Talking Drupal #572 - The PHP Foundation

[00:00:00] Nic: This is Talking Drupal, a weekly chat about web design and development from a group of people with one thing in common: we love Drupal. This is episode 572, the PHP Foundation. On today's show, we are talking about PHP, open source, and sustainability with our guest, Elizabeth Barron. We'll also cover AI image classification as our module of the week Welcome to Talking Drupal.

Our guest today is Elizabeth Barron. She is the executive director of the PHP Foundation, an organization focused on the long-term sustainability of the PHP language and ecosystem. She's a longtime open source contributor and advocate with almost 30 years of experience at organizations like GitHub, Pivotal, VMware, SourceForge, and CHAOSS, Community Health Analytics and Open Source Software.

She's also a published author, public speaker, community organizer, and award-winning nature photographer. She is currently working towards achieving her MBA, and she lives in Cincinnati, Ohio. Welcome to the show, and thank you for joining us.

[00:01:06] Elizabeth: Hi. It's great to be here. Good to see you all.

[00:01:09] Nic: Awesome. I'm Nic Laflin, founder of nLightened Development, and today my co-hosts are, joining us for the next four weeks as our guest host, Tim Sharp.

Tim is a web developer at App... Uh, Tim Sharp, web developer at Appalachian State University. Tim is a web developer at Appalachian State University with over five years of experience helping higher education organizations manage their web presence. He is a co-organizer of DrupalCamp Asheville and loves connecting with other Drupal folks.

When he's away from the keyboard, he's usually tinkering on a project he may or may not finish.

[00:01:43] Tim: Hey, Nic. Glad to be here.

[00:01:44] Nic: Thank you for joining us. Uh, and also joining us, uh, this week in place of John is Stephen Cross, Drupal developer with the federal government and founder of this show and host on the new podcast produced by.

Welcome back, Stephen.

[00:01:58] Stephen: Hey. Glad to be here. Hope I can, uh, fill in for John pretty well. I guess I should say hello, internet friends.

[00:02:08] Nic: Yeah, that's how John usually, uh, introduces himself. And now to talk about our module of the week, let's turn it over to Martin Anderson-Clutz, a product marketing manager for Drupal at Acquia and a maintainer of a number of Drupal modules and recipes of his own.

Martin, what do you have for us this week?

[00:02:24] Martin: Thanks, Nic. Have you ever wanted images in your Drupal media library to be automatically given alt text, a rich description, and a set of tags all using AI? There's a recipe for that. It's called AI Image Classification, and it was created in September 2025 of Artem Dmitriev of 1x Internet.

It has a 1.1.1 version available, which, uh, requires Drupal 11.2 or newer. It is actively maintained. In fact, that latest, uh, release and commit were just two weeks ago. It does have security coverage, and there are nine open issues, four of which are bugs. Now, this recipe applies Core's image media type recipe, then adds a description field and tags field to image media with tags in a new image classification vocabulary Editors get a Generate alt text button on the image field using the Field Widget Actions module with a prompt written like an accessibility expert under 100 characters, no image of, uh, flag logos and graphics.

On save, a vision model writes a description of up to eight sentences, colors, a photo versus illustration, people, mood, and key objects using the media name for context. Uh, tagging is chained off of that description rather than the image itself, picking or creating up to five short general terms and reusing similar existing tags where it can.

It also adds bulk actions to the media admin view so you can run description and tagging across an existing library, not just new uploads. Description and tag filters are added to the media library, including widgets, so editors can search for sunny summer day right in the image picker. The stated bigger goal is making images discoverable by RAG and other AI search, so good descriptions become a foundation for future AI features.

In fact, this recipe is a dependency for the Canvas AI image search recipe, we'll have a link in the show notes, which is still itself a work in progress. Under the hood, images get scaled to 400 pixels wide and converted to PNG before they're sent to the model, which keeps things faster and cheaper. One caveat is that if your site needs an AI pr- or the-- A caveat is that your site does need an AI provider, uh, with a default chat with image vision model, and the recipe checks for that while it's applied.

Also worth a look is the, uh, desc- uh, excuse me, the des- description prompt asks the model to describe people's age, gender, and ethnicity, and even name them when it can, so you may want to review that prompt for your privacy policies and adjust accordingly. Like any recipe, it provides a robust starting point for some compelling features, and every prompt and setting can be tweaked after you apply it.

Uh, lastly, I wanted to mention that in today's Driesnote here in Rotterdam, Dries demoed being able to use MCP to search images on his own site. A recipe like this could help you make sure your image, the images in your own media library have sufficient metadata to make something like that work on your own Drupal site.

So let's talk about AI image classification

[00:05:34] Tim: This is so exciting. Um, the AI features are one of the number one reasons why I am looking forward to updating to Drupal 11. Um, I did a, uh, I attended a workshop with Mike Anello at, uh, Drupal Camp Asheville, and, um, it was all about inside AI, and we were able to, um, I'm not sure if we were using this module specifically, but being able to generate alt texts automatically is, that is such a pain point with end users.

And so this is so exciting. I, I'm also curious about the, um, the ability to reference, uh, and actually tag people and, like, identify people. Would that be... Could you potentially link that up with your site directory, um, of, like, your contacts content type? Because I could see that being a really, like, a killer feature

[00:06:37] Martin: Yeah, that's a really interesting question.

I mean, you would think it should be possible to say reference either, as you say, like a, um, you know, contacts content type, or potentially even have that as like a vocabulary that has an image field and ch- have it try and recognize those. I don't know for sure that it's designed for that out of the box, but it certainly seems like something that with some work you could probably get that working.

So, um- Yeah ... yeah, lots of interesting possibilities here for sure. Definitely.

[00:07:04] Nic: Yeah, and I, I think, one thing I think about alt text like this or even the tagging is it, it's not saving the content automatically usually, so you're, you're much more able to keep the human in the loop and review it. And if you're adding content tags, it gives you the opportunity to get some metrics about the, the images on your site.

I, I think it's, it's a pretty interesting, um, way to use this and, y- you know, it might be, um... I, I wonder how... I, I know recipes are generally made for applying like this, like, idempotently, but I'm, I'm curious how this works with existing content, um, i-i- how easily it is to just, like, i-import it and then attach the behavior to existing image fields and media fields.

[00:07:52] Martin: Yeah, that's an interesting question. I mean, uh, you know, as we talked about, it does create the bulk action to be able to do that. But yeah, the... You would think it would, it would work okay as long as you're using the default sort of, um, media type name. Um- Yeah ... but it could depend on, you know, if you have conflicts in, uh, the naming of those fields specifically, particularly if the storage is different, um, then that might- Yeah

sort of give you some grief. But yeah.

[00:08:18] Nic: Yeah. I, I, I think that's the, the biggest thing we need to figure out how to solve for recipes moving forward, 'cause, I mean, they're great for starting fresh, but, um... And there, there's value in seeing how it's done, right? That, that's perfect, like, getting a demo set up is super quick now.

Um, but figuring out how to get that from, "Here's a package I wanna apply, but I wanna apply it to an existing site," that's something we still need to, I think, hash out at some point.

[00:08:42] Martin: Yeah. I would love to try with a, like, as an example, you know, obviously for me this is top of mind, but an event platform site to say, um, you know, this one was installed a year ago.

Here's a new version of event platform- Yeah ... that, you know, was released last week. Uh, compare the config for, you know, the, the installed site and, you know, the new version, and then prompt me about all of the decisions to see, you know, was there a deliberate decision to override that? In which case, you know, maybe we want to preserve that, or was that just sort of like, well- Yeah

I don't, you know, that was probably the default back then, so we can override it kind of thing.

[00:09:17] Nic: Yeah. Yeah. Makes sense. Yeah. All right. Thank you, Martin. As always, you have a great, uh, module or recipe of the week. If listeners wanted to suggest a module or connect with you while you're at Rotterdam, what's the best way for them to do that?

[00:09:31] Martin: Uh, well, so we're always happy to talk about candidates for module of the week in the Talking Drupal channel of Drupal Slack, or folks can reach out to me as mandclu on a variety of Drupal and social platforms. Um, and I certainly will be sort of making my rounds, uh, at Rotterdam tomorrow, as well as at the Drupal of the Day training on Thursday.

So, um, yeah, should be lots of opportunity to stop by and say hello.

[00:09:56] Nic: Awesome. Thank you so much, Martin. See you next week.

[00:09:59] Martin: Thanks, all.

[00:10:04] Nic: All right, Elizabeth, for our primary topic, uh, for somebody who may not be familiar with the PHP Foundation, what is its mission, and why was the foundation created?

[00:10:18] Elizabeth: Yeah. So, um, I think there are quite a few folks who don't know the foundation exists, so I'm really happy- ... that you are, uh, inviting me to be here so I can talk about it.

