The Linux Foundation | 25 August 2025
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Foundation to increase awareness of the business value of the developer relations profession
AMSTERDAM – Open Source Summit Europe – 25 August 2025 – The Linux Foundation, the nonprofit organization enabling mass innovation through open source, today announced that the Developer Relations Foundation (DRF) is now a fully formed entity. The DRF is a community-driven project under the Linux Foundation, with a mission to elevate the professional practice of developer relations and increase awareness of it as a driver of business value.
Background of the DRF
Since the September 2024 intent-to-form announcement, the DRF has focused on establishing governance processes and working groups that address persistent challenges in DevRel.
Reflecting on data from the 11th Annual State of DevRel Survey, 2024, as well as direct feedback from the global Developer Relations Community, the DRF work over the last 12 months has focused on the following challenges within the profession:
- Connection - DevRel connects product, marketing, support, engineering and sales to align with business goals. However, 50% of survey respondents expressed a struggle with the awareness of the impact of DevRel.
- Misunderstood - The profession faces uphill battles with perception and clarity of purpose
- Alignment - There is a strong need to align with measurable business results. 61% of DevRel professionals in the survey agree they are challenged to prove impact.
"What started as conversations by DevRel professionals over the last few years has grown into something the entire community needed and wanted. We're solving real problems - no more explaining our role to confused hiring managers or reinventing community strategies from scratch. With the Linux Foundation backing, we're creating standardized frameworks, career paths, and metrics that prove DevRel's business impact. Built by practitioners, for practitioners." said Stacey Kruczek, developer relations leader & community growth strategist, the Developer Relations Foundation
Progress on Foundation Formation
Through the efforts of working groups focused on resource aggregation and community, the DRF has developed four open source projects to support the Developer Relations professional community, including a Persona Library with 24 definitions, a Tools Catalog with 36 definitions, an Events Directory, and community strategy frameworks and templates.
In addition, the DRF established the structure and selection process for the Steering Committee, with elections planned for November 2025.
“As a DevRel professional, I’ve seen firsthand how hard it is to explain the value of this work in a way that resonates with leadership. The DevRel Foundation is giving us the shared language, frameworks, and proof points to finally make that conversation easier—and to help the next generation of community builders start further ahead than we did.” said Jeff Bull, developer community leader and DRF working group lead
Looking Ahead
The DRF Discord community has seen 40% growth in the year since the announcement, with 28% growth in working group members over the last 6 months. As the Foundation moves forward, it invites feedback and contributions from DevRel and associated professions in the Discord community, existing working groups, and future projects.
More information on working groups may be found on the Developer Relations Foundation site here. For additional information and to get involved with the DRF, visit https://dev-rel.org/join-us.
Supporting Quotes
“I’m excited to continue supporting community builders, engineers, DevRel professionals, and other stakeholders as they join the Foundation to grow open standards, frameworks, tools, and best practices to advance the success of the DevRel profession”
—Ana Jiménez Santamaría, project management and coordination, the Developer Relations Foundation
“The work of the Developer Relations Foundation is important not just for DevRel professionals but for all technology leaders.Advocates, Evangelists and Community Managers do this type of work full-time, but giving them the support they need and at the same time enabling other roles to learn the tactics and understand their value will be a momentous step forward supporting developer communities.”
— Jayson DeLancey, DRF steering committee member and resources working group Innovation lead
About Developer Relations Foundation
The mission of the Developer Relations Foundation is to elevate the professional practice of developer relations and increase awareness of it as a driver of business value. For more information, please us at visit dev-rel.org.
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