language other than English? You can help translate WordPress into more than 100 languages! Release Candidate 1 marked the hard string freeze point of the 5.9 release schedule. Thanks to every locale that is already involved with translations.

Developers and those interested in more of the background to the features can find more in the Field Notes. More developer notes will be added as the release progresses to its final stage. You can also follow the 5.9 development cycle and timeline.

If you think you have found a bug, you can post the details to the Alpha/Beta area in the support forums.

 If you are comfortable writing a reproducible bug report, you can file one on WordPress Trac, where you can also check the issue against a list of known bugs.

Props to: @psykro and @webcommsat, and @hellofromtonya, @audrasjb, @cbringmann and @marybaum for final review.

Launching a website or learning how to monetize your online store can be overwhelming. But we are here to help you along the way. We are hosting free webinars to help get you on track and answer any questions you have.  We cover different topics and will soon have new ones. Make sure to bookmark the Webinars page for upcoming webinars. In the meantime, check out our January webinars.

The timezones are in UTC but you can click the time to see it in your own timezone.

Getting Started
Mondays	1900 UTC
Tuesdays	1000 UTC
Wednesdays	0600 UTC
Thursdays	1900 UTC
Fridays	1600 UTC

Making Money
Mondays – hours alternate weekly	0600 UTC and 1600 UTC

Blogging
Tuesdays – hours alternate weekly	0600 UTC and 1600 UTC
Every other Wednesday at	1400 UTC

WooCommerce 101
Thursdays	1600 UTC

Spanish Webinars
Every other Wednesday	1400 UTC

Get the specific dates and registration forms at https://wordpress.com/webinars/

Who’s Invited: New WordPress.com users and anyone interested in learning more about WordPress.com’s website capabilities.

Our WordPress.com customer service team, we call them Happiness Engineers, are experts in helping new users get up and running on their new websites. Across each week of webinars, we’ll cover questions about the basics of setting up your website, handling simple and recurring payments, blogging best practices, and adding in eCommerce capabilities. Come with questions as you’ll be able to make them during the live webinar.

Everyone is welcome, even if you already have a site set up. We know you’re busy, so if you can’t make the live event, you’ll be able to watch a recording of the webinar on our YouTube channel.

Live attendance is limited, so be sure to register early. We look forward to seeing you on the webinar!

This security release features four security fixes. Because this is a security release, it is recommended that you update your sites immediately. All versions since WordPress 3.7 have also been updated.

WordPress 5.8.3 is a short-cycle security release. The next major release will be version 5.9, which is already in the Release Candidate stage.

You can update to WordPress 5.8.3 by downloading from WordPress.org or visiting your Dashboard → Updates and clicking Update Now.

If you have sites that support automatic background updates, they’ve already started the update process.

Security Updates

Four security issues affect WordPress versions between 3.7 and 5.8. If you haven’t yet updated to 5.8, all WordPress versions since 3.7 have also been updated to fix the following security issue (except where noted otherwise):

• Props to Karim El Ouerghemmi and Simon Scannell of SonarSource for disclosing an issue with stored XSS through post slugs.
• Props to Simon Scannell of SonarSource for reporting an issue with Object injection in some multisite installations.
• Props to ngocnb and khuyenn from GiaoHangTietKiem JSC for working with Trend Micro Zero Day Initiative on reporting a SQL injection vulnerability in WP_Query.
• Props to Ben Bidner from the WordPress security team for reporting a SQL injection vulnerability in WP_Meta_Query (only relevant to versions 4.1-5.8).

Thank you to all of the reporters above for privately disclosing the vulnerabilities. This gave the security team time to fix the vulnerabilities before WordPress sites could be attacked. Thank you to the members of the WordPress security team for implementing these fixes in WordPress.

For more information, check out the 5.8.3 HelpHub documentation page.

Thanks and props!

The 5.8.3 release was led by @desrosj and @circlecube.