Um, so the foundation exists to, uh, focus on the sustainability and, um, uh, th- just help keeping the PHP language thrive. Uh, that's really the main goal, is to keep the, the PHP language alive, uh, well, quality, secure, all of the things that we all depend on. Um, and not just the PHP language, but the, the ecosystem really, um, because- Okay

as, as we know, uh, code doesn't exist in a vacuum, and so, um, we really also care about the whole ecosystem. Um, w- it was started five, almost five years ago, um, and it came about because, as you know, the PHP language is, sorry, is a community-owned language. So there isn't one person that owns PHP. There isn't one company that can make decisions.

It's completely up to the community to decide what goes in the language. Um, it's through an RFC process, which is completely transparent, and that worked for, like, what? 25 years. That was that was good. Yeah. Um, and then it, it became apparent that no one was getting paid to work actually on the language itself, and that's not great.

Um, you know, community of committed volunteers is amazing, um, but not having anyone responsible or on the hook really for security, bug fixes, um, you know, people just getting to things when they can, um, is, is not great. So, so the foundation was started, um, to basically pay people to work on the language, um, pay core developers to address bugs, to work on security fixes, to address issues, uh, all of those things.

Um, and, uh, that was the mission when I started in March, and really, that's what the foundation had been doing. Um, and when I started, I thought that it might be a good idea to kind of expand our scope and really include other things, like how do we engage the community? I mean, the PHP community is absolutely massive, massive, when you consider all of the folks in Drupal, all of the folks in WordPress and Laravel and Joomla and all of the, the sub-ecosystems we have in the language.

Yeah. Like, the community is gigantic, right? So how can we connect people? How can we give them a place to contribute to the language itself, um, aside from just donating money to the foundation? So we've been working on a lot of community things, um, but really, uh, just concerned with the health of the language is really the focus, and sustainability of the language itself is really the focus of the foundation.

[00:12:54] Stephen: So could you, could you dig in a little bit more into, uh... You said the health of the language is your biggest challenge- Mm-hmm ... and it sounds like you've already started to address the community a little bit. But what do you think is the biggest challenge? When you say health of the language, what does that exactly mean?

[00:13:12] Elizabeth: Yeah. Um, so, uh, two things. Um, one, so the health of the language is, is there's a lot of moving parts. Um, and it can, it can stem from, uh, you know, how many people do we have in our contributor pool? Um, you know, s- that is a challenge for the foundation and for the sustainability of PHP, is that the C contributors...

Because PHP itself is written in C, right? Not PHP. Yeah. So we have a little bit of a gap there between, like, the people doing the langua- or working on the language and the people using the language. So that's another challenge we have, is, like, bridging that gap and making sure we're talking to each other.

Yeah. Um, but also, you know, that, that pool of C contributors who, uh, know C and want to work on PHP, that pool is, is dwindling. Um, you know, there's plenty of other things that people can be working on. So, um, something we've not really done a great job in the past is bridging that gap also between the PHP folks and the C folks, right?

Like, I wanna make sure they know we're around and that it's something that they can contribute to. Um, because we really need to keep that pipeline of contributors coming. Um- Yeah ... so that's a challenge. Of course, funding is always a challenge. Funding is a challenge across open source. Um, every single open source foundation that I have ever talked to, they all struggle with funding.

Um, that's a big deal. Um, what else? Um, yeah, just, um, you know, again, bridging that gap between the users and making sure that we are listening to users and, uh, also, you know, c- just communicating better and collaborating I think is a, is a big thing. Because the PHP ecosystem is so large, getting people to talk to each other is- Mm-hmm

is also a challenge for us, right? Like, but we need to do that if we're gonna keep the language alive. Like, we all need to be working on the same, in the same spaces, in the same page to move the language forward together. It's like a lot of people are doing things all over, but, like- Yeah ... we would be a lot better off if we could coordinate with each other and collaborate with each other.

So

[00:15:09] Nic: that's,

[00:15:10] Elizabeth: that's another

[00:15:10] Nic: challenge. Al- also- Mm-hmm ... I, I imagine also g- even if you're looking for a contribution just from a feedback standpoint, the RFC process is, it's great 'cause it's open, you can see everything, but- Getting people to know about that and care about the ones that are impor- important to them or their business or their ecosystem is, is an education, something that needs to be, they need to be educated about entirely on its own that has nothing to do with how the language itself is written.

[00:15:34] Elizabeth: Yeah. Yeah, no, I couldn't agree more. Um, just getting more people involved in that process and raising the visibility of it is, is a challenge. Um, right now the internals... Oh, and just to be clear, like the foundation does not run the language. Like we don't do, we don't do that. We don't make decisions on the language or, or anything like that.

It is all still up to internals what goes in, what, what comes out of, you know- Yeah ... releases. And so, um, that process, the internals folks, uh, who participate on the mailing list, um, have, uh... Like the mailing list is a, it, it's kind of a catch-22. Um, it works great. It's worked great for 30 years, and so there really isn't a There really isn't a, a, a big push to change the platform where those conversations happen.

However, I'm super old, right? Like, I'm old school and mailing lists are fine for me. Fine for others, but you know, some of the newer folks aren't used to using mailing lists. Yeah. They don't know how it works. They don't even know where to go. They don't know where to find it. They don't know how to participate.

Um, and you know, if you look at the lists, uh, there are, there is a long list of etiquette rules to follow, and it, it, it's in three different places. So if you are gonna participate, you have to, like, check yourself in three different places and make sure you're following- Yeah ... all the guidelines. Like, it's, it's, it's, uh, a little bit intimidating, I would say.

Maybe not a little. Yeah. Maybe a lot intimidating to participate- Yeah ... in those conversations. So, um, making that a little more accessible is something that I would like to see. But again, like, we don't control that. So it's, it's really kind of a, a tricky thing. Um, but yeah, that was brought to me when I started in March.

I did a list- listening tour and listened to a lot of people. Like, what are your pain points? Yeah. What can we help you with? And that was one thing is, like, surfacing those conversations so that the end users can know what's coming, know what's being discussed, pr- you know, chime in if they're, if it's something that's gonna affect them, or if they have thoughts on things.

Like, yeah, really... And that's part of that bridging the gap, I think, between the, the users and the folks working on the language itself. Mm-hmm. So yeah, it's a challenge. We haven't figured it out yet, but we're working we're working on some ideas. We have some ideas.

[00:17:41] Tim: Yeah. So for the, um, the developers that you guys, uh, employ, um, so a few questions.

Um, like how many are there? Um, and like, are they part-time or full-time? And like, what does their work look like day to day?

[00:17:54] Elizabeth: Yeah, that's great questions. Uh, we have 14 right now. Um- Oh,

[00:17:58] Nic: wow ...

[00:17:58] Elizabeth: mostly part-time. Um, I don't... Uh, there might be one or two full-time-ish people, but for the most part, they're part-time. Uh, three of those are in, are coming in from the grant we received from the ecosystem, or for the ecosystem security team, so that, that is time boxed.

So that will, um, it may continue. It may not. Um, we don't know yet what's gonna happen with that. I mean, that was a grant from the Alpha Omega folks under the Linux Foundation. Um, so they're specifically working on security across the PHP ecosystem, and we can talk about that in a minute. But, um, the others work on, um, a variety of things.

Uh, we really like to provide... So the way... Let, let me take a step back. The way that the developers thus far have been hired is we open applications, people send in their ideas, "Hey, this is an idea I have. I wanna work on this thing." Um, Pi is an example of that. You know, that was James' proposal and, uh, it went through the RFC process though, right?

Like it had to. Um, because we don't, we, we don't, we don't guide the language. Um, but it did pass the RFC process. Um, James came on board to work on Pi, so his work is specifically for that. Um, Derek works on, you know, date, time stuff. He works on infrastru- infrastructure stuff. Um, and so his day looks a little different than, than James does.

Um, we really, uh... Something that we're gonna try to do better at is, uh, working closer as a team, is right now w- everybody's siloed because they did come in with, like, their own idea. So sometimes those things overlap and sometimes they don't. M- most times they don't. Yeah. And I would really like to see us collaborating a lot more and just kind of working together as a team more.

Um, but yeah, so, uh, it's w- it's really flexible. They're spread out over, I think, eight, eight or nine countries. Um, we don't... You know, they have a, a range of, of time that they want, you know, we would like to see from them, but you know, we're, we're really pretty flexible with it, so.

[00:19:55] Tim: Cool. Yeah. And were there 14- Right

at like the start of, um- Mm-hmm ... whenever you guys started five years ago, or did that number start to grow over time?

[00:20:04] Elizabeth: Yeah. It, it definitely did grow. Um, we started... How many did we have? Maybe five or six.

