OSS Activities / Contribution to WordPress Five for the Future

OSS Activities / What is Five for the Future?

Five for the Future is a part of OSS activities and refers to contributions to WordPress that are particularly important.

The reason why it is called Five for the Future is to quote from the WordPress.org page:

Five for the Future is a stewardship program inviting companies to dedicate resources to advancing WordPress. The program empowers organizations to invest in their future success by making sustained contributions to WordPress.

Matt, co-founder of WordPress, also makes the following statement:

I think a good rule of thumb that will scale with the community as it continues to grow is that organizations that want to grow the WordPress pie (and not just their piece of it) should dedicate 5% of their people to working on something to do with (WordPress).
— Matt Mullenweg, Co-founder of WordPress

Five for the Future is often translated as 5ftF, so from here on I will abbreviate it to 5ftF.

reference

We will publish monthly reports

We will provide monthly activity reports, including contributions to OSS other than WordPress.

I thought the Five for the Future report run by `Webの相談所` was a good initiative, so I’m going to use it as a reference and start publishing monthly reports.

I have contributed in the past, but I thought it would be good to publish a monthly report article so I could look back on how much I have contributed and see if I didn’t have enough time or if I was taking up too much time.

5ftF is difficult

I feel that the 5ftF project is difficult.

My first contribution to the core was when I found a bug in the core while implementing a certain function and I thought I had no choice but to do something about it, so I reported it.

Since then, whenever I found a bug in the core, I reported it and went to fix any bugs that I thought I could fix.

Almost all communication with the core is in English, so it is necessary to make full use of translation tools.

Also, while some people commit to contributing to the core full-time, there are also people like me who respond when they have time.

As a result, it is difficult to respond or make decisions quickly, and I sometimes feel that discussions about which direction to take to fix bugs are difficult to progress.

OSS activities are not understood

When I talk about 5ftF to people outside the WordPress community, they hardly understand.

At first, I couldn’t understand people involved in OSS activities either.

However, as I looked into it more, I began to realize that the world of engineering and programming is supported by OSS.

At the same time, I have met engineers who say they would never do OSS activities because they think it’s not cost-effective.

However, my ability to make a living as an engineer is supported by various OSS, so I want to contribute whatever I can, and I am contributing with the belief that this will lead to a better future.