PHP 8.1 Release Managers elected

Published On27 Apr 2021

PHP 8.1 Release Managers elected

PHP 8.1 is scheduled for release at the end of the year 2021, and there was an election to select two Release Managers for the PHP 8.1 series, along with Joe Watkins, one of the veteran PHP contributors.

Release Managers in PHP are responsible in coordinating and releasing PHP releases on the major PHP version (e.g. PHP 7.4, PHP 8.0, PHP 8.1, etc.) they are appointed for. The release managers have the final say whether to accept last-minute changes, and they will be responsible to create and release PHP versions on that branch throughout the life-cycle of the PHP version.

The release managers will tag and release PHP versions from the alpha stage through the stable releases, followed by a year of security releases as well.

For PHP 8.1, this means the three release managers will tag, sign, and release PHP releases starting from June this year through November 2023. The first alpha release is scheduled for June this year, the first beta on July, first release-candidates on September, and the first generally-available stable version on November 2021.


Joe Watkins is a PHP contributor and the author of various PHP extensions including parallel and PCOV. He stepped into be one of the release managers for PHP 8.1.

Sara Golemon, one of the release managers for the current PHP 8.0 emailed the PHP mailing list asking for potential PHP release managers, and it received an overwhelmingly enthusiastic response.

Eight people applied for the position, and an election was held between 12-16 April to select the two remaining release managers.

The candidates were:

  • Adiel Cristo
  • Gunnard Engebreth
  • Harm Smits
  • Eric Van Johnson
  • Patrick Allaert
  • Sergey Panteleev
  • Ben Ramsey
  • Saif Eddin Gmati

From the vote, Ben Ramsey received 15 votes, which was the highest, followed by Patrick Allaert, receiving 13 votes.

The vote concluded today (26th of April), with Ben Ramsey and Patrick Allaert being the newly elected release managers for PHP 8.1.

Release Managers for PHP 8.1

Congratulations to Joe, Ben, and Patrick πŸΎπŸŽ‰πŸš€ for your release manager positions!

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