Home / Articles / Who maintains the PHP you run? A version signed off by the people who maintain it, buyers who require that signature, and money that flows down the chain / Versions / v1.4.0
Who maintains the PHP you run? A version signed off by the people who maintain it, buyers who require that signature, and money that flows down the chain: what changed in v1.4.0
From v1.3.0 (2026-10-24, 451608794) to v1.4.0 (2026-10-27, db67c5ce1), paragraph by paragraph.
0 paragraphs added, 0 removed, 5 changed in place, 80 unchanged. About 0 words added and 192 removed. Insertions are marked like this, deletions like this; unchanged runs are folded to one line; figures appear as their file names.
3 unchanged paragraphs
!shot mk-both-ways.webp | images/ | A market failing both ways: those who run open source budget for building and migrating and have no maintenance to buy;source, those in the middle, integrators, consultancies and platforms, win the contracts; those who know the code take donationscode, and have no product to sell. Thea missing piece is a workflow for the first to buy maintenance from the last.step. | concept
16 unchanged paragraphs, under In short: what I am proposing {#in-short}, The case I have been making {#the-case}, A version signed off by the people who maintain it {#signed-off}
!shot mk-signed-chain.webp | images/ | The signature chain that makes the money flow: the buyer requires a signed-off version; the product's supplier gets the platform it builds on signed off by that platform's maintainers, who sign off what they depend on in turn. Signaturesversions go up theto chain,maintainers, money comes down it, and Gen AI scales the work at every step.down. | concept
23 unchanged paragraphs, under The maintainers are the town planners {#town-planners}, Why it scales now {#gen-ai}, Many small purchases, in proportion {#proportional}…
!shot mk-vendors.webp | images/ | Who sold the fix for old PHP, and what flows back:back to the PHP Foundation, from the PHP security team published source backports for 7.4, 8.0 and 8.1 free; Zend by Perforce sold PHP LTS for 7.2 to 8.1 and is a Silver sponsor of the Foundation, with no revenue share stated; Canonical's Ubuntu Pro, TuxCare and HeroDevs sold subscriptions and are not shown as Foundation sponsors; Freexian sells PHP LTS for Debian with the packager's help.Freexian. | comparison
10 unchanged paragraphs, under The best that exists today {#openjs}, Why the experts {#experts}, The services that should exist now {#services}
!shot mk-services.webp | images/ | The services that should exist now:now, bringfrom bringing it back;back a maintained build; patch on behalf; remove what is not used; the dependency register; the incident desk; andto the endorsed partner, with a stated share of revenue flowing toand the foundation,foundation's the line procurement can require.share. | comparison
3 unchanged paragraphs, under How we are thinking of selling it {#selling}
!shot mk-options.webp | images/ | Ways to make money selling open source software, as RiskMandate is mapping them: from paid mapping to map one workflow or site; paid to engineer the implementation; a scoped custom version built on the open-source base; and recurring maintenance priced by criticality (standard, operational, critical). Every customer version is built on the open-source base; the customer decides what stays private.maintenance. | concept
25 unchanged paragraphs, under Towards regulation {#regulation}, Not only PHP {#beyond}, What this does not claim {#limits}…