Wait… 1.5? What happened to 1.3? Or 1.4 for that matter?

You see… BuddyPress 1.2 was released on February 16, 2010. We’ve shipped 9 point releases since then, but it’s been over 17 months since a major release of BuddyPress has come through the tubes.

We do our best to mirror the WordPress development cycles as closely as possible – maybe a little too closely. Back in 2004, WordPress went through a growth spurt of its own, going 9 months between major releases (also between versions 1.2 and 1.5) so we are doing the same, and skipping ahead to 1.5 ourselves.

Here are the stats we’re using to justify the version inflation:

  • 792 tickets closed
  • 494 confirmed bug fixes
  • 2,161 total code changes since 1.2 was released

The similarities between BuddyPress and WordPress development symbolize the nature of developing something totally new and exciting, so we think it’s fitting to bump our version number in a similar fashion.

Because of the volume of changes internally, we’re packaging up a developer beta so plugin authors have time to review our changes, report bugs, and give everyone a few weeks to tie up any loose ends that are left.

If you are a BuddyPress plugin author, now is your time to help us help you, and check out all the work that’s gone into making the next version of BuddyPress faster, more efficient, more secure, and easier to code against.

If you are a user or a designer, check out the changes to the BP Default theme. We’ve done our best to turn it into a theme you want to use, and have it still show off all the features too.

If you are neither (or both) of those things, you can help by documenting the codex. We’re trying to do our part by writing the phpDoc as we go, and if you can help move some of that into the codex, it helps everyone!

As always, please DO NOT run BuddyPress Beta software on your live production site. There are going to be quirks with existing plugins, and we will be updating code rapidly as bug reports come in. Install BuddyPress 1.5 on a local installation or a test site, and let us know if you find anything that isn’t working the way it should. We are hoping the beta period will only last a few weeks, with a release in August.

You can download BuddyPress 1.5 Beta 1 today, from the bottom of our Trac page. Happy Testing!