PHP Foundation has just 1 full-time employee, seeks more funding
What's the story
The PHP Foundation, the non-profit organization responsible for supporting the open-source programming language PHP, is facing funding challenges. The foundation has only one full-time employee and 14 mostly part-time contractors. Despite its critical role in web development (PHP powers nearly 70% of all websites), it relies on donations and grants for funding.
Cybersecurity efforts
Role in web security
The PHP Foundation collaborates with external researchers and companies such as OpenAI, Wiz, and Calif to identify security vulnerabilities and implement fixes.
This week, the foundation was involved in patching two critical flaws in PHP.
Despite millions of hacking attempts reported by web security company Cloudflare, PHP Foundation's Executive Director Elizabeth Barron, said there's no evidence that these vulnerabilities were exploited before disclosure or on patched systems.
AI influence
The dual impact of AI on the PHP project
Artificial intelligence has had a mixed impact on the PHP Foundation.
It helped researchers discover the decade-old flaws and made programmers more efficient.
However, it has also increased maintainers' workloads as the PHP project is now receiving nearly double the proposed code changes compared to last year, without a corresponding increase in contributors.
Funding issues
Funding challenges for the PHP Foundation
Barron has highlighted the organization's funding challenges. She said, "Given that reliance, it is clear that PHP is incredibly under-funded." This statement underscores the growing gap between the increasing demand for PHP's services and its current financial resources.