[00:20:11] Tim: Oh, wow.

[00:20:11] Elizabeth: And so, like, over the years we've just been, like, adding one or two here and there. Cool. Yeah.

[00:20:16] Nic: So, um, um, I wanna dig in a little bit to the infrastructure 'cause I'm always interested in that.

Yeah. But, uh, uh, I've never actually thought about what something like a security, security releases for even just Drupal or a module is a lot of steps, a lot of checks, a lot of, um... It's stressful. Uh, what does the infrastructure for releasing a language update for something like secur- like, you're making sure that the infrastructure doesn't collapse under the load and that it gets packaged for all the different services.

[00:20:46] Elizabeth: Yeah.

[00:20:46] Nic: How, how does that look? And you, you said there's somebody on your team that's responsible for that?

[00:20:50] Elizabeth: Yeah, so, um, if you don't know Derick Rethans, he is, um, he's the creator of Xdebug- Okay ... which is k- the kind of de facto standard for debugging in PHP language. Um, and Derick has been around for a long time.

He's, um, uh, he, he knows a lot. He knows a lot about how the PHP core works. Um, and yeah, he is probably the... Well, no, he is the point person for the php.net website. Okay. So yeah, he's the one that kind of keeps it going. He does have help from others, so it's not just one person. But, um, yeah, he, he is primarily responsible.

So if something's not working, either with the mailing lists or the website, something like- Okay ... yeah, we usually yell at Derick. Say, "Hey, Derick, go, go fix this thing." Um, but yeah, so the, the actual release process, uh, is, um, community run. So there's a- Oh, okay ... release manager that the community chooses. They vote on that person, and, um, so that person does everything, and that's for the smaller releases and the big release that will come in November.

Um, those happen- Okay ... every year. And I believe the monthly releases are, like, the smaller ones along the way. Okay. Uh, so that's all community run. So we are here to kind of support that process, make sure that, you know, if there are, to your point, if there are infrastructure things that are, that are happening, um, that we, we address those timely.

You know, we respond to those- Yeah ... very quickly and make sure that that process is smooth. Yeah. Okay. And it's a pretty collaborative process to make sure that all the checks have been checked and all of the, um, you know, the, the additions are working properly and not gonna break anything, hopefully. Like, that's the- Okay

that's really the key. Um, so there are, it's a kind of a mix then between community members and foundation members. We kind of work together with, uh, volunteers and, and our staff, too.

[00:22:33] Nic: Okay.

[00:22:34] Elizabeth: Yeah.

[00:22:35] Nic: Awesome. So, uh, you mentioned that, a- a- as you just mentioned, like, a lot of the actual PHP language work is governed and, and handled by the community.

But how, how does the foundation then balance providing kind of leadership and resources to the community and making sure that, um- Things that relate directly to the health of the community are taken care of. You know, there, there's things that need to happen sometimes that aren't something that a contributor really wants to take care of, like maybe documentation or something else.

How does the foundation help with those pieces?

[00:23:05] Elizabeth: Yeah, that's such a, such a good question. Um, I, I have a few thoughts on that. Um, so it, it is always a challenge to, um, balance, like you said, uh, the, you know- the perception that we're running things, like, we, we don't want that 'cause we aren't, and it's a community-owned language.

It will always be probably. Like, likely it will always be. Um, I can't see that changing ever. So, um, you know, making sure that people understand that distinction is something, a message that we are constantly trying to drive home. Because some of our member, our paid contractors do write RFCs for things that they would like to do.

So we do have- Yeah ... some of that, yeah. Um, but you know, it's the, it's maybe the other pieces of the pie that you're talking about, right? Like, the documentation, like, the community, the events, the, um, you know, changing the perception of PHP, quite frankly, is a, a challenge for us, um, that we are tackling right now.

Because, um, the perception of PHP, as you all probably know, doesn't quite match the modern-day experience of what... You know, people kinda u- like, that was their first language. That's how they got into open source. Maybe they created a, a s- a site using PHP, and then, you know, around PHP 5.4, they left and went on to do something else, and then just figured PHP just stopped there 'cause, like, out of sight, out of mind.

Um, but-

[00:24:24] Nic: Yeah ...

[00:24:24] Elizabeth: surprise, we You know, spoiler alert, we kept actually working on language, um, for the l- next, like, 20 years. So, um, yeah, so it's just getting... To your point about, um, I think you, someone made it earlier about sharing the stories that are happening internally. Yeah. Um, yeah, I think maybe that was a conversation we were having.

Uh, that's what, that's what we're trying to do as well, uh, sharing the stories of PHP outside of our bubble because that is part of, um, th- growing that ecosystem and growing the, the, the jobs and the opportunities and making sure we're showing up in universities and being taught in places, you know, and that we're, we're still at the- Yeah

at the table. You know? That people understand that we're still a choice, and that you can still build great things on PHP or any of the projects that are in our ecosystem, you know? So that's part of our, um, part of our goal as well, is to share stories that are going on, um, with the sub-ecosystems, right?

So, like, if Drupal wins, PHP wins. So when Drupal- Yeah ... is on 770 sites in the German government or European government, like, that's a win for everybody. That's a win for all of us. Yeah. We wanna share that story, and you all wanna share that story. Same thing with WordPress. When WordPress does great, we do...

Like, PHP does great. We all, we all win. So, um- Yeah ... just, you know, kind of t- tightening those relationships with, uh, you know, the, the sub-ecosystems and the sub-projects is really something that's important to us 'cause we all, we're all in it together, right? Like, we all, we all wanna win. And so- Yeah ... um, so yeah, so that, that was a lot.

I don't know if I actually answered your question.

[00:25:53] Nic: No, I think

[00:25:54] Elizabeth: you did. I think you did. But, um, but we are thinking about all of those pieces that fit together to, to grow the ecosystem, not just, like, yeah, we want the language to be, you know, secure and quality and a good developer experience if you're using it.

Like, that is super important, but so are the o- all the other bits that... I think before the foundation, there really wasn't a, a coordinated effort to kind of address those things, if that makes sense.

[00:26:17] Stephen: Elizabeth, thinking about those other bits that you're mentioning, when you're prioritizing your time and money to those other bits, what do you think are the most important things- So-

like tho- those subsystems that make the core work? What are they?

[00:26:32] Elizabeth: Yeah, that's a great question. Um, for our, for our core devs, you know, uh, things that are high priority, of course, are security, security issues, security bugs, like, that's probably the highest priority. Um, high, high impact bugs, so if there's a bug in something that affects a lot of people or that's, you know, making things...

So those are... You know, we do have, like, priorities for the actual language itself. Um, for the other bits, that's really where we're trying to engage the community because we're a small staff, right? I, I'm, you know, one person. I'm one person. I have a director of fundraising. That's the only other person that's really on staff, and he's part-time.

Oh, wow.

[00:27:07] Nic: That's super

[00:27:07] Elizabeth: Yeah ... lean. So it's all me, right? Like, I can't- Yeah ... I'm one person that can't do it all. Our board isn't paid. Like n- you know, none of those folks are paid. So, um, figuring out how we engage that community to work on things like, yeah, documentation, yes, let's work on, um, events together.

Like, let's figure these challenges out together. Let's figure out how to change the perception of PHP together. So we have these special interest groups that, um... where the community can come in, anybody in the... A- anybody from the community can come in and help, um, help us tell the story of PHP, help us figure out what is the messaging, what should be on the homepage, what, what do we want people to learn when they're trying to learn the language, how do we make that experience a little easier and better and, uh, clearer for them.

Yeah. So it's really the power of the community is, is the highest priority for us, is, is helping facilitate that, being the hub, being the one that kinda drives those conversations. Not makes the decision. Like, the foundation doesn't wanna make those decisions, um, 'cause it's a commu- you know, we're all community.

So but giving people a place to go to have those conversations and to figure that stuff out together is really what we wanna do. We wanna facilitate and coordinate more than decide- Yeah ... and control. We don't wanna control. We wanna facilitate.

[00:28:21] Nic: Yeah. I, I, I will say I've, um... I think I have contributed to documentation on PHP, and it's not- Mm-hmm It, it's not the most straightforward process.

I, I think- It's not ... I'm cheating 'cause, you know, I don't know if you know, um, Checks or, or Carly, uh, Nigesi. I think that's how you say his last name. You know, he's on the documentation team so- Mm-hmm ... and he's in, he's in the Drupal community. So when I notice- Yeah ... something, I usually just ping him like, "Hey, is this wrong?"

And he, he helps get that, get that published. But, you know, having, having, you know, empowering people to start making those changes or at least educating how to make those changes- How

[00:28:57] Elizabeth: to do it. Yeah ... would

[00:28:58] Nic: be, would be great.