In addition to the security researchers and release squad members mentioned above, thank you to everyone who helped make WordPress 5.8.3 happen:

Alex Concha, Dion Hulse, Dominik Schilling, ehtis, Evan Mullins, Jake Spurlock, Jb Audras, Jonathan Desrosiers, Ian Dunn, Peter Wilson, Sergey Biryukov, vortfu, and zieladam.

December was a busy month for the WordPress community. In the latest episode of the WP Briefing podcast, WordPress Executive Director Josepha Haden Chomphosy shares a carol of thanks and shows her gratitude to all the people who make the WordPress project a success.

(…) I know that we have gotten so much done together in the last few years. And I am equally sure that we’re going to get so much done in the years to come. And so thank you all so much for your continued work with WordPress and the way that you just bring your best at all times.

Josepha Haden, Executive Director of the WordPress project

We said goodbye to 2021 with the annual State of the Word, along with the release of WordPress 5.9 Beta 4, among many other exciting updates. Read on to learn more about the latest community achievements.

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WordPress 5.9: The first release candidate just landed

• Following the Beta 3 and Beta 4 releases in December, the first release candidate for WordPress 5.9 is now out and available for testing.
• With less than three weeks to go until the final release, this version continues the work from last year and marks the hard string freeze point of the 5.9 release schedule.
• Follow the 5.9 developer notes to learn more about the changes and updates coming with this release.

Are you interested in contributing to WordPress core? Join the #core channel, follow the Core Team blog, and check out the team handbook. Also, don’t miss the Core Team’s weekly developer chat on Wednesdays at 8 PM UTC.

Gutenberg releases: Versions 12.1 and 12.2 are here

The Core Team launched two new versions of Gutenberg last month. Both come with new features, code quality improvements, and bug fixes.

• Gutenberg 12.1 marks the return of the template List View and includes several Navigation block enhancements, new global styles features, an improved developer experience for block themes, and more.
• The Gutenberg 12.2 release focuses on user experience improvements and brings the block styles preview to the Widgets Editor, among other new features.

Want to get involved in developing Gutenberg? Follow the Core Team blog, contribute to Gutenberg on GitHub, and join the #core-editor channel in the Make WordPress Slack. Follow the #gutenberg-new tag for details on the latest updates.

Highlights from State of the Word 2021

• State of the Word 2021, the annual keynote address delivered by WordPress co-founder Matt Mullenweg, was livestreamed from New York City on December 14, 2021. The event gathered WordPress enthusiasts at 29 watch parties around the world.
• Matt shared his thoughts on the progress of the WordPress project and made announcements regarding its future in 2022. The presentation was followed by a Question and Answer session.

If you missed the event’s livestream, you could watch the State of the Word recording and the Q&A session on WordPress.tv.

Team updates: 2022 major release timings, new team rep announcements, and more

• The Core Team opened a discussion on the release dates for 2022 and the possibility of having four major WordPress releases this year.
• The following teams announced their team representatives for 2022: Themes, Support, Polyglots, and Community.
• In 2021, 2572 people contributed to WordPress source code using Trac, including 305 first-timers. Check out A Year in Core – 2021 for more interesting stats on WordPress Core contributions.
• The Diverse Speaker Training Group (#WPDiversity) shared its accomplishments from last year in this 2021 year-end report.
• The Training Team planned a sprint to audit and revisit the Learn WordPress content for the WordPress 5.9 release.
• The Design Team summarized some of the key changes behind the Openverse redesign.
• The December 2021 editions of the Polyglots Monthly Newsletter and the Meetup Organizer Newsletter are out.
• The latest edition of People of WordPress features Collins Agbonghama from Nigeria.
• The Core Team announced a proposal to change the JavaScript coding standards for complete Prettier compatibility.

Are you looking for some 5.9 resources to share with your local community? Check out the WordPress 5.9 Talking Points for Meetup Organizers post.

Feedback/Testing requests: Contribute by testing or translating WordPress 5.9

• Your feedback on WordPress 5.9 release candidates is still needed and appreciated! If you haven’t tried this version yet, you can find instructions on testing 5.9 features in this post.
• Do you speak a language other than English? The Polyglots Team announced that WordPress 5.9 is also ready to be translated.
• Version 18.9 of WordPress for Android is available for testing.

