PHP Foundation Community Hour Podcast 2026.09.10

Hosts: Elizabeth Barron & Matt Stauffer

Welcome to the First Community Hour
Elizabeth Barron opened the very first PHP Foundation Community Hour alongside Matt Stauffer, CEO of Tighten and a member of the Foundation’s board of directors. The idea grew out of a simple desire to make the Foundation more accessible and to give the community more points of contact.

The original concept was just a Zoom call where anyone could drop in and ask questions, but it evolved into something with a purpose and a theme. Big thanks went to the folks at PHP Architect for providing the platform and infrastructure, and to Joe Ferguson for producing behind the scenes.

Matt introduced himself and his work leading a PHP (and Laravel) consultancy that specializes in rescuing and modernizing legacy applications. He shared why he loves that space: PHP powers functional code spread across the internet doing real good for real people, which is exactly why he cares so much about the language and the Foundation.

The Blog Post That Started It All
The theme for these next few months came from a post Matt wrote about how people can contribute back to PHP: https://thephp.foundation/blog/2026/08/17/how-to-contribute-to-php/ His motivation was making programming accessible — he writes books, does podcasts, and speaks at conferences so people can enter the field and transform their lives.

Matt admitted he’d often found it hard, even as an experienced open-source contributor, to contribute to PHP itself. Digging into why, he found both truth and misconception. Some contributions happen in ways we don’t call “contributing to PHP” but should, and some pathways genuinely need better communication and community building.

His goal was a single canonical starting place — a short blog post that says “start here” for anyone who’s always wanted to contribute. It’s also a reminder to himself to know the current reality rather than criticizing PHP based on how it worked 15 or 20 years ago.

The Lowest Barrier to Contributing
Asked where someone with no or low barrier should start, Matt’s answer was simple: wherever you already are. If you have a local meetup, go to it. If you attend a conference, get more involved — even just buying a ticket counts. After that, the most newcomer-focused options are the things the Foundation builds specifically for newcomers, like ambassador programs and surveys.

The most important point Matt hammered home: contributing to any individual component, framework, package, or meetup is contributing to PHP. Working on WordPress, Laravel, or Symfony all counts. It does not have to be the language itself to matter.

Elizabeth agreed wholeheartedly that the definition of contribution should be broad. Every interaction, every engagement, every time someone shows up somewhere is a contribution. Newcomers are especially valuable — they can spot the gaps and holes that long-time maintainers no longer see. For those who do want to work on the language itself, Matt suggested reproducing other people’s bugs from the PHP source repo as the easiest onboarding point.

Everybody Matters in the PHP Community
Matt offered a definition of what it means to be part of the PHP community: if you’ve written or read a line of code, been assigned to a PHP project, or even just asked “am I a member of the PHP community?” — you are one. Full stop. And you’re no more or less important than someone who’s been doing it for decades.

Elizabeth shared that the Foundation recently started an onboarding special interest group where mentorship will be a topic, aimed at improving the overwhelming newcomer experience. They discussed the idea of a central hub or resource for contribution opportunities. Matt was cautiously supportive — worried programmers might over-engineer a tool instead of doing the work, but open to something that points people to where each community already lists its opportunities, while the Foundation creates that space specifically for the PHP language itself.

Matt shared his own contribution origin story: his first pull requests, back in September and October 2012, were to jQuery responsive-design plugins. Neither was merged, but the experience taught him that open source doesn’t need to reflect every person’s specific needs, and that most people online are genuinely kind and well-intended.

User Groups, SIGs, and Timezone Challenges
Responding to a chat question, Elizabeth confirmed the Foundation plans to launch a special interest group for user group and conference organizers to share challenges around attendance, speakers, and sponsors. She’d love to eventually offer micro-grants to help new groups get started, though that requires budgeting and board conversations.

Matt debunked the perception that user groups are expensive to run. Food is usually the biggest cost — and you don’t need food at all. The most valuable thing is a host willing to donate space. He described a recent Atlanta PHP meetup with nothing but a few six-packs and some leftover pastries that worked out perfectly fine.

The conversation turned to the eternal challenge of timezones and async collaboration. Both agreed async is great for inclusivity, especially for non-native English speakers, but some things simply can’t happen asynchronously with the same quality. In-person and real-time contact build trust and relationships in ways text alone can’t, whether for a company, a user group, or the Foundation’s own special interest groups.

Designers, Docs, and Making It Easier to Contribute
Matt made the case that being different from everyone else in a community makes you exceptional. Designers aren’t prolific in the PHP world, so a designer who steps up — like the one helping modernize php.net’s visuals — can have massive impact without ever writing a line of C. The same goes for writers, social media people, and accessibility experts.

On what the Foundation can do to help, Matt suggested more universally accessible, perennial resources rather than blog posts that go stale. PHP’s own “how to contribute” page is out of date and language-focused. He proposed the Foundation website host a broader contribution guide that links out to each community’s canonical resources.

He noted the reality that anything on php.net mentioning a sub-community risks drama, so the Foundation website is a better place to start, prove things out, and eventually propose polished changes to php.net. They closed by celebrating internals contributors, infrastructure heroes like Derick Rethans and Joe Ferguson, and every kind of skill — social media included — that the PHP ecosystem needs.

• PHP Foundation — How to contribute back to PHP
• PHP Architect — Platform & production partner

• Mastodon: @elizabeth@fosstodon.org
• LinkedIn: elizabethn

• X: @mattstauffer
• Bluesky: @mattstauffer.com

• • Youtube Channel
  • Twitch

Looking to hire PHP developers? Email support@phparch.com – Joe and the team are available for consulting, infrastructure work, Ansible playbooks, and code review.

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