Hey @ryan. After some time off, I’m back, and I can already notice a lot of improvements to the admin theme. Great work!
I wanted to touch on the topic of the tight control you have over the project. I think I didn’t explain it clearly before, so let me try again. First off, I truly believe in your intentions and your commitment to ProcessWire — that’s never been in question. My perspective is just from someone looking at things with fresh eyes.
Since this project has been with you for over a decade, it’s totally natural that some aspects might go into autopilot or get a bit of tunnel vision. What I meant by "tight control" is that it feels like most things — or nearly everything — end up depending on you. A few things that stood out to me:
You're the only one who can commit. That can give the impression that there's a lack of trust in the community. I get that quality matters, but even the most successful open-source projects had to open up at some point. There are many long-time users and proven professionals here who could help with small fixes and improvements — which would make things move faster and ease the burden on you.
The master branch is still the default, even though folks on the forum have already pointed out that switching to the dev branch might help newcomers see the project as more active.
The development of the new admin theme, while impressive, also felt like a missed opportunity to leverage community input earlier in the process.
What exactly does “community” mean in this project? For many of us — like @bernhard and others — PW isn’t just a hobby, it’s the foundation of a businesses. That’s why transparency and shared involvement matter so much.
And just as a practical thought — what would happen if, for some unforeseen reason, you were no longer able to maintain the project? Things like GitHub access, the website, and the forum are all critical. It might be worth thinking about a foundation or even just a small board to help guide the future of PW together.
That’s the kind of "tight control" I was referring to, and I hope this version makes more sense. Again, I really do appreciate everything you’ve built — and I say all this in the spirit of constructive feedback and shared care for the future of the project.
All the best!