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I have been a participant in this project since almost the first days when it became open. And some time later, I received an invitation from the PowerShell team to become a community maintainer. Initially, several members of the PowerShell team actively participated in discussions and code reviews. At the same time, a minimum of time was spent on the release of new versions. A lot has changed since that time. Now we don't actually see the PowerShell Team involved. Almost all of their efforts are aimed at releasing new versions, and this is a huge number of commits. At the beginning of this year, my rights as a maintainer were actually blocked. If I accepted more than 100 commits from the community last year, now it's not possible. At the same time, the team members are still very friendly and express interest in actively working with the community. What is the reason for the current project problems? This is the current policy of MSFT as big corporate, which is set by the top management of the company. The PowerShell team is forced to follow this policy. Obviously, team members don't have the opportunity to discuss such topics publicly. The situation will change only when those who make decisions realize the problem. The bad thing is that for them it can only be a side effect of the larger tasks they are solving and which can be neglected. If someone (like an MVP and not just a PowerShell MVP) can have a discussion directly with them, then the problem can be solved.
I hope this frees up a lot of PowerShell team resources and saves us from a lot of noisy commits, so that we can work more on functionality together. |
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I think we are all very aware the team is working extremely hard and are dedicated individuals, exemplified by the relatively low turnover in the public part of the team. The net effect is still exactly how Jordan put it. I really have nothing further to add. |
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I'll be attending the MVP summit in person, and hoping to get a chance to have an in-person discussion with members of the PowerShell team regarding my concerns shared with many members of the PowerShell community. I've posted in the MVP summit Teams channel about this, if any other MVP attending wants to chime in. There's a lack of public communication, but I feel when things get to this level, there needs to be a few good private conversations about what's happening behind the scenes. In my mind, it's too late for the PowerShell 7.6 release, and my goal is to see what can realistically be done to make sure the same doesn't happen for 7.7 and future releases. I know there's a lot more than the release schedule that's concerning, but let's start with that. There's a good community around PowerShell, and it's a problem when the community feels left out and unable to contribute to its continued success. |
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Just as a neutral FYI, the team has published their 2026 investments plan: |
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My plans for this year were to move forward in several areas: full Unicode support (in particular emojis), completions (interface with default implementation), ConvertTo-Json (bugs and perofomance), nullable annotations and some others that were discussed, but now it's virtually hopeless. 😞 |
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@JustinGrote this post like the 2025 investments plan post was published I believe (yet again) because I reached out and reminded @SteveL-MSFT & others across the wider team that the community is looking out for this post each year. I hoped this year I wouldn't have needed to remind the team for it and that it would have been prepped and published ready for early Jan, but with recent PSGallery issues I reached out and emailed @SteveL-MSFT @SydneyhSmith @mgreenegit and mentioned about this post. I hope this can be something that isn't needed to be reminded for by me or others in 2027 and can be built into some form of system that the team actually monitors and responds to quickly. I feel that the team truly needs a community lead/s that sits between them and the community, that isn't via the MVP, RD, MGCI programs or partner programs & can take the load from the likes of @SteveL-MSFT & @theJasonHelmick & the rest of the team to get the messaging out & importantly quickly. Especially when there are issues with things like the gallery, as it's unfair & not aligned with those that understand the ITIL Framework to have a |
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The current situation kills enthusiasm for both PowerShell and contributing to it and related projects. It's a death spiral if not dealt with. |
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@jborean93 Thanks for raising this, as it helps massively that it's not just be me saying these things. Especially this
Was something that I asked last year to have all the monthly community call discussions created for the full year so that it isn't just a last minute |
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I’d like to raise some concerns regarding the recent progress and communication around PowerShell and related projects. I want to emphasize that I have a great deal of respect for the team and the individuals involved. However, as an external contributor and community member, I’ve found the past year increasingly frustrating.
From a development perspective, progress appears to have slowed considerably. This applies both to general PR reviews and to larger feature delivery. It has now been four months since .NET 10 reached general availability, yet we have not seen RC1 for PowerShell 7.6 based on this. There has also been very limited communication from the PowerShell team about timelines or expectations. As a user of PowerShell this is less of a pressing issue but as a developer of a product that uses PowerShell 7 this has started to become more of a critical issue and is making me rethink how we can support a product with an unreliable lifecycle.
The only substantive response I’ve seen came after a discussion was opened #26754 (comment), and even then, it required prompting from multiple community members after hearing nothing on the initial post. Since that response, there has been no visible follow-up addressing the concerns raised in that thread. This is a trend I have noticed where sometimes you get some communication on issues/PRs/discussions from someone in the team but nothing beyond the initial comment.
Similarly, with the monthly community calls, there seems to be a recurring lack of preparation and communication. The upcoming call is only a few days away, yet no agenda or discussion page has been published (that I have seen). At the previous meeting, the team acknowledged the delay in posting materials and indicated this would improve, but the same pattern appears to be repeating.
I also recently reviewed the 2025 roadmap published by the PowerShell team https://devblogs.microsoft.com/powershell/powershell-openssh-and-dsc-team-investments-for-2025/. Of the listed initiatives, only a small number appear to have been delivered this year (for example, MAR support and DSC v3.1). Several other items have associated RFCs but have not seen visible follow-up for months. Repository activity over the past year has also been heavily focused on build and release changes, while substantive feature work appears limited. Preview releases have additionally been missing expected components (such as the 7.6.0.preview6 release of System.Management.Automation in NuGet), which further contributes to uncertainty.
Delays can happen, and most community members understand that plans evolve. However, the more concerning issue is the lack of consistent communication. Without regular updates, even brief status reports, it becomes difficult for contributors and users to understand priorities, constraints, or realistic timelines. It is also frustrating from people in the community looking in to see a product they love and wish to succeed languishing.
Given the talent on the team, it’s hard to reconcile the current level of visible progress with the roadmap and community expectations. From the outside, it feels like there may be structural or organizational challenges affecting delivery.
I hope this feedback is taken in the constructive spirit in which it’s intended. Clearer communication about priorities, constraints, and timelines-even if progress is slower than anticipated-would go a long way toward rebuilding confidence within the community.
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