It was way back in the beginning of December 2003 with what was then phpBB 2.1 Milestone1, over the course of 4 and a bit years with the announcement on the 14th of January, 2005 by Paul “psoTFX” Owen (ex-Lead Developer) that phpBB 2.2 had evolved to become phpBB 3.0, and now… phpBB have reached yet another milestone, phpBB 3.0 Release Candidate 1, the very first version marking the end of the Beta phase and a sufficiently hardy release suitable for live installation!
phpBB’s Development Team Leader, Meik “Acyd Burn” Sievertsen, announced the release like so:
We are very pleased to announce the availability of the phpBB3 RC1 package. This is the first release candidate which is meant to become the Gold release if no more bugs or problems arise. Of course there may be more than one release candidate.
With this release we will give full support, allow uploading language packs as well as modifications and styles. Please note that during the first few weeks support questions may not be answered as fast as with the 2.0.x line. We also only give support to those having a clean RC1 installation, previous conversions or updates will not be supported. We encourage only those running the release candidate wanting to test out the new version, it is still recommended to wait for the full release; after all this is a release candidate.
Personally, I’m most excited about the fact this is the first public release which bundles the über-secret and outright über-sexy prosilver style for the user facing forums and the back-end ACP, which has had a tantelising “Development of” page over at phpBB.com since the site re-launch, where the only way to show how awesome it is short of printing screenshots out and wrapping ones naked body with them, is by the way of a good old fashioned Photogasm™!:
Those of you now bursting for some relief of sexual tension, can head over to the download page and test drive (or indeed start a brand new community!) using the phpBB 3.0 Release Candidate 1 package! ;)
For statistics spunky-monkeys, some more goodies for you to peruse:
- Bug statistics for the timeframe between Beta5 and Release Candidate 1
- Bug statistics since the opening of the bug tracker for phpBB 3.0.x
Summit of Olympus Mons is in sight… onwards phpBB 3.0.0! :D