[00:28:58] Elizabeth: Yeah. Um, that is something that's really, really important to us is, is helping the community figure out how to contribute and where to contribute, and making that process a lot easier and better.

Documentation is a big deal, right? Like it's, it's not easy. Translations too. Um, that again, like that's gonna be the community that, that really helps with that. Um, we, the foundation has traditionally not funded those extra pieces directly, so like we don't fund documentat- document- documenters, documentation folks directly.

Um- Yeah ... that is something I would like to see us do in the future if we have the capacity to do that, if we have the funds to do that. I think that is a, a really good use of money is to like pay people to actually, you know, um, to work on that, to make that process easier, clearer, um, all of those things.

'Cause I know that is a, is a pain point for people for sure. I,

[00:29:49] Nic: well, I think... I'll be honest, that's one thing that Matt spoke about on the, the Laravel and PHP show. Mm-hmm. And I mean, Dru- Drupal, I think a lot of open source projects historically have struggled with documentation. I think, I think it's a- Yeah

known pain point across the planet. Yeah. Um, one th- he, he mentioned h- that Laravel, you know, one of the things that they do is like if, uh, i- if Taylor decides that something needs to be documented, he either just does it or hires somebody to do it, like pays, like prioritizes that. Yeah. And that documentation serves as a way to onboard people.

[00:30:19] Elizabeth: Yeah. Yes.

[00:30:20] Nic: Or, or level them up, right? So-

[00:30:22] Elizabeth: Yep ...

[00:30:22] Nic: one of the ni- great things about PHP is how accessible it is to, accessible it is to somebody who doesn't know what programming is, right? Yep. That's how I started.

[00:30:30] Elizabeth: Yep.

[00:30:30] Nic: And, um, y- if you have great documentation, you can teach people, oh, like you're using this function, you probably wanna use it this way.

And if it's easy to read, that, that help. I, I think documentation- I, I say this as somebody who doesn't like writing documentation. I think documentation should be prioritized for, you know, almost as much as, you know, writing the code for, for most projects.

[00:30:52] Elizabeth: Yeah. Um- I mean, I don't disagree. Um, I will also say there currently is a gap.

Um, so like the manual is great. Um, that being said, it's not for people who don't know how to program. So there is a gap in those like kind of onboarding educational resources. Yeah. And that is something that one of our special interest groups is doing. Uh, it's called our onboarding initiative, so it's designed to make the whole onboarding process smoother for people.

Okay. Um, and that includes a big, big chunk of that is writing, um, educational resources. And so we, uh, we just had- Right ... our second meeting yesterday. Um, we already have a bunch of content already starting to be created. Damon s- uh, Damian Sigi, he has already been starting putting things together, and we have like different personas.

So here's someone who doesn't know how to program. What do we write for them? Here's someone who's coming from another language. What do we write for them? Here's somebody who, um, just wants like a high level thing, you know, about PHP- Yeah ... 'cause they're trying to decide. So like what do we write for them?

So, um, that is something that the community is doing, and that's one of our special interest groups. Um, because- Right ... to your point, like docu- like those educational things and like how to do stuff in the language is incredibly important. Like we want people to use the language, so we wanna make it as easy as possible and clear as possible.

Um, and that might not happen in the actual manual, PHP manual. And we- we're trying to create like, um, complimentary- uh, resources and things to help with that. 'Cause the manual, again, is more of a reference, not necessarily- Yeah ... a, a, a how-to or a, a thorough- Yeah ... like guide from start to finish. So yeah.

Exactly. But it's really important. You're right, I completely agree.

[00:32:26] Tim: Yeah. The

[00:32:26] Stephen: release- Hey, Elizabeth. Oh, go ahead. I want to break in with, I want to break in with something here that maybe we should have covered earlier. You mentioned you started in March-

[00:32:34] Elizabeth: Yeah ...

[00:32:34] Stephen: as the executive director, right? Maybe you could give us a little background of your history with open source and why- Sure

why you are the executive director today.

[00:32:44] Elizabeth: I mean, I can only, I can only guess. I don't know. Um, but yeah, so PHP is how I got my start in open source and, uh, it was, uh, in the 1900s, as my kids would say. And I've used this joke so many times, and I'm so glad that people still think it's funny. But, um, yeah, so, uh, it's how I learned to...

You know, open source, my degree is in organizational behavior, not anything to do with computers at all. Um, the internet was- Yeah ... just a little baby internet when I was, when I was just starting. Um, and so, uh, but what really struck me was the community. The PHP community was amazing and helpful and friendly, and wanted to share their knowledge, and hilarious and smart and funny, and just really fun.

A fun place to be, quite frankly. A fun place to be. And, um, so I was a, in PHP for a long time. In 2010, um, and I had done like community management-ish things in, like I ran our user group, I co-founded PHP Women. I, um, you know, did a lot of like community, uh, activities and events. I was really wanted to keep it going, and I wanted to bring people into this fun, cool place where people are awesome and want to help you.

And so, you know, it's just a great feeling. And, um, you know, so from my very beginning days, I still have a ton of friends that I c- connected with on Facebook and LinkedIn and we're, we were still, you know, friends today, which is- crazy. Like, that's incredible to me. That is such a huge benefit of open source is just, like, having friends, you know?

Anyway, um, so I, uh, switched into community management, and I worked for SourceForge, which oldies- I

[00:34:18] Nic: know

[00:34:18] Elizabeth: that one ... like me will remember. Yeah. Um, and I think it's still around. Oh. So yeah.

[00:34:22] Nic: It, it is, but I don't trust it as m- it used to be, like- ... if you downloaded- I go to ... you could trust it. Eh. Yeah,

[00:34:27] Elizabeth: right. The

[00:34:27] Nic: last couple years they've started adding-

[00:34:29] Elizabeth: Yeah

[00:34:29] Nic: more

[00:34:30] Elizabeth: and more. And that's, to be honest, like, when they started adding those ads so much is when I... they also, uh, uh, hired me as a community manager. So, like, I, I never really understood the hate that could come out of open source, but I felt it, like, all the time with, like, people always had really strong feelings, um, about, about that.

But, um, so from there I went to, um, Engine Yard. From there I went to, um, GitHub and was on the GitHub community team for, um, six years or so. Um, and then, um... Oh yeah, I was also at Pivotal in there as well. And then I, I left tech. I, I got really burned out on tech and I left tech for 18 months and- Mm ... uh, became my nature photographer self, and, uh, spent a lot of time in the woods with my camera, which was amazing, and I still do that.

Um, but then COVID hit. And you came back. Yeah, COVID hit and I had to come back. Okay. Um, and then so for from 2020 to '26 I worked on, as a community manager on a, um, an open source project called CHAOSS, the Community Health Analytics in Open Source Software. Um, and that was a pa- that's a part of the Linux Foundation.

It's a Linux Foundation open source project. So we had some funding from, um, Alfred, Alfred P. Sloan Foundation had funded that position. Wow. So, um, it was a paid position, which is, you know, kinda rare in open source, but I think, I mean, I'm biased, but I think just having a community person can make all the difference.

So then when this came up, um, the funding was ending, this was open, I applied, and here I am. And it really did feel like I was coming home again because I- Yeah ... I love the PHP community. I'm so, so, so happy. Like, this is my dream job. I could not be happier to be working on this. I care a lot about this stuff personally.

I care a lot about the community, and I want to make sure that we're doing what we can to be inclusive and accessible and, and fun, right? Like, that I want us to still have that fun 'cause if you're not having fun, then why not just go get a real job somewhere? Like, you know? I mean, come on. Right. Like, we want to have fun with this.

[00:36:30] Tim: Yeah. Well, I lo-

[00:36:31] Stephen: I love your energy- ... and I'm getting excited just listening to

[00:36:34] Tim: you.

[00:36:34] Elizabeth: Yes. Awesome.

[00:36:35] Tim: Yes. Let's

[00:36:35] Elizabeth: do

[00:36:36] Tim: it. Yeah. Yeah. I think there's so much power in people who leave and then come back, and then y- bring all of that energy. Um- Yeah. Yeah. Um, so- Like, uh, and also like the community. Um, I, I'm new to the community, but like the, the welcoming is, is, is...

That's really, it's so- It's

[00:36:56] Martin: huge, right?

[00:36:56] Tim: Yeah ... it's super huge. So for you, um, what would you like the PHP ecosystem to like look and feel, um, different than it is today?

[00:37:06] Elizabeth: Oh, that's such a good question. I think that, um, what I would love to see is a lot more, um, interaction between the projects and collaboration.

You know, again, like we're all on the same page, so we all are struggling with similar things. Um, I love, absolutely love that you had Matt Stauffer on this podcast. Yes. I think that's such a huge thing, is to just talk to each other. And it's not a competition. There's plenty of room for everybody. Like it, when, and when one wins, we all win.

