WordPress 2.5 Delayed

As you may know, WordPress 2.5 has been delayed for another week, or until the time period around March 17, 2007 according to WordPress Trac.  Beginning yesterday, some people were complaining about the delay in the launch, but it was necessary as there are still more than 407 active tickets and 560 closed.

Nonetheless, the delay was likely necessary, to help provide more users with an overall better experience downloading a more complete, stable, and compatible version than if it had been rushed out.  After all, it’s better to continue your same routine than have an interrupter and possible learning curve, with the new admin panel.

In other WordPress news, it appears as though there’s going to be at least two color schemes available for use as soon as WordPress 2.5 is downloaded (source) plus additional plugins or stylesheets from developers. This is good news for the people who didn’t necessarily like the new look and layout of the new panel.

Despite the enormous community that WordPress has built and helped create for the online community, it appears as though other blog platforms (Movable Type) and other users of WordPress feel as though they are tired of WordPress and are moving on to Drupal and other platforms.  Looking at the reasons why they feel “upgrading to a better platform”, they haven’t really looked at what really is available from WordPress.  Many of the other systems aren’t completely free, lack the community support, thousands of plugins and themes, and frequent updates from the developers of the WordPress system. 

I would rather be given the option of which plugins to use, as one would offer more features than the other or would simply allow more choice to the end user.  We’ve all seen this from computer OEMs who bundle proprietary software, and there are benefits and disadvantages either way you look at it.  It’s the same way for blogging platforms – everyone has a choice, their own opinion, so no individual platform is better than the other as each has its own advantages.

When it comes time to upgrading to WordPress 2.5, I’ll be upgrading on the day it is released and taking advantage of the new interface – whether I like the final version or not.  Before upgrading, check out the great guide Lorelle VanFossen has put together to make the process of preparing to upgrading that much more easy.