[PHP-DEV] Release Managers for PHP 8.6

Mailing Lists php.internals
1

Hey folks,

Every year in March we start the process of finding candidates who
want to volunteer as Release Managers (RMs) for the next PHP release.

We are looking for two new (rookie) RMs and one veteran RM.

Should you be elected, you will be guided and helped by the current,
as well as previous RMs and the documentation in release-process.md
[1].

To perform the tasks outlined in [1], candidates should:
- be confident contributing to and working with the PHP internals mailing list.
- understand PHP's backward compatibility guarantees - including where
they do not apply.
- be able to triage bugs, in collaboration with core developers.
- liaise effectively with previous release managers.
- have a working knowledge of Git, including branching and merging.

... as these skills reflect the key responsibilities you will take on
as a release manager.

Ideally, at least one of the candidates for the rookie RM role should
have some experience with php-src as the ability to assess more
technical PR's will come in handy. Other candidates do not necessarily
need to have deep knowledge of internals but should understand the
above-mentioned points.

You should be confident that you can volunteer a couple of hours on
one Tuesday and Thursday every other month over the coming years.
Additionally, extra time will be required in the month leading up to
the .0 release as the alpha/beta/RC phases are more frequent and more
decisions have to be made there.

Please put your name forward here if you wish to be considered a candidate.
An initial "TODO" page exists on the wiki and contains provisional
dates for GA and pre-releases [2].

You can apply until the 30th of March. Voting will start on the 31st of March.

If you have any questions on the process, check out the post from my
co-RM Daniel [3] that goes into more detail. Also, feel free to reach
out to me, or Daniel, if you have further questions.

[1] php-src/docs/release-process.md at master · php/php-src · GitHub
[2] PHP: todo:php86
[3] Blog: Notes for PHP Release Managers

PHP is a community-driven project, and your help would be greatly appreciated.

Your 8.5 RMs,
Volker, Daniel, and Pierrick

2

Hello Internals,

I’d like to put my name forward for a rookie 8.6 Release Manager position. I’ve followed the project for several years and would like to help.

  • Joe Ferguson

On Tue, Mar 3, 2026 at 9:40 AM Volker Dusch <edorian@php.net> wrote:

Hey folks,

Every year in March we start the process of finding candidates who
want to volunteer as Release Managers (RMs) for the next PHP release.

We are looking for two new (rookie) RMs and one veteran RM.

Should you be elected, you will be guided and helped by the current,
as well as previous RMs and the documentation in release-process.md
[1].

To perform the tasks outlined in [1], candidates should:

  • be confident contributing to and working with the PHP internals mailing list.
  • understand PHP’s backward compatibility guarantees - including where
    they do not apply.
  • be able to triage bugs, in collaboration with core developers.
  • liaise effectively with previous release managers.
  • have a working knowledge of Git, including branching and merging.

… as these skills reflect the key responsibilities you will take on
as a release manager.

Ideally, at least one of the candidates for the rookie RM role should
have some experience with php-src as the ability to assess more
technical PR’s will come in handy. Other candidates do not necessarily
need to have deep knowledge of internals but should understand the
above-mentioned points.

You should be confident that you can volunteer a couple of hours on
one Tuesday and Thursday every other month over the coming years.
Additionally, extra time will be required in the month leading up to
the .0 release as the alpha/beta/RC phases are more frequent and more
decisions have to be made there.

Please put your name forward here if you wish to be considered a candidate.
An initial “TODO” page exists on the wiki and contains provisional
dates for GA and pre-releases [2].

You can apply until the 30th of March. Voting will start on the 31st of March.

If you have any questions on the process, check out the post from my
co-RM Daniel [3] that goes into more detail. Also, feel free to reach
out to me, or Daniel, if you have further questions.

[1] https://github.com/php/php-src/blob/master/docs/release-process.md
[2] https://wiki.php.net/todo/php86
[3] https://scherzer.dev/Blog/20260218-release-manager-notes

PHP is a community-driven project, and your help would be greatly appreciated.