Because it just makes- Mm-hmm ... uh, it just drives home the point that PHP is still a viable language and still growing. And, um, so I think that just having those like spaces where we can bring, uh, people from different pockets of the ecosystem together to just talk to each other and collaborate. Um, another thing I would like to see is a little more geographical, uh, diversity.

Um, in Africa in particular, I think, um, open source in Africa is the next wave of open source. Those folks are incredible, and they are so excited and so energetic. And the problems they wanna solve are like r- real problems, you know, real social problems and, and, um, struggles they have there. And, um, I don't think we have, um...

There, there is a PHP community in Africa, I will say. There definitely is, and there's an upcoming conference for those folks called PHP Connect. Um, w- what I, what I would love to see is like if you, if you look at the Python community, they're everywhere in, in Africa, everywhere. There are regions, you know, conferences a- all over the place.

So like where, why isn't PHP? Like where are we? What are we doing? So I really would love to see us with just more geographical, uh, diversity, um, and in like, uh, the Latin America sector also. Um, I think there's a lot of potential. These folks just have been left out. Like we have not done a great job in open source at, at including these folks to the table.

So, um, PHP is such a great way to get people into open source anyway. Like, it's such an easy language to start with. So yes, that's where, you know, why aren't we reaching out to these people and getting them here and getting them, getting them on board? Um, so yeah. Yeah. I would love to see that as well.

[00:39:15] Tim: Definitely.

[00:39:17] Nic: Uh, be- before I ask my next question, we have a listener question about, uh, Bernardo wants to know if you can showcase some of your elephants. Are, are there- ... are there elephants?

[00:39:25] Elizabeth: Okay, Bernardo, so here's the thing. How you doing, friend? I do have a bunch. They're up, I, I, so I ha- I used to have my bookcase like, behind my chair.

Um, and then I had some, uh, visitors coming to my house, so I'm like, "I, I really need to clean my office." So I pushed it to the side, so you can't really see. Um, I do have some big ones. I have- Oh, my God. Oh, wow. Yeah. I have one of the, um, the True North, which is from, uh, hang on. Is this one right here. Oh, my God.

Oh, my gosh. Yeah, I'm still in my pajamas too, by the way, in case you were wondering that. I never really actually got dressed. Um, yeah, that's the, the wooly mammoth one. It's a mammoth. Wow. Yeah, from the True North, uh, conference, because that, it was awesome. I have some like, a little baby, a little baby mammoth too.

Here's a little baby one.

[00:40:14] Nic: Oh,

[00:40:14] Elizabeth: that's cool. Yeah. I just have, I have a pretty big collection, but it's all back here, so you can't really see. Yeah. No,

[00:40:18] Nic: no, no need to show all of them. They, uh, they're I guess I

[00:40:21] Elizabeth: could have just turned the camera. They're I'm sorry.

[00:40:24] Nic: No, that, that's all good. I, I- Um, okay. So, so shifting back a little bit to something we talked, um, uh, uh, briefly before about security.

So you've, you said that some of the highest priority, uh, highest priorities of the developers that are on staff are the security bugs and reports and things. Um, I, I guess, how does the PHP Foundation, or does the PHP Foundation consider, um, security in the broader community? So not in the core language itself, but, you know, you know, Drupal has sec- has security patch- Yeah

uh, release cycle, and WordPress does. And- Yep ... do you, do you think about how, um- Frameworks using PHP can be more secure in general? Or is that something that you kinda leave to the communities themselves, the sub-communities, children

[00:41:13] Elizabeth: communities? It's, it's kind of a little bit bo- of both. Um, I think that, uh, so with the Alpha Omega grant that we received, we were able to set up the PHP ecosystem security team that I mentioned.

Um- Yeah ... and that has really been kind of the, kind of the central hub for those conversations. Um- Okay ... because to your point, like, we can't, we can't fix those bugs, but just having somebody to talk about how that works and, like, is, is it affected in other places? And, um, things that, you know, affect Drupal might also be affecting WordPress.

So if it's, e- even if it's not in the core, there might be some similarities. Like, just having that place to have those conversations. Okay. And Volker Dusch is amazing, amazing. I love him so much. He is, um, our engineering se- security engineer in residence. Okay. I think that's what his title is. So, um, he is kind of that point person.

And honestly, like, the PHP ecosystem has so many smaller projects too that don't have the capacity to, to be an expert in security issues. Like, they don't know, you know, they're, es- especially with AI, the, you know, the, the, the quickness, the, the, um, the ease with which you can find security vulnera- vulnerabilities in places- Yeah

is, is growing exponentially, and we're struggling to keep up. Um, so- Every- everybody is. Yeah ... just having that, like, person to be like, "Yeah, I'm running, I, I run this library. I'm, uh, two, there's two of us. We have now 20 open security bug reports. What do we do with this? How do we handle this?"

[00:42:48] Nic: Well, I, I, I guess a question then too, a follow-up question then is do you, do you have a mechanism for, um, waiting security bugs or security concern, or even just, like, performance concerns or something based on the community size?

So for example, I know there's a couple of, um, PHP specific things that Drupal's struggling with with fibers right now, right? It's just, the, there's two in particular. One is a performance thing that, uh, I'm not gonna get into 'cause it's really in the weeds. But, uh, for example, um, 'cause you mentioned, um, Derek with Xdebug- Mm-hmm

debugging things around fibers is- Let's just say pure pain and misery. Yeah. Um, and so if, i- so I imagine that the Drupal ecosystem isn't the only PHP ecosystem struggling with that right now.

[00:43:42] Elizabeth: Yeah.

[00:43:42] Nic: Is there a central place to be like, "Hey, this community is struggling with this. Is Laravel also? Is WordPress also?"

Like, is there a way to, like, find out how other communities are solving that? Or again, is that something-

[00:43:56] Elizabeth: I- ... you

[00:43:57] Nic: haven't quite gotten to yet?

[00:43:58] Elizabeth: I will say yes and. So, um, sponsors of the foundation, we have a group, uh, we call our a- advisory board. And that was kind of- Yeah ... the reason for that, is to give them a place to tell us, you know, and to connect with each other.

Um, that being said, it's only people who are sponsoring the foundation. So it's not super inclusive- Mm ... to folks outside that. Um, I would love to change that. I would love to have that place where e- even if it's not security, like I think a security thing is a little bit different. Yeah. So, um, that, the ecosystem security team would be that place, I think where that conversation would happen, where those, um, you know, kinda comparing notes would happen.

[00:44:36] Nic: Um,

[00:44:36] Elizabeth: and- Yeah, 'cause you wanna keep

[00:44:37] Nic: some stuff-

[00:44:38] Elizabeth: Yeah. Yeah, yeah ... private. Yeah. And anything else, like we should have a place for that. Um, maybe that will be another kinda special interest group where, uh, maintainers of frameworks or li- like all the, all projects of all size can kinda come together and, and share with the foundation, share with each other what those challenges are, specifically regarding like the, the technological bits that, yeah- Yeah

that they're struggling with, especially when it comes to the PHP language. Like if we hear- Yeah. Well, yeah, 'cause- ... something a lot, you know, we wanna fix it. Yeah, of course we wanna fix it. Yeah. But right now we really only have the ears of the folks who have sponsored the foundation.

[00:45:11] Nic: Okay.

[00:45:11] Elizabeth: So it's a little tricky.

Yeah.

[00:45:14] Nic: Make, makes sense.

[00:45:15] Elizabeth: Mm-hmm.

[00:45:17] Nic: We have a question from Nora. Um, oop, I just hovered over the wrong thing. Give me one second so I can pull it in. Um, so she, she wants to know if you're, uh, this is kind of going back to the documentation participation piece. Um, have you thought about leveraging Discourse or Zulip or something else to help visualize the mailing list?

So even though the behind the scenes it's still a mailing list, but there's an easier way to participate.

[00:45:44] Elizabeth: Uh, yes, and I think there are individuals who have done that or are working on that. Um, but they're n- I d- I don't know the status of them or if people even know that they exist, and I can't even remember the name of them right now.

Um, I know that people have done it, but what would be great is if we kind of had a more coordinated effort, I think, around it. I think people kind of do it for themselves or, like, their small kind of networks. Um, but I think having that a lot more visible and a lot more coordinated- Yeah ... would be great. I would love that.

And the PHP, um, discourse, like, their, their PHP community discourse is pretty active. We have a foundation, we have some foundation channels in that. They've been kind enough to, um, you know, give us some space there. So, um, you know, just having that in as many discourses as, as we could, if it was, like, one thing we can just put everywhere would be great.

