Per recent development chats, we’ve worked out a project schedule for 3.0. The plan:

January 7, 2010	Identify major features slotted for 3.0 Begin merging MU files into trunk Begin development of new default theme Begin development of custom post types feature Begin development of menu management feature Patch bugs Work on patches for small enhancements
January 18, 2010	MU file merge should be complete Cutting edge types can start banging on the new MU integration Continue alpha development
February 15, 2010	Feature freeze
**From this point forward, there will be no more commits for enhancements or feature requests in this release cycle, only bug fixes.**
March 1, 2010	Begin public beta
March 29, 2010	Begin RC
April 13, 2010	Launch WordPress 3.0

So: if you have made a 2010 new year’s resolution to get involved in WordPress core development, now’s the time to head on over to Trac and pick a ticket (that sounds kind of like a carnival game, doesn’t it?). Get your patches done and submitted as soon as possible, then drum up people to test the patches and leave feedback on the ticket. As stated above, no patches for enhancements or feature requests will be committed after freeze, so that we can all focus on squashing bugs and hopefully deliver the most bug-free WordPress to date. Wish us luck!

Two and a half months before I can finally get all my sites into one big installation. Can’t wait.

fat fin·ger |fat ‘fi NG gər |, verb, to enter a trade order incorrectly into an electronic stock trading system: He fat-fingered that sell order by accidentally adding two zeroes.

The term comes from the idea of a clumsy, “fat-fingered” typist, who presses extra keys without being aware of it.

As the practice of high-frequency trading continues to become more widespread, concerns are growing that erroneous trades carried out by “algos gone wild”—a sort of digitally amplified version of the “fat finger” phenomenon—could cause a market crash at Internet speed, a meltdown that no one could stop. Two recent market glitches could provide a preview of what’s to come.

Even when we do realize we’re being watched, often the attitude is, “Who cares?” Corporations, dictators and other modern predators aren’t as stupid as the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast, and they’re very ravenous. Many of us operate with a broad trust in human goodness which is unfounded. Humans enslave, hurt, kill and exploit each other. Not all of us, but some. Having equal visibility, or at least an accurate understanding of the playing field, is exceptionally important.

In order to preserve true democracy and individual freedom, we need to demand better publicity and transparency of monitoring. People are not designed for an environment in which we are constantly being watched by an invisible eye. We don’t instinctively take this into account when designing government or conducting business.

Yesterday afternoon, just before President Obama’s first State of the Union address, the websites of the House of Representatives and those of multiple congressional members were defaced with anti-Obama messages. Among the defaced sites were those of Democratic Representative Charlie Gonzalez of Texas, and Republican representatives Spencer Bachus of Alabama, and Joe Wilson of South Carolina. These sites are currently down for maintenance.

Few investors know the gaming space as well as Benchmark Capital’s general partner Mitch Lasky. In addition to sitting on the board of Riot Games, Lasky’s firm invested in both Gaia and Linden Lab. Linden in particular has built an incredibly lucrative economy. The company’s in-world currency trades at about $250 Lindens to the US dollar with 2009’s revenue estimated to be $100 million dollars. With last Spring’s rumors that Facebook was considering a virtual currency, we asked Lasky to imagine what a Facebook dollar would do to casual gaming.

He explains, “I actually think Facebook could be good for Zynga and other casual gaming groups. Having the Facebook brand behind this type of monetization could help dispel any Scamville-related issues and create some certification of quality. There would likely be some attacks, but rallying behind a central currency could definitely be beneficial.”

While a Facebook dollar feels like a far off dream, how can startups profit from the emergence of new virtual economies? Let us know your ideas in the comments below.

We’re not so sure.

Look closer and it’s clear Oracle has many of the pieces for a cloud strategy. The SmoothSpan blog has a good vision for how an Oracle cloud strategy might unfold.

For example, the post points out how systems integrators are clamoring for a SasS environment from Oracle.

“….In that world, the System Integrators are the gatekeepers for the market. They’re very powerful, and the interesting discovery Tony [Hemelka, Helpstream's CEO] made is that they absolutely love Force.com. It’s not hard to see why. The SaaS model squeezes the SI ecosystem. The normal meat and potatoes business around just getting on-premises software installed is greatly reduced. The business of just keeping the lights on is almost non-existant for SaaS. Yet SI’s have a lot to bring to the table. A good SI often understands the Domain, its Best Practices, and the key Business Processes better even than the software vendor. Having access to a SaaS platform makes it possible for the SI to turn that valuable knowledge into product which can then be sold. That’s why having a platform on which to do that is so important to them.”

A Theory About the Open Web

But even if Oracle does have all the pieces, is its culture right for developing a cloud-based approach to the enterprise?

Earlier this week, we touched on the relationship between the social Web and cloud computing. Oracle is not considered a superstar of the social Web. Sure, the company uses the social Web, but it is not experimenting to the degree that you see with a company like IBM, perhaps Oracle’s biggest competitor.

IBM is developing a cloud-based collaboration platform. It is developing its own cloud computing service. It is diving deep into the world of the cloud and how the open Web fits with enterprise collaboration environments. In our view, these go hand in hand. It makes a lot of sense that if you want to be a cloud services provider, you need to understand the different ways Web oriented architectures function within the enterprise. A Web oriented architecture requires an online network. With that understanding comes the knowledge how to serve clients that depend on cloud-based infrastructures for their IT services.

Oracle does not want to be like Amazon, providing a public cloud infrastructure.

Instead, the Sun Open Cloud infrastructure will be configured for providers that want to provide their own public clouds and enterprises that seek to create private clouds.

You see? Oracle provides infrastructure – a complete IT services platform. Right now, all Oracle cares about is being the underpinning for all the systems in the enterprise IT environment.

As Dana Gardner points out:

“In doing complete IT package gig, Oracle has signaled the end of the best-of-breed, heterogeneous, and perhaps open source components era of IT. In the new IT era, services are king. The way you actually serve or acquire them is far less of a concern. Enterprises focus on the business and the IT comes, well, like electricity.

This is why “cloud” makes no sense to Oracle’s CEO Larry Ellison. He’d rather we take out the word “cloud” from cloud computing and replace it with “Oracle.” Now that makes sense!”

It sure does. Oracle sees the cloud through the vision of its own technology infrastructure. The Sun cloud fits into that vision even if for now it is getting mothballed.

But aren’t people going to want live games? Maybe this is a precursor?

But what about live games? Isn’t that what people will want?