As you may have seen through some of the weekly development meeting notes floating around the web that WordPress 2.9 is near completion. With yesterday’s announcement of not just one bug hunt, but two, it’s safe to say the release date will happen shortly after the hunts are complete. From the schedule, we’re looking somewhere around the end of November .

These bug hunts are a great opportunity for the community to get involved with development and testing of Wordpress core. If you are interested in getting involved, take a visit to the WordPress Trac site.

The idea with release bug hunts is to get more eyes on core code, the more the merrier I say! It definitely helps to have larger numbers reviewing changes in a new release, more specifically to test patches, help fix known issues, and find new ones.

Here are the scheduled dates for the bug hunts:

• Thursday through Saturday, November 5-7, 2009
• Saturday through Monday, November 14-16, 2009

For those of you attending WordCamp New York, there will be a special hacking room set up where you can join two of the core developers, Mark Jaquith and Matt Martz.

So there you have it, 2.9 is almost here and WordPress continues to grow. Join in on the fun and become a part of the culture.

For more information like IRC info and testing environment links, visit the original bug hunt announcement post on WordPress.org.