I would love to see that. Yeah. So Nora, there you go. There's a project for you. If you want, you want to work on it, we'll, we'll, uh- ... we'll talk to you about that. I don't know.

[00:46:43] Stephen: Elizabeth, I'd like to jump back to the foundation a little bit, um- As we all know that the foundation is an important part of what makes PHP successful.

I'm wondering, um, what you think the community thinks of the foundation. Do they have a certain perception of it, and is that something that you'd like to change?

[00:47:03] Elizabeth: Yeah. Uh, that's a good question because, um, we had a booth, which was our very first booth ever, at, um... Oh my gosh, uh, Froscon this year. Mm-hmm. And, um, so that was over in Europe, and, uh, the majority of people did not know that we exist.

Uh, the mo- Yeah ... majority of PHP people did not know that we exist, so awareness is huge. Like, we still are w- are struggling with awareness, which is just funny to me. I don't know. I don't know why. I don't know if that's good or bad. I don't know, but, um, it's, it, it is what it is. So awareness is one. Um, I think there's a h- hopefully we're doing a better job of, um, being more transparent.

That was another thing I heard when I started, is nobody knows what we're even doing. Because we, we did, like, a yearly impact report, but we didn't really talk about anything along the way so much consistently. Right. So, you know, once a year people would say, "Here's what we did this year," but we're trying to be better at that.

So we're s- we, uh- Okay ... release quarterly reports of here's every contractor, here's what they did for the last quarter, last three months, so that people kind of know what we're working on- Yeah ... and what, what's on our mind. Um, so transparency's another one. Um, the, the third one was this, uh, the confusion between the language and our role in facilitating and in, and keeping PHP alive.

Like, um, that I think is still something we are trying to drive home, is that, you know, no, we're not trying to control everything. We're just trying to facilitate and coordinate and, um, be that, uh, kind of like, uh, safety net for PHP. And make sure that things like security are paid for so that like, that is a, you know, super high priority.

And to leave it to a volunteer is a little, you know, it's not as, as sustainable as it could be. Yeah. Right? If someone is paid- Yeah ... if that's their job to fix these things, so yeah. So I'd say those three things.

[00:48:49] Tim: Yeah.

[00:48:50] Elizabeth: Mostly.

[00:48:50] Tim: Yeah. I was s- I love your website. First off, I love the domain, thephp.foundation.

The, the foundation ending. But I think you're doing a great job with the transparency. I was so, because I was doing a little bit of research, and I was so happy to see the impact report was not a PDF. Yeah,

[00:49:11] Elizabeth: yeah.

[00:49:11] Tim: And then it was, you know? And then also with those, those, uh, you know, I, I was starting to think about questions about like goals, and then it was like, oh, I just was able to find those organically with your website.

So that was really- I'm

[00:49:25] Elizabeth: glad ...

[00:49:26] Tim: it

[00:49:26] Elizabeth: was a good experience. One thing we have, uh, so again, small staff. I'm the one who does the changes to the website. So I have a list of things that need to be updated. If you look through though, you'll see like references to 2024s and things. Uh-huh. So it, it needs some work, but it's me, so I'm doing my best.

Yeah. Um, but one thing we're missing is that, uh, central page for the special interest groups. We don't have that anywhere. Yeah. Even though there's a calendar and there's, you know, a clear way to join these things, we don't have it anywhere, so that's not great. That's, that's like on my list to do. Yeah.

Sooner than later, I would like to do that. Yeah. So that is one thing about, you know, engaging the community, but you also have to tell them like where to go and what to do. Yeah. So yeah, it's, it's- Yeah ... that's, yeah, a downfall- Yeah ... that we have right now, but

[00:50:08] Tim: yeah. Yeah. Yeah, and so, um, how does the PHP Foundation approach marketing and advocacy different from individual part, projects like Laravel?

And is there an opportunity to create a stronger, more unified story around PHP? I mean, you talked a little bit about celebrating wins- Mm-hmm, mm-hmm ... between communities as well. Could you speak more about that? Yeah.

[00:50:30] Elizabeth: Yeah, for sure. Um, so we have, like, the foundation marketing, which is again, part of the awareness.

So that's kind of separate though from the PHP language, which we are hoping the, um, that special interest group... It's called the PHP Ambassadors. Um, and in the PHP Ambassadors there's three sec- sections. So there's a, a marketing section, that, that is what they do, is let's figure out our messaging, let's figure out what we want people to know about the language.

Let's, um, have, you know, resources for people. They have built out personas of who, who is making the decisions, where, you know, languages are implemented and things. Um, so that's what that group works on. Then we have speakers who, um, that again, we're gonna have like some kind of a formal process where you can be a foundation official PHP Ambassador speaker.

'Cause we really want... Then the goal of that group is to go outside the bubble. So, like, let's... Here's, here's your messaging, here are some points you can use, and now let's get out there and just, like, flood these conferences that don't usually have PHP talks. Like, why? So let's flood them with- Yeah Let's flood them with papers really- Yeah

and proposals. Um, and then the third gr- part of that is research. So I mean, you, you all know there's tons of numbers thrown around with how many websites PHP has. Like, sometimes you'll hear 80% of the web, sometimes you'll hear 54% of the we- like, whatever it is. The research group, they're really trying to get us some good numbers and good data sources that we can all use, you know, for the messaging, for whatever, and, like, use them with confidence in our full voice, you know?

Like, we... These are vetted res- you know. I mean, obviously every data s- uh, source has some caveats, but, like, as good as we can possibly get. Yeah. So those three, the research, speakers, and marketing are all kind of working together to help that whole perception of PHP outside the-

[00:52:15] Nic: I- ...

[00:52:16] Elizabeth: outside

[00:52:17] Nic: the- I, I th- I think that, um, it's interesting because that's the kind of thing that Drupal, the Drupal project is also struggling with, right?

[00:52:24] Elizabeth: Mm.

[00:52:24] Nic: Like, uh, well, not the working together, right? One of the things that the Drupal community does well is a lot of the com- the companies and the agencies do compete with each other, but we also work together on the Drupal project.

[00:52:35] Elizabeth: Yeah.

[00:52:36] Nic: Um, and I think different agencies have come up with great strategies for how to sell Drupal to a customer.

[00:52:43] Elizabeth: Mm-hmm.

[00:52:43] Nic: But we also need to consider, how do you sell Drupal to a developer that hasn't used it, right? Yeah. So, like, there, there are things that Drupal just does- Better than other projects, right? It does access permission- Yeah ... and access policies. It's fantastic out of the box. Language translation, I think, I don't think there's a better platform.

Like, it's second to none. Yeah. Um, and we talk about that internally, but we don't... H- how do you ch- form that, uh, that thing for, for external ears? And it's the same thing for the PHP language. I think, like you mentioned- Yep ... the difference between 5.4 and 7.2, and now 8.4 and 8.5 is, is light years.

[00:53:24] Elizabeth: Yeah,

[00:53:25] Nic: yeah. Um, but PHP, similar to Drupal, is still dealing with kind of the, the historical baggage of- Yep.

Yep ... because it's been around for 30 years. Yep.

[00:53:36] Elizabeth: Yeah, and so that's- Um- ... that is a challenge, and it, it can be seen as like a crusty language, and that, you know, maybe there's a little truth to that. Like, there's just a lot there. It's very complicated code base. Um, but also, it's stable, you know? People have been relying on it for 30 years.

It's not going away. And it's fast. It's not... And it's fast. It's not, you know, it's, it's definitely something you can trust. Um, and so I think that's kind of the message we're, uh, we're, we're hoping to, to share, is that, yeah, you can trust it. Yeah, you can scale it. That's something else I didn't mention. Um, we are working right now on a podcast, uh, called PHP at Scale, and that is meant- Oh

to tell those stories of how- Cool ... PHP is being used in large instances. And so, um, those kind of things, I think, um, are, are all gonna help. You know, it's a multi-pronged approach. It's not gonna be a silver bullet. Yeah. But, you know, even also somebody else said that- Um, I don't remember who this was now, but, um, made a point that even if we don't use PHP in the, the, the lead, like the, um, you know, uh, just talking about our stories, and then also, "By the way, this was in PHP."

You know? And then hoping that people who already have a bias against PHP don't, don't realize that they were talking about PHP at the beginning, and then, "Oh, wow." Oh. You know what I mean? Hm. Like, kind of being a little sneakier

[00:54:52] Tim: about it. Yeah, yeah.

[00:54:52] Elizabeth: Interesting. Um, just un- until we can get that kind of perception to, to really start to go away.