Your 8.5 RMs,
Volker, Daniel, and Pierrick

3

Hi Internals,

I would like to be a candidate for the rookie 8.6 Release Manager position.

I have been following the php repositories (docs, src) for a while now and have done a few contributions both on the repo as well as on the mailing list.

I have experience with git and managing projects but I also have a lot to learn. This position will help me get better in these skills with guidance of the veteran Release Managers.

Feel free to ask me any questions.

···

On 3 Mar 2026 at 4:40 PM +0100, Volker Dusch edorian@php.net, wrote:

Hey folks,

Every year in March we start the process of finding candidates who
want to volunteer as Release Managers (RMs) for the next PHP release.

We are looking for two new (rookie) RMs and one veteran RM.

Should you be elected, you will be guided and helped by the current,
as well as previous RMs and the documentation in release-process.md
[1].

To perform the tasks outlined in [1], candidates should:

  • be confident contributing to and working with the PHP internals mailing list.
  • understand PHP’s backward compatibility guarantees - including where
    they do not apply.
  • be able to triage bugs, in collaboration with core developers.
  • liaise effectively with previous release managers.
  • have a working knowledge of Git, including branching and merging.

… as these skills reflect the key responsibilities you will take on
as a release manager.

Ideally, at least one of the candidates for the rookie RM role should
have some experience with php-src as the ability to assess more
technical PR’s will come in handy. Other candidates do not necessarily
need to have deep knowledge of internals but should understand the
above-mentioned points.

You should be confident that you can volunteer a couple of hours on
one Tuesday and Thursday every other month over the coming years.
Additionally, extra time will be required in the month leading up to
the .0 release as the alpha/beta/RC phases are more frequent and more
decisions have to be made there.

Please put your name forward here if you wish to be considered a candidate.
An initial “TODO” page exists on the wiki and contains provisional
dates for GA and pre-releases [2].

You can apply until the 30th of March. Voting will start on the 31st of March.

If you have any questions on the process, check out the post from my
co-RM Daniel [3] that goes into more detail. Also, feel free to reach
out to me, or Daniel, if you have further questions.

[1] php-src/docs/release-process.md at master · php/php-src · GitHub
[2] PHP: todo:php86
[3] Blog: Notes for PHP Release Managers

PHP is a community-driven project, and your help would be greatly appreciated.

Your 8.5 RMs,
Volker, Daniel, and Pierrick

4

Hi Internals,

I would like to be a candidate for the rookie 8.6 Release Manager position.

I have been following the php repositories (docs, src) for a while now and have done a few contributions both on the repo as well as on the mailing list.

I have experience with git and managing projects but I also have a lot to learn. This position will help me get better in these skills with guidance of the veteran Release Managers.

Feel free to ask me any questions.

···

On 3 Mar 2026 at 4:40 PM +0100, Volker Dusch <edorian@php.net>, wrote:

Hey folks,

Every year in March we start the process of finding candidates who
want to volunteer as Release Managers (RMs) for the next PHP release.

We are looking for two new (rookie) RMs and one veteran RM.

Should you be elected, you will be guided and helped by the current,
as well as previous RMs and the documentation in release-process.md
[1].

To perform the tasks outlined in [1], candidates should:

  • be confident contributing to and working with the PHP internals mailing list.
  • understand PHP’s backward compatibility guarantees - including where
    they do not apply.
  • be able to triage bugs, in collaboration with core developers.
  • liaise effectively with previous release managers.
  • have a working knowledge of Git, including branching and merging.

… as these skills reflect the key responsibilities you will take on
as a release manager.

Ideally, at least one of the candidates for the rookie RM role should
have some experience with php-src as the ability to assess more
technical PR’s will come in handy. Other candidates do not necessarily
need to have deep knowledge of internals but should understand the
above-mentioned points.

You should be confident that you can volunteer a couple of hours on
one Tuesday and Thursday every other month over the coming years.
Additionally, extra time will be required in the month leading up to
the .0 release as the alpha/beta/RC phases are more frequent and more
decisions have to be made there.

