December 6th is the new target date for the WordPress 5.0 public release and announcement. We’ve been working behind the scenes to test scenarios and sharpen our plans for a smooth release process for all VIP’s. Here’s what that means for WordPress VIP sites:
WordPress.com VIP
As you know, the merge process on WordPress.com is a gradual release and the progress to date already closely matches what is in 5.0. There are still a few items to take care of and we’re hoping to have that work complete by the end of the week. As a reminder, your publishing experience will remain the same as it is in 4.9.8, with the Classic Editor. So basically, things should remain business as usual when 5.0 is fully merged in.
VIP Go
We are targeting Tuesday, December 11th (starting at 2000UTC) as the release date for our VIP Go hosting platform. This will allow an additional few days for testing while also avoiding a Friday or Monday release. Whether or not you’re already using Gutenberg, your publishing experience will remain the same as it is in 4.9.8.
Testing on VIP Go
If you are already using the Gutenberg plugin, the safest path for the update is to first test against and then use the latest version of the plugin, ahead of the WordPress 5.0 release. Gutenberg will not be detected and properly activated if you’re using a version of the plugin older than 4.1. Additionally, version 4.6.1 introduces a fix for block parsing that protects against malformed content breaking sites (originally introduced in 4.4).
As always, we recommend testing out plugin version updates on a non-production site first before updating your production site.
Help with the Release Candidate Testing
WordPress 5.0 RC3 came out today. If you’d like to help out with testing, follow the instructions here or drop a note to your VIP support team.
What’s Next?
5.0.1 will open for commits soon, and you can expect minor version updates to be more frequent. As before, if new information arises that indicates the software is not stable, we will adjust or remove the target date. Follow the VIP Lobby to stay up to date.
If you’ve been waiting for 5.0 to really start experimenting with Gutenberg, get ready! We’re excited to see what amazing things get created with the new WordPress editor on VIP!
WordPress VIP Lobby 
It seems like WordPress 5.0.1 is going to come very quickly after 5.0. Is there a chance that by December 11th, we could just go straight to 5.0.1?
Great question! If 5.0.1 is available before then, VIP Go would likely go straight to 5.0.1 on December 11th.