Allow for beta channels for plugins and themes

[johnbillion]

Ref: ​#WP42376

It would be neat if plugins and themes could tag beta versions which get delivered via the updates API to sites which have opted in to receiving beta updates.

Is this something that's doable?

[dd32]

At present 99% of the update functionality is built around the idea that there'll only ever be a single "current release", having a beta channel effectively means having two "current releases".

So while this unfortunately isn't a simple change, it's something that would be possible - however I question how much it'd be used by the wider community outside of the top 10 plugins (where some have a beta-tester plugin for their plugin which includes other things such as bug reporting)

[EkoJr]

WP already uses tags with the SVN to mark which stable version to download. Most of the focus would revolve around semantic version control for marking what the version state is. I imagine the hardest change would be with the website side for accepting a dynamic request when it is based on a static file in the trunk.

@dd32 With that being said, would be possible to change the download source to be specific as to which tag folder to download with the SVN repo?

I understand plugins are able to change their download source for updating, but I also understand it would be dealing with the same repo source in this case.