Same (the lead developer on bbPress) has left the parent company of bbPress.
More here:
I have indeed left Automattic. I decided it was time to move on and pursue some of my own ideas and other interests.
I won’t have much time to contribute to bbPress now and I can’t report who is going to be taking over from me or if anyone is even being sought for the role.
https://bbpress.org/forums/topic/thanks-for-everything-sam#post-58402
We’ve received no word as to who will replace him (or if anyone will replace him). I’m hoping that Automattic will clarify things on that front soon… it’s been a month or so since Sam announced his departure.
So to come back to your original question: nobody knows when or if the next version of bbPress will come out!
The bbpress forum is more active than a year ago, so I think it’s time for a clear word about the future of bbpress.
I agree 100% with Olaf.
Seems like there is all this attention from Automattic re: BuddyPress development but next to none for bbPress. Sigh…
@grassrootspa – BuddyPress uses bbPress to power forums, so as long as BuddyPress is important for Automattic then that’s good for us. 
We definitely need clear guidance around the future of bbPress. If it’s not going to be supported, then we will have to work together as a community to fork it…
@ johnhiler: GREAT POINT (as usual!)
@johnhiler and we will work!
I don’t want that greatest board engine (since IPB) collapse.
Simple, fast, elegant
Here I was thinking BBPress was a new forum just joining the battle of the forums. Now I find out everyones leaving, slacking off and not priorotizing it.
Marius – Everyone’s leaving? One person has left… the lead developer, Sam. And he worked crazy hard to get version 1.0 out the door (you can see all his code checkins on Trac).
bbPress is definitely in a state of transition now. I’ll reach out to Automattic and see if we can’t get some clarification on where things are. If they’re not going to actively develop the platform, we can fairly easily fork the code since it’s open source…
I really hope bbpress will thrive from this transition! Go Bbpress! 
@johnhiler – Yes man, everyone leaving. Sam’s post is about “1 month old”. How many plugins are updated last month?
I wrote Matt some hours ago …
As soon as BBpress is integrated into the control panel of WordPress as a plugin or built in option, then everyone will start using it. The increased activity will mean more people and more developers and more plugins and MORE VALUE FOR US ALL. The secret to unlocking BBpress is to make it dead simple to install, integrate and use.
Simplepressforum.com has a HUGE advantage and head start over BBpress, but the admin interface is a bit clumsy and not easy to use nor very pretty. They also only have a handful of people developing it. Imagine how much farther it would be along, if hundreds of BBpress people went over to help polish up Simplepressforum.
I am hopeful that BBpress will take off, but an idea of future features and a roadmap would be helpful.
@rvlawrence
I’ve suggested to Matt that Automattic will acquire SimplePress, as they did with Buddypress
I hear only wordpress integration and buddypress etc.
I use bbpress as standalone because it’s fast and easy to modify (just like WP)
Why should I use a forum together with a blog? both applications are very similar.
make bbpress better with features like merging topics or other forum typical functions
I have to agree it’d be good for bbPress to add support for more basic forum functions like merging topics. As it stands, it’s rather silly to need plugins for such basic things. The majority of use does seem to be with bbPress as part of a community package with buddyPress and WordPress though.
It’d be nice too if WordPress (plugin) support could be implemented through an interface layer or something similar that could be added as a plugin or similar to bbPress when it was installed via WordPress, so keeping the core codebase as clean as possible.
bbPress 1.0 was already written to use BackPress functions (WordPress essentially) so I’d imagine it’d just be a case of changing how it outputs content and handles URLs when under WordPress.
@Olaf: I’m in the same standalone boat, but really wish there was some sort of “bbPress MU” so I didn’t need different installations for different forums. There was word of a bbPress plugin that would handle this but its been a while. And with Sam leaving, ugh, not expecting it anytime soon…
Wondering what will happen re this discussed “bbPress MU” plugin with the news that WordPress and WPMU are merging.
Any news about next version?
January 13 last meet… april now, no new version…bbpress is dead?(
I don’t see how any GPL software can actually die. The source is out there, all of it, every version. Everyone is free to modify it and distribute it as they wish under the GPL. We all have our own copies. The community will die if we let it. But the software will live on.
You can check the progress of recent work for the 1.0.3 release, which will be mainly a bug fix release, here:
https://trac.bbpress.org/milestone/1.0.3
There’s no date set, but you can see the number of remaining tickets.
@chishajer ~ thk u for your efforts here on bbpress. i second your opinion! open source doesn’t die, it just forks..
and with 9 active tickets 1.0.3 is just around the corner.
let’s just hope it doesn’t do too much breaking of what we already have but at the same time lays some foundation for the road forward so that will be a painless as possible. Equally important in my mind though is for many of the pre 1.0 plugins that were written by _ck_ and other and now for all intents and proposes lie abandoned – and sometimes work with 1.0.2 and sometimes don’t – be picked up by a new crop of dev’s. This would probably be a big help in getting potential new users to take the chance and try out what I think is a great package.
I know that this state of flux around the plugins was one ot he things that held me back from jumping in with both feet sooner.
checked trac… 103 was not released, i think we have bad future.