Somebody asked me one time what that looked like, what would be success to me if we have changed the perception, and my feeling is it will be a success when we can, um, have a talk about, uh, uh, conversations about cool things we're doing and PHP not being the central part of that discussion. Meaning-

[00:55:19] Stephen: Hm

[00:55:19] Elizabeth: uh, right now if you... I think in some... Not everywhere, but in some places if you say, "Oh, yeah, I built this huge website and it does this, this, this, this, and it was all in PHP," and then someone says, "Oh, you're still using PHP? Ha ha ha, that's so funny." Like, I want that to not be the point of the conversation, you know?

I want it to just be, "Yeah." Uh, like, you wouldn't be like, "Oh, you wrote that in Python? What?" Like, you wouldn't say that. That wouldn't be a thing that, you know, you were thinking about, and I want PHP to be on that same level. Like, it's just a tool. It's just a... just like Rust or just like Ruby- I, I will, I will say-

or

[00:55:49] Nic: whatever

[00:55:50] Elizabeth: else ...

[00:55:51] Nic: P- Python is great for some things, but I still can't get past white space mattering to syntax. It drives me crazy.

[00:55:58] Elizabeth: Right? Nobody's perfect, so... But I love the- I love PHP. I, uh, I love Python, too. I love those folks. They're great. They do, they do do a lot of things right, so yeah.

[00:56:14] Nic: So- Go a- go ahead, Tim. Oh, sorry.

[00:56:16] Tim: I- I'm sorry. I just, like, short-circuited. But no, I, I, I do love that, um, you know, 'cause I think that, like, with, with, with LLMs and the training of... They scrape the, the web and everything like that. The more stories that we can just celebrate and, you know, amplify, um, and like what you were saying, it's like it's more about, like, the problems you're solving, and this is just the tool that I used.

Yeah. And, you know, being able to share that with such enthusiasm I think is... It's really great that you guys are focusing with advocates. Um, but then also with the DriesNote, um, that came out today, um, I'm really excited that advocacy is one of the, um... It's gonna be a way to contribute- Yeah ... that you can actually get credits for being an advocate and celebrating the platform and the code.

[00:57:09] Elizabeth: Yeah, I think it's a really, um, overlooked, uh, contribution. Um, you know, to your point earlier, documentation, uh, like design, pro- pro- project management, all of these... Community management even. Advocacy is- Yeah ... a big part of that too. Um, you know, mentoring. All, like, all of those things all work together to make something successful.

You can have the code, but it, it, it will only go so far. You know? Its adoption will only go so far if you don't have all those other pieces working together. So, um, I re- I love that too. Advocacy is huge. Is huge. Um, because you can be doing a great thing, but if nobody knows about it, then okay. You know?

Like, you're not gonna... You're not really gonna bring anybody new in. You're not gonna draw attention or, uh, you know, increase adoption, grow your community, all of those things. It's, it's a really crucial piece of it. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:58:01] Nic: Um, so y- y- you talked about, um, sharing the progress quarterly now instead of annually.

Um, I'm curious about the State of the PHP survey. Um, what kinds of things do you learn from that, and what, what do you glean from that to kind of influence where you're going from, uh, where, where you're gonna focus your efforts for the next year?

[00:58:25] Elizabeth: Yeah, um, so I think they're gonna release the results soon, uh, on that.

Uh, it did end, by the way, so if you wanna go fill it out, you're too late. Wah wah. But, uh, I'm sure they'll do it again next year, so, um, w- or we will do it again next year. Um, I, I really wanna know what people's pain points are. Um, and I really wanna know how we can make the upgrading process easier and better.

And also how we can, um... Yeah, just really, like, what, what can we do? What can the foundation do in the limitations of our scope? Um, what can we do to, to help with those things? And where should we be looking for... Like, what should, where should we put our money? Like, where should we be hiring people? Where should we be supporting, uh, something that is really causing a lot of issues for people?

You know, I think that's really, uh, what I wanna know. Upgrading is, is huge, and, uh, I know it's, it's hard. I know that s- hosts have to, not have to, but often are supporting, you know, literally from PHP 5.4, like all the way, and like how do we, how do we shorten that, uh, window of, of, uh, uh, responsibility, I guess?

Like, how far back do we wanna go, and how do we get to this- WordPress. Yeah, I mean, yeah. It's- Yeah. Not just WordPress- I mean, I, yeah ...

[00:59:43] Nic: but the- You, you go- It's a

[00:59:43] Elizabeth: thing,

[00:59:44] Nic: right? Like- Yeah, you go on the supported page, and they support 5.4. Yeah. I, I don't, I don't know how- Yeah ... they do it. It's

[00:59:48] Elizabeth: hard. Or why. It's a lot- Yeah

it's, it's taxing on our, you know, community and, um, just how do we, how do we make that process easier, I think would, would be great. Um, but again, yeah, just what, what pain points really is what I wanna know. I don't really care so much as to how many people are running certain versions. Like that r- I mean, that's interesting.

For sure that's interesting, and maybe that speaks to the, you know, upgrading process. But, um, I really just wanna know kind of w- what those pain points are, what we can do to help-

[01:00:17] Nic: Yeah ...

[01:00:17] Elizabeth: smooth it out.

[01:00:20] Stephen: Elizabeth, I wanna take you back to the interview process in March. Elizabeth, please tell us- ... what does the PHP Foundation look like five years from now?

[01:00:32] Elizabeth: Oh, man. I have, I have big, big visions. I don't know. Um, I would really, really love to see us, uh, the foundation, I would love to see the foundation funding more, funding more, um, contributors, funding more activities like documentation, like, um, you know, uh, being able to support people who are speaking about PHP and, and have gone through that ambassador program.

Like, w- can we pay for them to go to these conferences? Can we, um, involve, uh, you know, a more diverse group of folks? Like, how do we, how do we do that? How do we include more folks in that? I think travel support is a huge piece of it, um, 'cause that's a very limiting factor for a lot of us, especially people who don't have, uh, you know, big comp- work for big companies that can pay for those things.

Um, how do we help conferences? I would love to support them financially. Like, that is huge. I would love for the foundation to just sponsor everything. Like, let, like, let's spread the wealth. Like, let's help you, you know, help the community. Um, I would love to, I would love to have us, uh, uh, a, a way for us to bring the foundation folks together.

We've never come together in a in-person meeting. So-

[01:01:39] Nic: Hmm ...

[01:01:39] Elizabeth: like, that, I would love to see that happen. I would love to see, um, a summit where we bring core contributors and, uh, PHP users in, put them all in a big room together and shake it all up. No, I don't know. But, um, but yeah, get everybody together, right?

Because I think that the, the in-person, uh, events, that's... And we just posted about this yesterday with our newest special interest group, but, um, that's how we build trust with each other, is meeting you face to face, meeting, or even online, even like this. You know, um, now I know you all, so when I see you in person, like, we'll do a high five or hug or something.

I don't know. But, um, but, like, that's how you build trust with people. And in an ever-increasing AI world, trust is really hard. It was already hard, you know, being online and not knowing who's behind that username that you're interacting with. But the fact that we can, um, now not even discern who is a real human and who isn't, like that, trust is really hard.

So, like, how do we save that? How do we save that special magic of open source? And that is through in-person events, in my opinion, or, or hybrid online events as well. Um, so anyway, I would love to see that. Oh. I would love to, um, yeah, just really be able to fund more things, I think would be my biggest thing.

And also to grow the community of contributors to the foundation stuff. So, like, let's grow this- I,

[01:02:58] Stephen: I have a question a- Yeah ... I have a question about that funding in contributors. I look at the website and it says your primary task for a PHP Foundation is to fund developers to work on PHP.

[01:03:09] Elizabeth: Mm-hmm.

[01:03:10] Stephen: I'm curious as to what percentage of developers who are contributing to core are funded- Through the foundation

[01:03:18] Elizabeth: That's a great question.

I don't know if I know that. I would have to go and look. I don't know that answer. Um, that's a really good question, though. Um, yeah. Actually, I, I actually really wanna know that also.

[01:03:30] Tim: Great

[01:03:31] Elizabeth: question. Well, yeah. No one's ever asked me that before.

[01:03:34] Nic: And, and one thing to, that, just a, a lesson from the Drupal community, one thing that's also probably worth trying to find out while you're gathering that information is also how much is funded dir- Like, for the people that aren't funded directly by the foundation, most contribution is funded by a, a- By a company, whether directly or indirectly, right?

Yeah. So like I, I do a lot of work on Drupal just for fun. Yeah. You know, I'm one of those people. But a lot of the stuff that I do is also because ... Not ... A cl- a client of mine isn't funding it directly, saying like, "Here's some money to go work on Core"- Yeah ... but there's a bug that they need fixed.

[01:04:07] Elizabeth: Yeah.

[01:04:07] Nic: And so they're paying me to fix that.

