ZAP Core Team to move to Linux Foundation
Wednesday, August 2, 2023
Congratulations to the ZAP Core Team
I want to express my heartfelt congratulations to two members of the ZAP core team, Simon Bennetts and Ricardo Pereira, for joining the Linux Foundation full-time. This move brings about something that Simon has long wished for, that is described in the Open Letter he mentions and that he talked about during his keynote address in Dublin 2022. That is, a place for him to work on ZAP full time, and a place for him to build a team around doing that, which means the money to do both.
This move does mean that these core developers of ZAP, together with Rick Mitchell will move their work on ZAP to the Linux Foundation as well. Andrew and I have laid out a plan with the core team to do this as smoothly and with as little impact on both the users of, and contributors to, ZAP.
We are sad to see the core leadership go, ZAP has been a big part of OWASP for thirteen-odd years and Simon, Ricardo and Rick are honoured and valued members of the OWASP community. That same community helped nurture and grow ZAP to the point it is now, and I hope will continue to support ZAP in the future.
Of course, ZAP’s move to the Linux Foundation does not mean we lose those three fantastic people from our community. Simon was until recently still an officer on the Projects Committee and, if he still has the time and space to contribute there, we certainly hope that he will continue to do so!
I said earlier that Simon mentioned the Open Letter in his blog post and I’d like to continue sharing the board’s strategy on how we are going to continue to address the project concerns raised there. We started sharing that strategy here and I’ll be writing up more details on the various parts over the next few weeks, with the rest of the board’s help. Actively working on things has begun too, with funding for some projects being processed, activities to increase funding opportunities being started, and marketing for the projects being put on rails to allow them to use it better and much more.