---
title: "What happens when a critical open source tool loses its maintainer access? Open Talk on WordCamp Europe 2024"
date: 2024-08-01
author: "Courtney Robertson"
featured_image: "https://courtneyr.dev/wp-content/uploads/2026/11/open-talk-on-open-source-wordcamp-europe-2024-featured-1.jpg"
categories:
  - name: "WordPress"
    url: "/category/wptips.md"
  - name: "Speaking"
    url: "/category/speaking.md"
  - name: "Open Source"
    url: "/category/open-source.md"
---

# What happens when a critical open source tool loses its maintainer access? Open Talk on WordCamp Europe 2024

What happens when a project the whole PHP world depends on loses maintainer access to its own repository? [Robert Jacobi](https://robertjacobi.com/)colleague and I recapped WordCamp Europe 2024 on Open Talk on Open Source. The opening keynote, from Joost de Valk and Juliette Reinders Folmer, was about the sustainability of open source.

## 🎙️ Episode details

- **Topics:** the PHP\_CodeSniffer story, maintainer access, and connections across open source projects
- **Show:** Open Talk on Open Source, on Do the Woo (now Open Channels FM)
- **Hosts:** Robert Jacobi and me, Courtney Robertson
- **Released:** August 1, 2024, just after WordPress 6.6.1 shipped
- **Listen and read along:** [Open Source Sustainability, Community Connections, and Future Insights, with a transcript, on Open Channels FM](https://openchannels.fm/os-sustainability-contributing-and-proposal-processes/)

Audio from Open Channels FM. [Read the episode transcript on Open Channels FM](https://openchannels.fm/os-sustainability-contributing-and-proposal-processes/).## 🔑 The PHP\_CodeSniffer story: lost maintainer access

Many WordPress people know Joost as the founder of a well known SEO plugin company. Fewer know Juliette outside PHP circles. I explained why her part mattered: PHP\_CodeSniffer, which checks code against standards, sat in an abandoned repository. The company that created it had shut down, Juliette lacked administrative rights, and nobody who had them still contributed. Juliette, the project’s lead developer by any measure, had been funded through contract work to keep it going.

## 🤝 Connections across projects

During the keynote Q&A, I asked a question, and that led to meeting Matthias from TYPO3. TYPO3 is another open source CMS. We agreed to invite him on the show, so he could pronounce his own name for us.

I’d also been on a WordCamp Europe panel about funding open source. A year earlier, I’d spoken as a contributor hoping to be sponsored. This time the angle was how organizations like my employer, or Robert’s, can fund open source work.

## 🧪 What can you take about maintainer access?

- **Topics:** the PHP\_CodeSniffer story, maintainer access, and connections across open source projects
- **Companies:** list the open source tools your product depends on, and check who maintains them.
- **Maintainers:** make sure more than one active person holds administrative access.
- **Attendees:** ask a question at the mic; the conversation afterward can be the best part.

Also, more conversations like this one live in [my podcast and speaking archive](https://courtneyr.dev/category/speaking/).

## 🗓️ Archival note

Do the Woo released this episode on August 1, 2024. Then I added this post on November 9, 2026, from the publisher’s summary and transcript. However, I reviewed the transcript, not the audio.





[](https://courtneyr.dev/2024/08/01/maintainer-access-wordcamp-europe-2024-open-talk/)Courtney RobertsonWhat happens when a critical open source tool loses its maintainer access? Open Talk on WordCamp Europe 2024