A Year in Core – 2021

Here’s some aggregate data for 2021 about WordPress CoreCore Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress. contribution on TracTrac An open source project by Edgewall Software that serves as a bug tracker and project management tool for WordPress.. Please note: it only include code contributions and it does not include contributions on GitHubGitHub GitHub is a website that offers online implementation of git repositories that can easily be shared, copied and modified by other developers. Public repositories are free to host, private repositories require a paid subscription. GitHub introduced the concept of the ‘pull request’ where code changes done in branches by contributors can be reviewed and discussed before being merged be the repository owner. https://github.com/ repositories like GutenbergGutenberg The Gutenberg project is the new Editor Interface for WordPress. The editor improves the process and experience of creating new content, making writing rich content much simpler. It uses ‘blocks’ to add richness rather than shortcodes, custom HTML etc. https://wordpress.org/gutenberg/.

The raw data for this post are on this public spreadsheet. You might find that easier to read if you have low vision or colorblindness; the graphics below are a snapshot pulled together to include as much information as possible in this blogpost.

General Trac overview

In 2021, the WordPress Core team shipped 1852 commits. 2797 tickets were opened, 2732 tickets were closed, and 408 were reopened.

Also, 2572 people contributed to WordPress source code using Trac, and 305 people made their very first contribution to WordPress Core ♥️

JanFebMarAprMayJunJulaugSepOctNovDecTotal
Commits6217511097142286174175103573271441852
Tickets closed236315372147182355248210157882711512732
Tickets reopened263345212537773622193136408
Tickets created2002803711771973202882971611261901902797
New contributors144314223537151218147110305
Contributors120229165117280400154132156905551742572
This chart can be scrolled horizontally

Check out the Trac timeline in the graph below:

Here’s how many props and new contributors the Core project had per month. The most prolific month was November, in the WordPress 5.9 betaBeta A pre-release of software that is given out to a large group of users to trial under real conditions. Beta versions have gone through alpha testing in-house and are generally fairly close in look, feel and function to the final product; however, design changes often occur as part of the process. cycle, followed by June (WP 5.8 beta cycle).

Components activity

How did 2021’s commits break out by Core Component?

The most prolific components were:

  • Build/Test Tools with 310 commits (17% of all listed commits)
  • Docs with 198 commits (11% of all listed commits)
  • Editor with 188 commits (10.5% of all listed commits)
  • Bundled Themes with 144 commits (8% of all listed commits)
  • Coding Standards with 140 commits (8% of all listed commits)
  • Then comes Media, REST APIREST API The REST API is an acronym for the RESTful Application Program Interface (API) that uses HTTP requests to GET, PUT, POST and DELETE data. It is how the front end of an application (think “phone app” or “website”) can communicate with the data store (think “database” or “file system”) https://developer.wordpress.org/rest-api/., Code Modernization, External Librairies, Administration, Upgrade/Install, Site Health and Posts/Post Types. The other components each had fewer than 30 commits this year.

Data fetched from WordPress.orgWordPress.org The community site where WordPress code is created and shared by the users. This is where you can download the source code for WordPress core, plugins and themes as well as the central location for community conversations and organization. https://wordpress.org/ profiles

The data below comes from matching contributors’ usernames, as mentioned in Trac props, with their profiles on WordPress.org. One caveat: usernames that did not match a profile on dotorg, or that left blank their country/company information, filled in non-exploitable info got ignored. After all, “The Universe” or “The place to be” are not known countries 😆

Contributions by country

The next graph shows the number of props received by country. The top eight countries, based on the number of props received, are these:

  • United States with 1142 contributions
  • France with 266 contributions
  • Russia with 227 contributions
  • The Netherlands with 225 contributions
  • India with 219 contributions
  • Australia with 211 contributions
  • United Kingdom with 112 contributions
  • Canada with 102 contributions

Contributors (people) by country

In 2021, people from more than 56 countries contributed to WordPress Core.

The top eight countries by contributions, expressed as the number of props received, are:

  • United States with 155 people
  • India with 58 people
  • United Kingdom with 34 people
  • France with 26 people
  • Germany with 23 people
  • The Netherlands with 20 people
  • Canada with 16 people
  • Australia with 15 people

Contributions by company

In 2021, people from at least 236 companies contributed to WP Core.

These companies each contributed (well, their people did) to more than 50 commits:

  • Automattic with 785 contributions
  • Yoast with 379 contributions
  • Whodunit with 215 contributions
  • Advies en zo with 191 contributions
  • Bluehost with 146 contributions
  • Human Made with 131 contributions
  • Google with 87 contributions
  • iThemes with 73 contributions
  • Dekode Interaktiv with 52 contributions

Contributors (people) by company

The graph below is also interesting, because it shows that a huge number of companies have only one contributor—or a very few contributors. The exceptions are Automattic, with 85 core contributorsCore Contributors Core contributors are those who have worked on a release of WordPress, by creating the functions or finding and patching bugs. These contributions are done through Trac. https://core.trac.wordpress.org. on Trac in 2021, Yoast (18 contributors) and 10up. Only those three companies had more than ten people credited on Trac in 2021.

What did 2021 hold for Core Committers?

33 Core Committers committed code to the WordPress SVNSVN Subversion, the popular version control system (VCS) by the Apache project, used by WordPress to manage changes to its codebase. repository this year:

@sergeybiryukov (729), @desrosj (272), @hellofromtonya (159), @johnbillion (93), @peterwilsoncc (86), @ryelle (61), @audrasjb (59), @noisysocks (54), @joedolson (46), @gziolo (42), @timothyblynjacobs (38), @youknowriad (38), @davidbaumwald (31), @antpb (26), @whyisjake (20), @jorbin (19), @azaozz (18), @jorgefilipecosta (15), @johnjamesjacoby (13), @ocean90 (12), @clorith (10), @spacedmonkey (9), @adamsilverstein (8), @flixos90 (7), @jffng (6), @pento (6), @iandunn (5), @mikeschroder (4), @westonruter (4), @joemcgill (3), @rachelbaker (2), @isabel_brison (2), and @swissspidy (1).

Of the 1852 commits, 729 were made by people working at Yoast, 426 from employees of Automattic, and 272 came from Bluehost people:

Thanks to @marybaum for the copy review and to @flixos90 and @adamsilverstein for proofreading.

#contributions, #contributors, #team-update, #week-in-core, #year-in-core