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Date: Tue, 3 Mar 2026 16:38:58 +0100
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Subject: [PHP-DEV] Release Managers for PHP 8.6
To: php internals <internals@lists.php.net>
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From: edorian@php.net (Volker Dusch)

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