Share your feedback on WordPress 5.9.

Apply to speak or host a workshop at WordCamp Europe 2022

• WordCamp US 2022 is currently looking for organizers.
• The WordPress community celebrated its first in-person WordCamp after 21 months in Sevilla (Spain) on December 11-12, 2021. WordCamp Taiwan was held online the same weekend.
• The Test Team organized the Hallway Hangout titled Let’s talk about WordPress 6.0 on December 21, 2021. The team also shared a wrap-up of the Site Editing Safari as part of the FSE Outreach Program.
• The Training Team hosted several WordPress Social Learning Meetups last month, and there will be many more in January 2022.
• Last year the WordPress Foundation made significant progress in its mission to educate the public about open source software. Learn more about it in this 2021 recap.

Don’t miss the following upcoming WordCamps: WordCamp Birmingham, Alabama 2022, WordCamp Genève 2022, WordCamp Vienna 2022, and WordCamp Europe 2022.

The Call For Sponsors and Call For Speakers for WordCamp Europe 2022 are open! Read this post to learn more about the Organizing Team’s plans for the first in-person WordCamp Europe in three years.

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Have a story that we could include in the next ‘Month in WordPress’ post? Let us know by filling out this form.

The following folks contributed to December 2021’s Month in WordPress: @anjanavasan, @harishanker @lmurillom @meher @nalininonstopnewsuk @webcommsat

The first Release Candidate (RC1) for WordPress 5.9 is now available! 

Thank you to everyone who has contributed to reach this important milestone in the community’s progress towards a WordPress 5.9 release.

“Release Candidate” means the new version of the software is ready for release. It helps the community check that nothing is missed, given the thousands of plugins and themes and differences in how millions of people use the software.

WordPress 5.9 is slated for release on January 25, 2022. This is just three weeks to go  – and there’s still time to help!

Testing the release

You can test the WordPress 5.9 release candidate in three ways:

Option 1: Install and activate the WordPress Beta Tester plugin (select the “Bleeding edge” channel and “Beta/RC Only” stream).

Option 2: Direct download the beta version here (zip).

Option 3: When using WP-CLI to upgrade from Beta 1, 2, 3 or 4 on a case-insensitive filesystem, please use the following command sequence:

Command One:

wp core update --version=5.9-RC1

Command Two:

wp core update --version=5.9-RC1 --force

Your help to test the RC1 is vital: the more testing that happens, the more stable the release, and the better the experience for users and developers—and the entire WordPress community.

Thank you to all of the contributors who tested the Beta releases and gave feedback. Testing for bugs is not just a critical part of polishing every release; it is also a great way to contribute to WordPress.

Help test WordPress 5.9 features – a guide to how you can take part.

What is in WordPress 5.9 release candidate?

This will be the first release of 2022 and continues the work towards 5.9 from last year. It features the latest advances of the block editor and is the first version of full site editing in Core.

WordPress 5.9 also brings more refinements to the developer experience. To keep up with the latest updates and discover more about how the community works to continually improve the software, please subscribe to the Make WordPress Core blog. In particular, the developer notes tag will keep you up to date on changes that might affect your products or how you use the software.

Plugin and Theme Developers

Please test your plugins and themes against WordPress 5.9 and update the Tested up to version  to 5.9 in your readme file. If you find compatibility problems, please post to the support forums, so volunteers and developers can help you figure them out before the final release.

The WordPress 5.9 Field Guide will be out very shortly. It will give you a deeper dive into the major changes.

How to Help

Do you speak a language that is not English? You can help translate WordPress into more than 100 languages! Release Candidate 1 marks the hard string freeze point of the 5.9 release schedule. Thanks to every locale that is already involved with translations.

If you think you have found a bug, you can post to the Alpha/Beta area in the support forums.  If you are comfortable writing a reproducible bug report, you can file one on WordPress Trac, where you can also check the issue against a list of known bugs.

