For the people who keep WordPress and open source running
Maintenance is the work. Maintainers are the artists.
Every release depends on patches, reviews, backports, support threads and security fixes that nobody announces. This site makes that work visible and asks you to back the people who do it.
“The sourball of every revolution: after the revolution, who’s going to pick up the garbage on Monday morning?”
Mierle Laderman Ukeles, Manifesto for Maintenance Art 1969!
Two basic systems
Which one makes the headlines?
Development
- The new product, the launch, the feature in the release post
- Credited, celebrated, funded
- Happens once
Maintenance
- The patch, the backport, the PHP compatibility fix, the triaged issue, the answered support thread
- Invisible until it stops
- Happens every day
Thank you for keeping WordPress alive.
In 1979 and 1980, Mierle Laderman Ukeles shook hands with every one of New York City’s 8,500 sanitation workers and thanked each of them for keeping the city alive. Do the same for one maintainer this week. Say it in public, review a pull request, or put money behind the work.