Issue #152 Loop

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Hi, friend. 👋

Welcome to Issue #152 of Loop WP!

Last week, I shared a WooCommerce plugin solution for a client's headache.

This week, we will discuss the result of the March 27th vote on restricting WordPress releases to one yearly release until the WPE lawsuit ends.

😬 WordPress 6.8 has been confirmed as the first and last major release of 2025.

Let’s go! 👇

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A Quick Reminder & Important Context

🚨 If you aren’t aware of the context for this potentially significant meeting for the future of WordPress, then you should read Loop WP, Issue #149 first.

This week’s newsletter will look at the “DotOrg Core Committers Check In” results in isolation and what was confirmed in the context of Matt’s initial proposal.

💡 There’s also a note about WooCommerce at the end of this newsletter.

One Major Release For 2025

Quick Summary

Mary Hubbard published the outcomes (I encourage you to read this) of the core committers meeting on April 4th, and if you want a super short summary, it would be as follows. 👇

(I’ve added my comments and thoughts in brackets.)

Pros

• Improved quality (debatable).

• Better alignment with major organisations' release schedules.

• More substantial updates (potentially).

• Reduced contributor workload (we’ve talked about burnout before).

Cons

• Slower user feedback.

• Delayed contributor recognition.

• Phased implementation challenges.

🤔 Gutenberg releases will continue on the current schedule every two weeks (this would suggest to me that, given the limited resources, Gutenberg is the real priority, rather than Core).

✅ To maintain productivity and clear communication, core committers will have quarterly calls on an ongoing basis (I would like to see the minutes for these meetings published).

💡 So, let’s examine things in more detail, considering Matt’s original proposal and what has been confirmed.

A Deeper Dive Into The Core Committers Check In

We are now looking at one major release per year, which is a significant slowdown in the WordPress release cycle.

All of this is subject to change, but there are currently two key focal areas:

1. Emphasis on Maintenance and Quality (“Backlog Management”)

2. Feature Development via Canonical Plugins

1) Emphasis on Maintenance and Quality

🤔 A slower cycle “can signal an intentional reset and focus on quality”, allowing for larger, more polished releases instead of rapid iterations that risk being “bug-fix only”.

This reinforces what Core committers had been advocating at WordCamp Asia. They discussed how a maintenance-focused approach for the subsequent few releases could be beneficial, given the resource strain.

Minor Releases

✅ Minor releases will still occur as needed, and notably, they will have a “more relaxed barrier for inclusion of enhancements” (while avoiding any breaking changes or new files).

💡 That adjustment confirms contributors’ earlier calls to broaden what can be done in minor releases to keep WordPress compatible and evolving during a long gap between majors (for example, accommodating upcoming PHP versions in the interim).

2) Feature Development via Canonical Plugins

Matt evolved his original proposal by suggesting shifting new feature development out of Core and into “canonical” plugins, which was confirmed in Mary’s announcement.

⚡️ A greater focus on canonical plugins and individual component roadmaps, which can be iterated on and shipped independently of major releases, is not a terrible idea.

This mirrors ideas circulated in earlier conversations (and by Matt Mullenweg in the past) that features can be developed as plugins first, especially when Core is in a holding pattern.

🛠️ The announcement highlights community-maintained plugins as examples of where future feature innovation will live:

• Preferred Languages

• Two-Factor Authentication

• Performance team’s modules

Inevitability Or A Strategy Shift?

This announcement broadly aligns with what had been discussed in late February and March within the WordPress Slack (and contributor discussions at WordCamp Asia), so they won’t surprise many (especially if you read my newsletter, friend).

By endorsing “canonical” plugins, it could be argued that the project is confirming a shift in strategy:

• Major core releases will slow down and carry mostly mature improvements.

• While experimental or new user-facing features will be incubated in plugins.

Final Thoughts

Given what has been happening since September, it doesn’t surprise me that we reached this point.

😔 The job losses are very sad, and core contributors are still under strain, and for anyone who’s experienced burnout, you know how tough that can be.

🧠 The statement from Mary Hubbard is arguably a slight change in the narrative, as WP Engine (WPE) and the lawsuit are not mentioned as the reason for this change when they originally were.

💡 However, we can’t escape that reality and the original reasoning behind Matt’s proposal.

• Would WordPress and Automattic be in their current position without the lawsuit and Matt’s continuing narrative?

• Will WordPress lose its dominant market share?

A Quick Note On WooCommerce

As you might know, friend, I am heavily invested in eCommerce with WooCommerce, my biggest platform (I am also a Shopify Partner), and I believe the Woo team is in good hands.

🥺 However, with Woo losing over 100 staff members of the 281 that Automattic let go last week, that's a devastating proportion.

I’m particularly concerned that most of the 100 were apparently engineers, and some were seniors, which is not good in the short term (think longer release schedules for Woo).

😬 Now that Automattic has said 6.8 will be the year's first and only major release, how will that impact WooCommerce in the short term?

🫠 If the new major release cycle of one per year for the next couple of years continues, what will that mean for WooCommerce in the longer term?

Will WooCommerce lose significant ground to Shopify and other eCommerce platforms/plugins?

Time will tell…

Sponsorship Opportunities

🚨 The Google Doc contains all the details if you’re interested in sponsoring the Loop WP Newsletter.

Before You Go

⏭️ Next week, I will dig even deeper into Mary Hubbard's announcement (there’s only so much I can fit in one newsletter 🤣) as we look at what has changed since Matt Mullenweg’s original proposal and the potential impact.

(And any community feedback between now and next week.)

In the interim, it’s worth reading The Repository’s article on this topic as Rae offers some additional insights from the community that I don’t cover.

It might also be time to look closely at Webstudio, CraftCMS and others. 😬

See you next week! 😀

Weekly WordPress News & Tips

This week's excellent and insightful WordPress News & Tips:

• Speaker Applications Open - Apply and Learn More About Speaking at WPAD, 2025. (WP Accessibility Day)

• The Future - Engaging Young People in the WordPress Community. (Do_the Woo)

• Sad News - Automattic Cuts 16% of Workforce in Latest Round of Layoffs Amid Legal and Internal Turmoil. (The Repository)

• The Agent Puzzle - MCP, authentication & authorization, and Durable Objects free tier. (Cloudflare)

• Docling - A new open-source toolkit that allows developers to more easily convert PDFs, manuals, and slide decks into specialized data for customizing enterprise AI models and grounding them on trusted information. (IBM)

• A Expectational Shift? - AI is the New Baseline. (Rich Tabor)

• WOW! 🤩 - Insights sidebar in the DevTools Performance panel. (Chrome)

• Exciting Times - Store API Updates Coming in WooCommerce 9.8. (WooCommerce)

• Beginners Guide - Use Figma Variables Like a CSS Framework. (WP Tuts)

• Alt Ctrl Org - Grassroots Alt Ctrl Org Event Aims to Give Voice to WordPress Governance Concerns. (The Repository)

• Slim SEO Pro - One single plugin with all premium features. (Slim SEO)

• Birgit Pauli-Haack - The Magic of the WordPress Playground (WP Tavern)

• Are Times Changing? - Why WordPress Maintenance Could Be Key for Your Freelance Business. (The WP Minute)

• Progress Planner Woes - I knew the risks of speaking up to Matt were there.. (Joost de Valk & Taco Verdo)

• WordPress 6.8 - What’s new? Security upgrades, performance gains, editor enhancements, and more! (Kinsta)

If you have a question about this email or WordPress, reply, and I will answer you as soon as possible.

👋 Until next time,