Props to @webcommsat for the post and to @marybaum @hellofromtonya @audrasjb @davidbaumwald @estelaris @cbringmann for final review.

In this series, we share some of the inspiring stories of how WordPress and its global network of contributors can change people’s lives for the better. This month we feature a website builder from Nigeria, who uses the open source WordPress platform to support his family and to share learning with others in his home country and beyond.

Creating a life in the WordPress Ecosystem

Collins Agbonghama started his journey to becoming a web developer by reading the football news headlines on a friend’s mobile phone. His fascination with development and learning continued to grow, and he now makes a living using WordPress and the web.

Read on to discover his story, which shows with creativity and determination you can create products and make a living using WordPress. 

Starting web building on a phone

Collins began his exploration of the internet while attending Secondary School in Nigeria, or High School as it is known in some other countries. 

A friend at the school had a simple mobile phone which could browse the internet. Collins had his first introduction to the World Wide Web through access to this device. He became hooked by reading headlines on a sports site about a famous English Premier League Football Club, Chelsea, a soccer team which he has long supported.

“Being a very inquisitive person, I wanted to learn how the web works as well as have my own website. I was able to buy a classic mobile phone through the menial jobs I did after school,” he said. 

His first website was a wapsite or Wireless Application Protocol site optimized for mobile devices. 

He took to Google to learn how to actually build a site. He discovered he needed something called an ‘email address’ to sign-up for site builders. Google Search came to the rescue again, and he created the first email account for his first website.

A desire for a website was the catalyst for further learning, starting with HTML and CSS from an online provider. His interest in building sites with more advanced tools grew, and then he came across WordPress. 

Using his savings, he bought the cheapest hosting plan from a local Nigerian web host. He installed WordPress and started writing tutorials for a mobile device platform. He built the site, created the lessons, and started his entry into WordPress all on a mobile phone. 

This led to him having the confidence to start building sites for others, and he was able to earn a small income from that. 

Collins said: “I couldn’t go to the university because of my precarious financial situation. I continued to do menial jobs during the day and started learning PHP in the evenings and at night using my mobile phone via online learning platforms.”

He was later able to get an old laptop, which helped him access ebooks to learn more and practice his coding. 

Keen to share this learning, he started blogging about what he was learning on his website.  

Collins said: “I later took up a job teaching children at a school primarily because I got tired of the menial jobs and wanted to earn enough to take care of my internet data plan. After a while, I became fairly proficient in PHP and even took up a job to build a school management system.”

Using WordPress to make a living

Collins’ blog wasn’t making money through advertisements, but he discovered opportunities to write tutorials for other platforms. 

“I started writing PHP and WordPress development tutorials and got paid a few hundred dollars per article. In Nigeria, that’s quite a lot of money. I was able to improve the life and wellbeing of my family and myself,” he said.

After getting into a higher education program to study computer science, his life dramatically changed. He decided to stop writing and began to focus on building and selling WordPress plugins. His first one was a user and profile plugin for WordPress sites.

“Thankfully, after a year, it started making enough revenue for me to live pretty comfortably here in Nigeria because the cost of living here is relatively low,” he said

Today, Collins has several plugins which have given him a sustainable source of income. He’s also a Core and Translation volunteer contributor to the WordPress.org Open Source project.

I am thankful for WordPress because without it, I’m really not sure I would have been able to live a decent quality life.
Who knows what would have become of me?

Collins Agbonghama

“I am also thankful for the community. I have made lots of friends that have been very supportive and helpful in my journey.”

He added: “I tell people, life won’t give you what you want. You demand from life what you want. You make these demands by being determined and never giving up on your dreams and aspirations.

“If you are poor, perhaps because you came from a humble and poor background, it is not your fault. You can’t go back in time to change things. I implore you to be strong, determined, and work hard.”

Meet more WordPress community members in our People of WordPress series.

