#197 - ACF Pro Nulled By WP.org?, PeepSo Leaves The Repo, WordPress 6.7.1 Released

Issue #197 | November 26, 2024 | Reading time: 16 mins

Hello!

WordPress 6.7.1, a maintenance release is now available and several community members have addressed various issues with this release. The call for volunteers for WordPress 6.8 is now open and the WooCommerce team is also looking for community feedback on several areas.

If you have a Black Friday or Cyber Monday WordPress deal for 2024, submit your details to be featured on our WP-Content.co blog and promoted across our social media channels.

Don’t forget to subscribe and listen to the podcast version of this newsletter, where you can hear more details and discussions about these topics and more.

See you next week!

Team WP-CONTENT.CO

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🗣️TALK OF THE TOWN

ACF Pro features are now bundled with Secure Custom Fields

David McCan noted this development and highlighted this in his new video about how ACF Pro features are now added to Secure Custom Fields. Javier Casares on X also brought the community’s attention to this and Duane Storey tweeted that ACF is an officially registered trademark of WP Engine.

How to scare your contributors away: A veteran’s view on the platform’s turmoil: From ShiftMag. Denis Žoljom talks about how the alienation of WordPress contributors started a long time ago and culminated with the latest drama. In an open-source community with such an impact on the web, we must have clear governance in place—a board consisting of trusted community members pushing the agenda that will benefit the contributors and the end users, not corporate interests.
Expert legal analysis of WP vs WPE: A Reddit thread on Mike Dunford’s legal analysis of Automattic’s response and WPE’s reply in the ongoing litigation. He boils down Automattic’s filing as a bad faith attempt to pull the wool over the court’s eyes, which he thinks is unlikely to succeed, and even as a non-Wordpress expert, is able to catch maybe 70% of the dishonesty and false implications in the filing… before reading WPE’s devastating response.
PeepSo leaves WordPress Plugin Repository: The plugin is leaving due to the recent falling out between WPEngine and WordPress.org / Matt Mullenweg. “We have thus lost our trust in the WordPress.org platform, the WordPress Foundation itself, and most importantly the man who seems to wield the ultimate power in the entire ecosystem.”
An in-kind donation and a long-time host: From The Delta. Samuel Sidler’s take on whether conflicts of interest exist between Matt Mullenweg and Salesforce or Bluehost.
Fireside chat with Matt Mullenweg at Nerdearla: From Nerdearla, where Matt talks about his childhood, WordPress, Automattic and WP Engine.

📰 WORDPRESS & AROUND

All the updates around WordPress and its closely related technologies

WordPress 6.7.1 released

This minor release features 16 bug fixes throughout Core and the Block Editor. Several users have reported various issues with this release, and the Core team is actively tracking them.

Proposal: Major releases for 2025: Héctor Prieto has published the initial timeline for the WordPress releases in 2025. As per the proposal, Beta 1 of WordPress 6.8 is scheduled for March 4, and stable release on April 15, Beta 1 of WordPress 6.9 is on June 24 and the stable release is planned for August 5, and Beta 1 of WordPress 7.0 is on September 30, with the stable release on November 11. Also, the call for volunteers for WordPress 6.8 is now open.
Update on Phase 3: Collaboration efforts: Anne McCarthy has provided an update on the progress of Phase 3 of the Gutenberg Project in relation to the real-time collaboration, async collaboration, and admin redesign.
What’s new in Gutenberg 19.7: With this version, the Global Styles panel is available on the main site editor sidebar, the ability to set image blocks as featured images, and more.
Google outlines 2025 ads API roadmap: Google’s 2025 Ads API roadmap outlines five planned updates, helping developers and advertisers strategically prepare for major and minor releases.
Google retires Search Console’s Page Experience Report: Google simplifies Search Console by removing Page Experience report while retaining Core Web Vitals and HTTPS monitoring tools.
Google rolls out first-party data solution for Analytics users: Google has announced an update to its Analytics platform, introducing a new feature called Customer Match, currently in beta testing. This functionality enhances remarketing capabilities using first-party customer data when traditional identifiers such as third-party cookies aren’t available.
Google may have to sell Chrome browser to comply with DOJ ruling: The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) has proposed that Google sell its Chrome web browser and possibly the Android mobile operating system. This suggestion is part of a larger effort to address the company’s alleged monopoly in online search.

