Evolution of Wordpress
b2/cafelog, more commonly known as simply b2 or cafelog, was the precursor to WordPress. b2/cafelog was estimated to have been employed on approximately 2,000 blogs as of May 2003. It was written in PHP for use with MySQL by Michel Valdrighi, who is now a contributing developer to WordPress. Although WordPress is the official successor, another project, b2evolution, is also in active development.
WordPress first appeared in 2003 as a joint effort between Matt Mullenweg and Mike Little to create a fork of b2. Christine Selleck Tremoulet, a friend of Mullenweg, suggested the name WordPress.
In 2004 the licensing terms for the competing Movable Type package were changed by Six Apart and many of its most influential users migrated to WordPress.By October 2009 the 2009 Open Source content management system Market Share Report reached the conclusion that WordPress enjoyed the greatest brand strength of any open-source content-management systems.
Awards
In 2007 WordPress won a Packt Open Source CMS Award.
In 2009 WordPress won the Packt best Open Source CMS Awards.
In 2010 WordPress won the Hall of Fame CMS category in the 2010 Open Source Awards.
In 2011 WordPress won the Open Source Web App of the Year Award at The Critters.
Removal of sponsored themes
On July 10, 2007, following a discussion on the WordPress ideas forum and a post by Mark Ghosh in his blog Weblog Tools Collection, Matt Mullenweg announced that the official WordPress theme directory at https://themes.wordpress.net would no longer host themes containing sponsored links. Although this move was criticized by designers and users of sponsored themes, it was applauded by WordPress users who consider such themes to be spam. The official WordPress theme directory ceased to accept any new themes, including those without sponsored links, shortly after the announcement was made. Sponsored themes are still available elsewhere, as well as free themes with additional sponsored links added by third parties.
On July 18, 2008, a new theme directory opened on WordPress.org, styled along the same lines as the plug-ins directory. Any theme that is uploaded to it will be vetted, first by an automated program and then by a human.
On December 12, 2008, over 200 themes were removed from the WordPress theme directory as they did not comply with GPL License requirements. Today, author mentions are permitted in each theme but the official policy does not allow for sponsorships or links to sites distributing non-GPL compatible themes. Non-GPL compliant themes are now hosted on other theme directories.
Releases
WordPress releases are codenamed after well-known jazz musicians, starting after version 1.0.
| Legend: | Old version | Current version | Future release |
|---|
| Version | Code name | Release date | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 0.7 | none | 27 May 2003 | Used the same file structure as its predecessor, b2/cafelog, and continued the numbering from its last release, 0.6. Only 0.71-gold is available for download in the official WordPress Release Archive page. |
| 1.2 | Mingus | 22 May 2004 | Added support of plugins; which same identification headers are used unchanged in WordPress releases as of 2011. |
| 1.5 | Strayhorn | 17 February 2005 | Added a range of vital features, such as ability to manage static pages and a template/theme system. It was also equipped with a new default template (code named Kubrick) designed by Michael Heilemann. |
| 2.0 | Duke | 31 December 2005 | Added rich editing, better administration tools, image uploading, faster posting, improved import system, fully overhauled the back end, and various improvements to plugin developers. |
| 2.1 | Ella | 22 January 2007 | Corrected security issues, redesigned interface, enhanced editing tools (including integrated spell check and auto save), and improved content management options. |
| 2.2 | Getz | 16 May 2007 | Added widget support for templates, updated Atom feed support, and speed optimizations. |
| 2.3 | Dexter | 24 September 2007 | Added native tagging support, new taxonomy system for categories, and easy notification of updates, fully supports Atom 1.0, with the publishing protocol, and some much needed security fixes. |
| 2.5 | Brecker | 29 March 2008 | Version 2.4 was skipped, so version 2.5 added two releases worth of new code. The administration interface was fully redesigned, and the WordPress website to match the new style. |
| 2.6 | Tyner | 15 July 2008 | Added new features that made WordPress a more powerful CMS: it can now track changes to every post and page and allow easy posting from anywhere on the web. |
| 2.7 | Coltrane | 11 December 2008 | Administration interface redesigned fully, added automatic upgrades and installing plugins, from within the administration interface. |
| 2.8 | Baker | 10 June 2009 | Had improvements in speed, added automatic installing of themes from within administration interface, introduces the CodePress editor for syntax highlighting and a redesigned widget interface. |
| 2.9 | Carmen | 19 December 2009 | Added global undo, built-in image editor, batch plugin updating, and many less visible tweaks. |
| 3.0 | Thelonious | 17 June 2010 | Added a new theme application programming interfaces (API); the merge of WordPress and WordPress MU, creating the new multi-site functionality, a new default theme called "Twenty Ten", and many less visible tweaks. |
| 3.1 | Reinhardt | 23 February 2011 | Added the Admin Bar, which is displayed on all blog pages when an admin is logged in, and Post Format, best explained as a Tumblr like micro-blogging feature. It provides easy access to many critical functions, such as comments and updates. Includes internal linking abilities, a newly streamlined writing interface, and many other changes. |
| 3.2 | Gershwin | 4 July 2011 | Focused on making WordPress faster and lighter. Released only four months after version 3.1, reflecting the growing speed of development in the WordPress community. |
| 3.3 | Sonny | 12 December 2011 | Focused on making WordPress friendlier for beginners and tablet computer users. |
| 3.4 | Green | 13 June 2012 | Focused on improvements to theme customization, Twitter integration and several minor changes. |
| 3.5 | (t.b. announced) | 5 December 2012 | Support of the Retina Display, color picker, new theme: Twenty Twelve, improved image workflow |
Future
After the release of WordPress 3.0, the development team took a release cycle off from the WordPress software to focus on expanding and improving the WordPress community. WordPress 3.1 was subsequently released in February, 2011. With version 3.2, released on July 4, 2011, the minimum requirement PHP version and MySQL were raised as well.