We announced our poll to decide on a date for the July meeting, since we didn’t want to meet the same night as Ignite Portland. Several people did take time to vote, and the meeting was later set for Thursday, July 23, 6:00 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. at Webtrends.

Aaron Hockley gave us an update on WordCamp Portland (September 19-20 at Webtrends). What WordCamp Portland needs most right now are sponsors! ¾ of event costs last year were covered by sponsors, which keeps event costs low.  Financial or in-kind sponsorships are welcome.  Contact @ahockley or @dalechumbley if you would like to be a sponsor or have leads for sponsors. For WordCamp Portland updates, subscribe to the WordCamp Portland blog or follow @wordcampdx on Twitter.

We then discussed the recent WordPress 2.8 release (see WordPress 2.8 Overview for an outline).

As noted above, next meeting 7/23 at 6:00 p.m. at Webtrends, 851 SW 6th Avenue, Suite 1600. Hope to see you there!

Named after trumpeter and vocalist Chet Baker.

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Fixes over 790 bugs.

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Faster; both admin interface and database have improved performance.

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One-click theme installation.

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New CodePress editor for themes and plugins.

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Plugins are no longer divided into active and inactive sections (although are marked as such)

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Widgets are easier to use

Widget editing on the fly

Drag and drop widgets between sidebars; edit all sidebars simultaneously

De-activate widget but save settings.

The full list of features and fixes in 2.8, including developer features and a new Widgets API: http://codex.wordpress.org/Version_2.8

Now, here’s what you need to know about meeting logistics.

LOCATION:  The Open Source Bridge conference is being held at the Oregon Convention Center, 777 NE MLK Jr. Blvd.  You do NOT need to be registered for the conference to attend the user group meeting. We are scheduled as a “Birds of a Feather” session, and will be in the Steel room.

TIME: Please note that we are meeting at a different time this month – 7:00 p.m. to 8:30 p.m.

WHY ARE WE MEETING HERE? Because WordPress is one of the finest examples of open source software out there!

If you DO want to register for Open Source Bridge, you can get a special rate of $150 for all three days as a member of the Portland WordPress User group. Just use the discount code osb4228 when you register.

What is Open Source Bridge?

Open Source Bridge is a new conference for developers working with open source technologies. It will take place June 17-19 in Portland, OR, with five tracks connecting people across projects, languages, and backgrounds to explore how we do our work, and why we participate in open source. The conference structure is designed to provide developers with an opportunity to learn from people they might not connect with at other events.

Through this conference, we hope to answer a question: what are the rights and responsibilities of an open source citizen? As developers, we find ourselves in many roles; we are users, creators, and leaders. The Open Source Bridge team believes that our role as open source citizens informs our work whether we are conscious of it or not. Open Source Bridge is intended as a call to action to become better citizens, by sharing our knowledge with each other.