🚨WEB SECURITY & VULNERABILITIES

A collection of web security and vulnerability news and updates for the past week

Unauthenticated arbitrary file read vulnerability in Jobify Theme

The vulnerability was recently patched and all users are to update to the latest version immediately.

WordPress vulnerability report — November 20, 2024: Weekly report from SolidWP.
Wordfence Intelligence Weekly WordPress Vulnerability Report (November 11, 2024 to November 17, 2024): There were 163 vulnerabilities disclosed in 148 plugins and 4 themes.

🔌 NEW PLUGINS & THEMES

Be one of the first ones to explore some fresh plugins and themes

Euphony Blocks theme

A theme crafted for musicians, bands, DJs, and the music industry.

Soccer Sports theme: This theme is designed specifically for soccer enthusiasts, clubs, and organizations.
Wydegrid theme: A theme tailored for blogs, news, and magazine sites.
Blocks for GitHub plugin: This allows users to integrate GitHub content into your WordPress website using the block editor.
Maintainer plugin: A plugin for creating maintenance mode and coming soon pages.
Noted plugin: A note-taking plugin that allows admin users to create and manage notes directly in WordPress.

💵 INVESTMENTS, ACQUISITIONS & PARTNERSHIPS

Automattic acquires Harper: Automattic has completed the acquisition of Harper, a grammar checker for developers. Elijah Potter, the founder of Harper has also joined the Automattic team.
Vercel acquires Grep: Vercel has acquired Grep, a code search engine, that allows developers to quickly search code across over 500,000 public git repositories.
Rocket.net announces strategic partnership with WP Rocket plugin: This partnership will result in the WP Rocket plugin now being available to Rocket.net customers on the Starter, Pro, and Enterprise plans.

👥 COMMUNITY NEWS

Updates and News from the WordPress Community

Apply for scholarships to attend WordCamp Asia 2025

The Kim Parsell Memorial Scholarship and Diversity Fund Scholarship applications are now open and the deadline to apply is on December 6th, 2024. Both of these scholarships will provide financial aid to the attendees including the flight and accommodation cost along with the tickets to WordCamp Asia 2025. Also, the third batch of tickets will be released in two sub-batches to cover more time zones. The first sub-batch will be on November 28 and the second will be on November 29, 2024.

