The Future of WordPress Hosting Meets Five For the Future

Rocket.net is proud to be an official Five for the Future partner with several of our key employees contributing to Core as well as our sponsorship of WordCamps and Meetups.

For those new to the WordPress ecosystem, you may not be aware of the Five for the Future commitment. We got you. We love that people come into WordPress, discover WordCamps and WordPress Meetups, and then decide to give back. All of us at Rocket.net know our careers are based upon WordPress and it’s only natural to give back.

“Participation in Five for the Future means consistent effort by an individual or a company via a Make WordPress team to directly support the WordPress open source project and the project’s current big ideas, rather than the sole benefit of a company or individual.”

Josepha Hayden

What is Five for the Future?

Five for the Future is a WordPress initiative where companies, even one of our size, commit time to giving back to WordPress. This is calculated by hours dedicated per week and listed on WordPress Profiles. In other words, our employees contribute to WordPress “on the clock” or as part of their job duties at Rocket.net.

“Launched in 2014, Five for the Future encourages organizations to contribute five percent of their resources to WordPress development.”

Make.WordPress.org

What Does 5% Really Do for the Future of WordPress?

Five For the Future was suggested at WordCamp Europe in 2014 and solidified in Matt Mullenweg’s post. Nine years later, WordPress’s market share has significantly grown and that alone is a solid result showing the program works. 

According to W3Techs, WordPress had 15.8% market share in 2012, 17.4% in 2013, and 21.08% in 2014. WordPress’s adoption rate from 2012 to 2013 increased by 10.12%. The first year of Five for the Future showed a 21.0% increase in market share. Coincidence? We don’t think so.

In 9 short years, that number has more than doubled. WordPress now has a market share of 43.1%. That is a 104.5% increase! Would that have happened without Five For the Future? It’s doubtful.

“I think the 5% rule is one that all open source projects and companies should follow, at least if they want to be vibrant a decade from now.”

Matt Mullenweg, 2014

The Rocket.net Team Speaks on Five for the Future

Rocket.net is a small company when compared to Matt’s 2014 version of Automattic. At that time he mentioned that 14 of 277 employees should be working on WordPress Core full time. As of March of 2022, they had over 2000 employees so you can imagine how many full-time (or equivalent) are working on Core (at least 100).

Currently, Rocket.net sponsors 3 contributors for a total of 23 hours per week across 5 teams: Core, Hosting, Support, Testing and WP-CLI.

Though we’re smaller, we know how important the future of WordPress is to us as a company and as individuals. We asked our contributors to share why it’s important to them.

“Being part of the WordPress ecosystem since 2013, I’ve seen firsthand how our collective contributions can shape a better digital world. Contributing isn’t just giving back; it’s also joining a collaborative, open-source community” ~  Syed Naqi – Sr. Platform Engineer

“Contributing to WordPress is a great way to not only learn more about WordPress but also makes it a better product for the future. I’ve been working with WordPress for 6-7 years now, and I feel it’s our responsibility to give it back.” ~ Mehedi Hassan, WordPress Engineer

“I’ve always wanted to leave a digital signature behind me within the open-source ecosystem, I was thankfully able to contribute to WordPress Core to help make it better. This entire experience has simply been amazing. I hope the collective signatures of the WordPress Community will make a better worldwide experience, not just for us but for future generations to come.” ~ Zunaid Amin, WordPress Engineer

How Do You Get Involved in Five For The Future?

The easiest way to jump right into contributing to the Five For the Future Program is to take a look at the dedicated issues on GitHub.

You can also join the Core, Documentation, Support, and other teams on Make.WordPress.org. Most of the teams have weekly meetings on WordPress Slack. Easy peasy. Set aside a couple of hours a week (5% of a 40-hour work week is 2 hours) or do one full day a month. Whatever works best for you and your schedule. 

Be sure to enter your pledge on the Contribution tab of your WordPress.org profile and which team you’re committing to.

The Future of Website Hosting Invests in WordPress

There is no Future of WordPress without investment. We invest in each other, our ecosystem, and – more importantly, our clients. Want white glove service? No problem. Regardless of the plan you choose, we help you migrate your website. Need to migrate several? We got your back.