The WordPress 5.1 release schedule was updated just an hour ago in the core channel. It included details regarding the release dates of WordPress 5.1, 2nd and 3rd beta releases, and the first release candidate.
WordPress 5.1 will be the first major release this year including PHP version upgrade notices, plugin error protection, and block editor improvements. WordPress 5.1 has been slated for February 21, 2019. The beta 2 and 3 has been targeted for January 21 and 29, respectively. Likewise, the first release candidate (RC1) has been targeted for February 7, 2019.
According to Gary Pendergast’s post, the 5.1 development cycle is progressing very smoothly. There are a total number of 123 open tickets milestoned for the next big release. Before the major release, there are going to be two beta releases and a release candidate.
WordPress 5.1 Beta 2
Beta 2 has been scheduled for January 21, 2019. There are 87 tickets reported against trunk that haven’t been milestoned. Many of these are reported against the wrong version, but they do need to be triaged prior to beta 2, as per the team. Any bugs reports against versions prior to 5.1 will be moved to the next major version 5.2 or Future Release milestones after the beta 2 has been released.
WordPress 5.1 Beta 3
As mentioned above, WordPress 5.1 Beta 3 is slated for January 29, 2019. This will be known as a soft string freeze release. All string changes (except for the About page) will be moved to the 5.2 update.
WordPress 5.1 Release Candidate 1
The first release candidate (RC1) is scheduled for February 7, 2019. There should be no open tickets in the 5.1 update by RC1, apart from the release-related tasks, as per Gary’s post.
The 5.1 update will be branched with RC1, and work will begin in trunk on WordPress 5.2. Since the team will be back to standard commit review practice, any WordPress 5.1 fixes will need to be reviewed by two committers before porting to the 5.1 branch.
Want to read about the first beta release? Visit here.