Yeah. So trying to tease some of that out can, it can, might be helpful too. It's hard. Yeah. Yeah. I- That's really hard to gather.

[01:04:15] Elizabeth: It is, but, uh, that data, yeah, that data is hard. Um, but also, like that's, that's also something that I think is a curious conversation to have, is that, you know, is there room for, um, "Hey, here's an idea we have.

This is how much money it's gonna take to make it happen." Um, uh, you know, a- assuming it would have gone through the RFC process maybe already or something. Um, but like- Yeah ... if we can like, like a Kickstarter kind of a funding model. Oh, interesting. Yeah. Like, if we ge- get this much money from whoever, whoever wants to, to fund it, like we'll make it happen.

Like I- Yeah ... we haven't really explored that in the foundation. Yeah. But, um, we, we have had some of those, uh, a- a few grants from ... One from the Sovereign Tech Fund, which was a targeted grant. It was for a specific reason. So that's a similar kind of idea, but- Mm-hmm ... um, you know, we proposed this idea to the, the Sovereign Tech Agency, and then they fund- they decided to fund it.

Um, and it's actually not a grant. I shouldn't say that. They don't position them as grants. They say that it's a contract work. So they're basically paying for this work to be done, and we have to respond to them with our deliverables and, you know, proof that the work got done and all of that stuff, so. Um, but the targeted kind of funding is a super interesting conversation I think, for real.

You know?

[01:05:26] Nic: Yeah.

[01:05:26] Tim: Yeah. Um, yeah. So you mentioned the, uh, one podcast. There was the Upward one, On- Onward and Upward, or ... Um, but there, there, there's another podcast, right? The PHP Foundation Community Hour Podcast? Oh,

[01:05:42] Elizabeth: yeah.

[01:05:42] Tim: Yeah. So I heard that, and, um, that was super cool. Um, and, um, for people who don't know, the first episode was released at the beginning of this month, um, September.

And, um, but you've released it with the PHP Architect Show. Yeah. And so could you talk about how that came about? Because personally, I, I guess the way I got onto this podcast was on LinkedIn. I was like, "I am this close to starting a podcast." And, um- But then it, it's so funny because it takes so much resources to start something.

Yeah. So yeah, could you just talk a little bit about how that synergy kind of like came about?

[01:06:25] Elizabeth: Yes. Yes. So, um, the original idea for that was more of an open office hours- kind of a thing. Super chill, super informal. Okay. I'm hanging out on Zoom for an hour. Whoever wants to come in and chat, I'm there for you.

I will answer questions for this hour during this time. Um, occasionally we maybe would have one of our developers there. You could ask them questions directly. You know, just trying to make the foundation more accessible to people so that, you know, they know where to go. If they have a question, just come ask me.

It's fine. Um- Or if they have something to say, like, yeah, I'll hear you. It's, it's good. Um, and then so, so I was talking about that to a couple of the, uh, PHP architect folks, and they were like, "Well, if you, if you wanted to, you know, make it a more formal thing, which might not be bad, um, then, you know, we're happy to provide our infrastructure to you.

Um, you know, no, no charge. Like, it's totally fine. We'll produce, we'll do all of the things." Um, and so then it was like, well, oh, okay. I guess, sure. I'm not a podcaster, and now all of a sudden I am a podcaster. But, um, not really. Yeah. I just mostly, like, s- talk and, uh, yap about stuff all day. But, um, it, it... So it kinda just came about organically.

It really wasn't a planned, like, uh, negotiation or anything like that. It was, I think, literally, like, at a conference or, like, just in an informal chat we were just like, "Oh, yeah, we should do this thing, and we'll, we're, we'll support you, and it's great." Um, so it was very informal. We did our first one, um, with Matt Stauffer, because again, he's amazing.

And, um, he had written a blog post about how to contribute to PHP, and it had all kind of different, uh, ways that you can use your specific skill sets and contribute back to the project. Um, and so that is really the theme of this community hour. So it went from, like, me hanging out on a Zoom call for an hour- Mm-hmm

just to be a- a- available to people, to now this kind of coordinated thing where we're going now deeper dives into ways to contribute to the PHP language. So we're gonna have, um, you know, uh, a lot more technical information of like, okay, I wanna run tests. How do I do that? And so, like, that, that episode will be all about that, and then we'll go from there.

Okay. So, um, yeah, I don't, I don't know. That's so

[01:08:33] Tim: cool. I don't know. It, it's such a great way to explore those, uh, articles that you're writing on- Yeah ... and posting on your site- Yeah, yeah ... a bit more, you know?

[01:08:42] Elizabeth: And that, that cont- how to contribute to PHP is a question we often get. Yeah. And that is, like, something that is directly to the sustainability of the language, is getting in more contributors to the, to the core.

So- Yeah, he did- And just to, you know, yeah.

[01:08:55] Tim: He did such a good job with that article, and it's just, it's, it's great just being able to have that central, you know, uh, location of, you know- What to do ... here's the different ways. And then if you, if you're lazy like me and you're just gonna kinda scroll through, you got great headings, and- There it is.

There you

[01:09:12] Nic: go. Yeah. Um, so a- as we begin to wrap up, the last question, so I was looking at the, uh, PHP 8.5 release note page, and it looks, let's just say it looks a little bit different than the rest of php.net. Yeah. Yeah. It looks so modern, looks so nice. Uh- Can we expect that design to kind of trickle through the rest of php.net at some point?

[01:09:37] Elizabeth: So, so that was, um, we, we actually did an open, um, kind of contest for that page, and then, uh, the foundation- Oh ... ran that last year. Yeah, so that was the winner of the contest. Um, that, and then, like, kind of nothing else really happened with the website, so, uh, as far as design goes. So this marketing group that is a subgroup of the ambassadors have really been honing in on that, and Matt is leading, kind of leading that charge, honestly.

Um, there's a lot of opinions about what should be on there and what, how it should look. And, uh, you know, we're an open source. People have opinions about stuff. And, uh, so because also it's community based, it's like a long decision process. Um, so not everybody's gonna agree, but I think that, um, that group in particular has some ideas on design and is gonna try to, like, iterate baby steps so that- Yeah

we can eventually kind of get to that point. But it, it's also, you know, there's a lot of kind of moving parts, and we don't, we d- definitely don't wanna break anything. Um, but we- Yeah ... also have to we, we really need to give it some love. Yeah. Like, it's, it's a little, it's a little rough. Um, it's functional, for sure, but also, you know, there are pieces that aren't- It could

[01:10:47] Nic: look better.

[01:10:47] Elizabeth: It could look better. Yeah. And there are pieces that- Yeah ... aren't as functional anymore. Yeah. So yeah, it just needs some love, for sure.

[01:10:54] Nic: Yeah. All right, Elizabeth, it was a huge pleasure to have you on to talk about this today. Uh, if you would like to reach out to Talking Drupal, don't forget you can reach out to us on Drupal Slack in the talking-drupal channel, or by email with [email protected].

To promote your Drupal event, sponsor an episode or become a guest, you can visit talkingdrupal.com and use the buttons in the sidebar. And thank you patrons for ta- supporting Talking Drupal. Your support has kept us talking for 572 episodes. All right, Elizabeth, if, if our l- thank you It is crazy If our listeners, if yeah, it's been a long time.

If our listeners want to get in touch with you, had any questions or comments, what's the best way for them to do that?

[01:11:34] Elizabeth: You can email me, uh, at [email protected]. Um, I will respond to every email. Um, you can also, uh, if you're on LinkedIn, you can message me on LinkedIn. Um, you can find me, I think there's a link somewhere to my LinkedIn.

It's Elizabeth N, if you, which is, um, that's not my name anymore, but that's what happens when you're a woman and you get married and you change your name, and then your personal brand is all messed up because then you get divorced, and then you ... Yeah. Yeah. So anyway, I'm Elizabeth N everywhere. GitHub, Twitter, like all of it.

And it's not, not even real, but that's, that's where we are. So yeah, just look for Elizabeth N. You'll find me.

[01:12:09] Nic: Awesome. And Tim, if our listeners want to get in touch with you, best way? Y-

[01:12:13] Tim: yeah, you can find me on the Drupal Slack. I'm, uh, Tea, like T-E-A dash Sharp. Um, and also you can reach out to me on LinkedIn as well.

Um, and then you can also go to, uh, drupalasheville.com if you want to find out more about the Drupal Camp Asheville.

[01:12:34] Nic: Awesome. How about you, Stephen?

[01:12:35] Stephen: Drupal Slack is probably the easiest place.

[01:12:39] Nic: And you can find me pretty much everywhere @nicxvan, N-I-C-X-V-A-N.

[01:12:44] Stephen: And if you've enjoyed listening, we've enjoyed talking.

[01:12:48] Nic: See you guys next week