Node v23.3.0 now available: This release includes SourceMap support to util.getCallSites(), cli option to preserve env vars on diagnostic reports, and more.
PHP 8.4 has been released: This version brings new features such as property hooks, asymmetric visibility, an updated DOM API, and so on.
Announcing the pre-release of the PHP Installer for Extensions (PIE): PIE aims to simplify managing PHP extensions by providing a modern, flexible alternative to PECL and treating extensions as first-class citizens in the PHP ecosystem.
Announcing GitHub Secure Open Source Fund: This is a program designed to financially and programmatically improve security and sustainability of open source projects. Applications are open on a rolling basis until they close on January 7.
Ollie Pro 1.2.9 released: The updated version of Ollie Pro includes an improved search, site-wide authenticate via wp-config.php, and a reduced number of NPM packages for smaller file size and development efficiency.
Tutor LMS 3.0 released: The latest version brings an updated course builder, a new quiz builder, and an AI Studio that allows users to create new courses, outlines, lessons, quizzes, and more by leveraging the power of AI and so on.
Introducing WPBakery 8.0: This update introduces new icons and Add Element Window revamp, the ability to manually sync the latest Google Fonts Adobe Typekit integrations, and more.
WooCommerce 9.4.2 released: This dot release resolves a fatal PHP error in the payments’ menu, enhances file handling in product imports with the WordPress Filesystem API, and restores the default batch size for the Product CSV Importer.
WooCommerce looking for feedback to modernize WooCommerce Emails: The team is looking to modernize its email system, from the design and customization options to how emails integrate with your store’s branding and the feedback can be provided in an an open GitHub discussion. Along with this, the team has also issued a call for feedback for the Stepper Layout in Add to Cart Block.
Introducing CrawlWP: Collins Agbonghama has launched CrawlWP, an all-new WordPress instant indexing & SEO insights plugin.
Indystack AI website builder launched: Michael Makijenko announced the launch of IndyStack AI, which allows users to create a custom WordPress website directly in Gutenberg.
Asset Manager Framework from Human Made: AMF provides a bridge between WordPress and a content delivery network (CDN), allowing assets to be offloaded to a CDN while still being managed through the WordPress backend.
WordPress Plugin Attestation: A GitHub Action created by John Blackbourn, that can generate an attestation for the build provenance of a plugin ZIP file on WordPress.org.
Aki Hamano has created a block-based piano: The block lets users create music and interested folks can try it out on Playground.
Vagelis Papaioannou has stepped down as a WordPress meetup organizer: He has stepped down from this role due to issues within the local community that left him drained and lacking the time to address them. He has also clarified that this decision was not solely based on the recent WP Engine issue.
Daily polls launched on the WordPress YouTube channel: Jamie Marsland brought this implementation to the community’s attention, revealing interesting insights such as viewers showing a strong preference for developer-focused content, followed closely by beginner-oriented material. Most users build websites using Gutenberg, with Elementor coming in as the next popular choice.
Mohammed Kateregga receives the Yoast Care fund for his contribution to the WordPress community: Mohammed Kateregga, a member of the WordPress Community Team is the latest recipient of the Yoast Care fund.

🔖 INTERESTING READS & PODCASTS

More posts and podcasts from the WordPress Community you don’t want to miss

From attendee to contributor: My WordPress journey: Akshaya Rane, in HeroPress
PHP is legacy, in 2024: From Vonage Developer
The State of the Badge: From Jonathan Desrosiers
Lessons for WordPress plugin developers starting a SaaS: From Logtivity
Handling plugin security: Interview with LiteSpeed Cache’s Hai Zheng: From Patchstack
Full site editing and Ollie with Mike McAlister: From Brian Coords
From setback to success: Publishing my first Figma community project: From Devin Walker
WordPress flocks to Bluesky: From Justin Ferriman
In conversation with Topher DeRosia: From Seriously BUD?
Fränk Klein on redesigning WordPress: The shift to block-based systems: From WP Tavern Jukebox
How to thrive as a WordPress freelancer: From The WP Minute
My October in WordPress: From Aaron Jorbin

🛠 GUIDE ZONE – HOWTO’S and MORE

Handpicked fresh guides from WordPress circle

WooCommerce on Twenty Twenty-Five theme: From WP Minute Tutorials

📆 SAVE THE DATES

Do not miss a WordPress event ever again

WordCamp Netherlands on 29-30 November 2024: The call for sponsors is out.
WordCamp Asia on February 20-22, 2025: The venue will be the Philippine International Convention Center, Manila, Philippines.
PressConf 2025 on April 23-26: A conference for WordPress Professionals and the tickets are now available.
WordCamp Europe on 5-7 June 2025: The event will be held at Basel – Switzerland’s Capital for Art and Culture.
WordCamp US 2025 on August 26-29, 2025: The event is in the early planning stages.

🎁 WORDPRESS DEALS OF THE WEEK

Again, these are the best deals of the week, handpicked by yours!

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4 Months free offer on hosting plans of WP Engine (Coupon Code- FREEDOMTOCREATE)
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