Contributors

Thanks to Michael Geheren (@geheren), Abha Thakor (@webcommsat), for writing this feature, to @MeherBala (@meher) for follow-ups and photo-editing, and to Chloe Bringmann (@cbringmann) and Nalini Thakor (@nalininonstopnewsuk) for the final proofing. Thank you to Collins Agbonghama (@collizo4sky) for sharing his Contributor Story.

Thanks to Josepha Haden Chomphosy (@chanthaboune), Topher DeRosia (@topher1kenobe) and others for their support of this initiative.

The People of WordPress feature is inspired by an essay originally published on HeroPress.com, a community initiative created by Topher DeRosia, which highlights people in the WordPress community who have overcome barriers. 

#HeroPress #ContributorStory

As we approach the new year, we like to encourage our team, our friends, and our customers to look back and celebrate all we were able to accomplish. While this year has had its challenges, we kept creating, connecting, and growing.

We launched WP Courses almost exactly a year ago with our “Blogging for Beginners” course. With all of the excitement around the course, our team was eager to connect with and help more creators so we quickly followed with “Podcasting for Beginners.” With these courses, we’ve been able to connect with a wide range of creators who cover anything and everything from dementia to folk music. What has been more exciting and rewarding for our team is being able to help them grow. The engaged members in our course communities have been able to grow their audience, expand their content, and even monetize their site — getting paid to do what they love!

It’s fair to say we’re addicted to helping creators grow and we don’t plan on slowing down anytime soon. We were thrilled to see over 13,000 learners sign up for our free blogging course when we launched it just last month and you can count on us to keep that momentum going into 2022!

As a way to help you build up some momentum of your own, we’re running a sale starting today and going through 1/8/2022. You can use the promo code “Time2Launch” to take 25% off of your purchase at checkout.

• Engage with a community of peers and learn from their experiences, solicit feedback, and make lasting connections.
• Join regular workshops and office hours with our experts to help get unstuck or learn new skills.
• Access to tons of content to help you work through everything from initial set up to growing your audience.
• Quarterly meetups, exclusive offers, and more!

WordPress 5.9 Beta 4 is now available for testing!

This software version is still under development. Please do not run this software on a production site; install it on a test site, where you can try out the newest features and get a feel for how they will work on your site.

You can test the WordPress 5.9 Beta 4 in three ways:

Option 1: Install and activate the WordPress Beta Tester plugin (select the “Bleeding edge” channel and “Beta/RC Only” stream).

Option 2: Direct download the beta version here (zip).

Option 3: When using WP-CLI to upgrade from Beta 1, 2, or 3 to Beta 4 on a case-insensitive filesystem, please use the following command sequence:

Command One:

wp core update --version=5.9-beta4

Command Two:

wp core update --version=5.9-beta4 --force

The current target for the final release of 5.9 is January 25, 2022, which is only five weeks away. Your help testing this beta is vital: the more testing that happens, the more stable the release, and the better the experience for users and developers—and the entire WordPress community.

Some Highlights

Since Beta 3, 20 bugs have been fixed. Here are a few of the changes you will find in Beta 4:

• Bundled Theme: Fixed duplicate CSS rules in Twenty Twenty-One theme (#53605).
• Customizer: It’s possible to switch to a block theme from within Customizer (#54549).
• Themes: Provide guidance to users seeking to preview block themes on WordPress versions below 5.9 (#54575).
• REST API: The get_theme_item method should respect fields param (#54595).
• Editor: Block Patterns: “Featured” category & patterns missing from inserter (#54623).
• Login and registration: Add a filter to allow to disable the Login screen language dropdown – (#54675).

How You Can Help

Do some testing!

Testing for bugs is vital for polishing the release in the beta stage and a great way to contribute. 

Please post to the Alpha/Beta area in the support forums if you find a bug. If you’re comfortable writing a reproducible bug report, file one on WordPress Trac, where you can also find a list of known bugs.

Got questions? Here are some answers

In the coming weeks, follow the Make WordPress Core blog for 5.9-related developer notes that will cover these items in detail.

