As most of you know, we released beta3 of version 1.6 last Monday. The plan for releasing version 1.6 is to keep doing beta releases every two weeks until we are ready for release candidate 1. Then we will have new release candidates (if needed) every two weeks until we are ready for the general availability 1.6.0 release.

When will that be? The answer is when we have fixed all of the significant bugs that we have identified to that point.

How are we doing? Well, I'm glad you asked. I happen to have two charts that will give you an idea.

The chart below shows a summary of the Tracker Activity over the past month.

As you can see, the number of new issues being reported is declining somewhat. We're steadily fixing issues and keeping up with the tracker pretty well.

The second chart below shows the total number of issues by status at each point in time.

Overall, we are holding pretty steady. The Tracker Team is doing a great job of keeping the Open issues very low. And the number of issues needing a patch or needing to be tested are also reasonably low. The number of issues under review is higher than we'd like, but we're working on that one.

One really great thing that these charts don't show is that we have a lot of people actively participating in the Bug Squad. For example, in the period from June 1 to June 14, we had 26 different people submit patches for 2 or more issues and 30 people help in the tracker on 5 or more issues. What a fantastic community we have!

That said, we can always use more help. Whether you want to join the Bug Squad or just help on a few issues, you are most welcome to participate. And you do NOT need to be a PHP guru (or even know any programming) to help in the Bug Squad. If you know how to use Joomla! and are willing to learn a few basic skills, we can use your help.

So, a huge thank you to everyone who is working hard to get version 1.6 ready. The more people we have helping, the sooner we'll get 1.6 ready to ship. Thanks!

P.S. A special thanks to Will Mavis and Louis Landry for helping gather the data needed for this article.