Supporting Open Source Maintainers: A German Petition for Better Legal Frameworks
Open source software, as Jenkins, is the foundation of modern software development. Contributors maintain plugins, review pull requests, fix security issues, and support users, often alongside their regular jobs.
Many of these contributions happen in what is often called “Ehrenamt” (voluntary work), especially in Germany. However, the work done by thousands of volunteers for this goal is not recognized in Germany as volunteering, neither fiscally nor in terms of funding.
A Petition Addressing German Legislation
A German initiative is raising awareness for this challenge and calling for improvements in the legal and structural framework for open source contributors:
The goal of this petition is to encourage German legislators to improve the current situation for open source maintainers. It highlights that open source has become critical digital infrastructure, yet the people maintaining it often lack proper recognition and supportive legal conditions.
While the initiative is focused on Germany, its message resonates far beyond national borders.
Why This Matters for Jenkins
Jenkins is a community-driven project.
From core maintainers to plugin authors, documentation writers, and community organizers, Jenkins exists because people contribute their time and knowledge.
At the Jenkins Contributor Summit and many community discussions, one theme comes up repeatedly:
How do we make open source contribution more sustainable?
Maintainers face increasing challenges:
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Growing number of contributions and pull requests
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Rising expectations around security and quality
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Limited time and resources
These challenges are not unique to Jenkins, they affect the entire open source ecosystem.
German Contributors in the Jenkins Community
Jenkins has a strong and active group of contributors from Germany.
This is also reflected in the project’s leadership and governance. With contributors like Alex Brandes and Daniel Krämer serving on the Jenkins Governance Board, and roles such as the Events Officer Stefan Spieker being represented from Germany, the German open source community plays an important role in shaping Jenkins.
Like many others in the ecosystem, these contributors invest significant time into maintaining and evolving Jenkins, often alongside their regular professional responsibilities.
This makes the topic of better legal and structural support for open source maintainers especially relevant.
A Shared Responsibility
Open source is not just a development model, it is shared infrastructure.
Companies, public institutions, and individuals all rely on projects like Jenkins. Supporting maintainers is therefore not only a community concern, but also a topic for policymakers.
Initiatives like this petition aim to bring open source sustainability into legislative discussions and improve the framework conditions for contributors.
Looking Ahead
The Jenkins community continues to evolve, and so do the challenges around maintaining such a large ecosystem.
By supporting initiatives like this, we can help improve the framework conditions for contributors, both within Jenkins and across the broader open source world.
Because in the end, open source is built by people, and it depends on us to support them!
About the author
I started contributing regularly in 2019, with a focus on improving quality. I’m also keeping up with some older plugins that are still really popular, like the Thin Backup Plugin and the Job Configuration History Plugin. The community helped me to bring these back up to standard and I learned a lot along the way. Furthermore, I use these lessons to make regular improvements to the developer documentation.
In my day job, I’m a solution architect in a central team that provides Jenkins and DevOps consulting within a big automotive and industrial company.