So far, contributors have fixed 326 tickets and 108 new features and enhancements in WordPress 5.9. More bug fixes are on the way with your help through testing.

Props to @cbringmann, @psykro, @hellofromtonya, @marybaum, @webcommsat, @audrasjb, @cbringmann, @costdev and @meher for contributions to this post.

In this last episode of 2021, Josepha Haden Chomphosy takes the time to appreciate those who make the WordPress project a success and offers a carol of thanks.

Have a question you’d like answered? You can submit them to wpbriefing@wordpress.org, either written or as a voice recording.

Credits

• Editor: Dustin Hartzler
• Logo: Beatriz Fialho
• Production: Chloé Bringmann
• Song: Fearless First by Kevin MacLeod

References

Have yourself A Merry Little Christmas

Transcript

Josepha Haden Chomphosy  00:10

Hello everyone, and welcome to the WordPress Briefing. The podcast where you can catch quick explanations of the ideas behind the WordPress open source project. Some insight into the community that supports it and get a small list of big things coming up in the next two weeks. I’m your host Josepha Haden Chomphosy. Here we go!

Josepha Haden Chomphosy  00:39

So, ages and ages ago, when I first started this podcast, someone basically requested that Matt and I do a duet for the last podcast of the year. A Christmas carol duet; him on the saxophone and me on voice. I obviously did not get that coordinated I don’t even know why I said obviously. I’ll tell you right now I did not get that coordinated. I was a very busy lady this year. So I don’t have a Matt on saxophone. Still, I did think that maybe it might be nice just for me to sing a teensy little Christmas carol for you all just because it seems especially poignant the words this year, especially after the 2020, 2021 COVID, all the things and trying to get back in person. So I’m going to sing you all one little verse from Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas.

Josepha Haden Chomphosy 01:35 Singing  

Have yourself a merry little Christmas

Let your heart be light

From now on our troubles

Will be out of sight

Have yourself a merry little Christmas

Make the Yuletide gay

From now on our troubles

Will be miles away

Here we are as in olden days

Happy golden days of yore

Faithful friends who are dear to us

Gather near to us, once more

Through the years we all will be together

If the fates allow

Hang a shining star upon the highest bough

And have yourself a merry little Christmas now

Here we are as in olden days

Happy golden days of yore

Faithful friends who are dear to us

Gather near to us, once more

Through the years we all will be together

If the fates allow

Hang a shining star upon the highest bough

And have yourself a merry little Christmas now

Josepha Haden Chomphosy  03:34

Alright, my friends, that was from my heart to yours if you happened to listen. If you skipped a few seconds to get through it, which I would totally understand, that is also fine. But I did want to just kind of wrap up the year to let you all know that I am so incredibly grateful for all of the people who show up for the WordPress project to make it a success. I have made so many friends and wonderful acquaintances throughout my time here with the WordPress project. And especially in my three years as the project’s Executive Director. You all have put a lot of trust in me and a lot of faith. And I know that we have gotten so much done together in the last few years. And I am equally sure that we’re going to get so much done in the years to come. And so thank you all so much for your continued work with WordPress and the way that you just bring your best at all times. 

Josepha Haden Chomphosy  04:32

One other little thanks I want to give. Over the course of this year, I’ve had an excellent team that works with me on this podcast. I have editing and design folks and people who’ve joined me here and there, folks who helped me with my production. So big thank you to Dustin, Bea, I realize your name is Beatriz in the actual credits, but I call you Bea, and so thank you. Also, a huge thank you to Chloé, who does all of our production and wrangling every couple of weeks. A big round of applause and kudos to that tiny but tough team that helps me get this all done.

Josepha Haden Chomphosy  05:10

That’s to go on top of the general thanks to the WordPress project. And if you all are celebrators, I hope you have a wonderful holiday season. If you are not celebrators, I hope that you have a wonderful end to your year and that everything you wanted to get done, you did get done, and that you can start 2022 with a fresh slate. Again, this is the WP Briefing. Thank you so much for listening. I’m your host Josepha Haden Chomphosy, and I’ll see you again in 2022.