First off, BuddyPress is in RC-1. Could be a good Valentine’s Day present coming out. Buried within that announcement post is this gem:
Over the next few weeks there will be work done to add integrated support for site-wide plugins in WordPress MU. Site-wide plugin support will provide the ability for plugins to be activated and deactivated site-wide via the administration panel. More importantly however, they will be able hook into the automatic upgrade features.
So far, the plugin update feature is only available to the Site Admin, and you’ll still need ftp credentials. Missing as of today is the distinction between mu-plugins and the regular plugins folder. Also, being able to mass activate & deactivate, such as for upgrading, will be a welcome piece of code. I’ve liked the Plugin Commander, but it’s getting buggier with each MU release and we haven’t had time to fix it ourselves.
In other BP news: Free BuddyPress themes has a few more. Daniel has been toying with the idea of a BP themes contest. Please, for the love of God, someone design a good-looking one. 
Nifty use of WPMU: try out that premium theme before you buy. See the Parallel theme. Interesting concept. I’ve also seen a theme-based WPMU setup for the Shifter theme, which was a pain in the… server… to install due to the source guardian code they use.
Did I miss anything?
Great news Andrea, and timely for me as well. I’ve just started a labor of love using MU and BuddyPress…(see link above)
I agree. We all hope this will be the best gift in this valentine day.
On the other hand I just finished applying 1.0b2 to http://www.wpblogspot.com
I found a few of ideas after that. Hopefully the future developing much better.
Very nice post. I appreciated………….
Thanks for the news and tweeting me towards it. I knew I had read it somewhere
Buddypress designs need some serious work methinks, maybe some design competition?
So far, the plugin update feature is only available to the Site Admin, and you’ll still need ftp credentials. Missing as of today is the distinction between mu-plugins and the regular plugins folder.
Site-wide plugin support will provide the ability for plugins to be activated and deactivated site-wide via the administration panel. More importantly however, they will be able hook into the automatic upgrade features.
So far, the plugin update feature is only available to the Site Admin, and you’ll still need ftp credentials. Missing as of today is the distinction between mu-plugins and the regular plugins folder.