Please put your name forward here if you wish to be considered a candidate.
An initial “TODO” page exists on the wiki and contains provisional
dates for GA and pre-releases [2].

You can apply until the 30th of March. Voting will start on the 31st of March.

If you have any questions on the process, check out the post from my
co-RM Daniel [3] that goes into more detail. Also, feel free to reach
out to me, or Daniel, if you have further questions.

[1] https://github.com/php/php-src/blob/master/docs/release-process.md
[2] https://wiki.php.net/todo/php86
[3] https://scherzer.dev/Blog/20260218-release-manager-notes

PHP is a community-driven project, and your help would be greatly appreciated.

Your 8.5 RMs,
Volker, Daniel, and Pierrick

5

Hi internals,

I’ve enjoyed working as an 8.5 RM, and so am volunteering to serve as the veteran RM for 8.6.

-Daniel

On Tue, Mar 3, 2026 at 9:36 AM Volker Dusch <edorian@php.net> wrote:

Hey folks,

Every year in March we start the process of finding candidates who
want to volunteer as Release Managers (RMs) for the next PHP release.

We are looking for two new (rookie) RMs and one veteran RM.

Should you be elected, you will be guided and helped by the current,
as well as previous RMs and the documentation in release-process.md
[1].

To perform the tasks outlined in [1], candidates should:

  • be confident contributing to and working with the PHP internals mailing list.
  • understand PHP’s backward compatibility guarantees - including where
    they do not apply.
  • be able to triage bugs, in collaboration with core developers.
  • liaise effectively with previous release managers.
  • have a working knowledge of Git, including branching and merging.

… as these skills reflect the key responsibilities you will take on
as a release manager.

Ideally, at least one of the candidates for the rookie RM role should
have some experience with php-src as the ability to assess more
technical PR’s will come in handy. Other candidates do not necessarily
need to have deep knowledge of internals but should understand the
above-mentioned points.

You should be confident that you can volunteer a couple of hours on
one Tuesday and Thursday every other month over the coming years.
Additionally, extra time will be required in the month leading up to
the .0 release as the alpha/beta/RC phases are more frequent and more
decisions have to be made there.

Please put your name forward here if you wish to be considered a candidate.
An initial “TODO” page exists on the wiki and contains provisional
dates for GA and pre-releases [2].

You can apply until the 30th of March. Voting will start on the 31st of March.

If you have any questions on the process, check out the post from my
co-RM Daniel [3] that goes into more detail. Also, feel free to reach
out to me, or Daniel, if you have further questions.

[1] https://github.com/php/php-src/blob/master/docs/release-process.md
[2] https://wiki.php.net/todo/php86
[3] https://scherzer.dev/Blog/20260218-release-manager-notes

PHP is a community-driven project, and your help would be greatly appreciated.

Your 8.5 RMs,
Volker, Daniel, and Pierrick

6

Hi Volker,

Il 03/03/2026 16:38, Volker Dusch ha scritto:

Please put your name forward here if you wish to be considered a candidate.
An initial "TODO" page exists on the wiki and contains provisional
dates for GA and pre-releases [2].

You can apply until the 30th of March. Voting will start on the 31st of March.

I'd also like to put my name forward for the 8.6 RM election.

I'm familiar with PHP internals, but not much with the ZE/JIT inner workings.

I've been granted commit rights since the PHP 5.3 era, and my work has focused mainly on pdo/pdo_pgsql. Over the years I've successfully led a couple of RFCs, the most recent being the driver‑specific SQL parsers for PDO in PHP 8.4.

I recently turned 50, which means I can now officially say I've been contributing to open source for 25 years. Since 20+ years I've also been organising phpday and other tech conferences in Italy.

For several years I've been running a custom CI pipeline that builds PHP nightly and tests a selection of popular projects, helping identify segfaults or potential BC breaks early so they can be fixed or reported upstream.

Good luck to all fellow candidates!

Cheers
--
Matteo Beccati