Mailing lists are the most important way to communicate in PEAR. We are running a number of public mailing lists, which are listed on the PEAR website. For starters the PEAR developers mailing list pear-dev@lists.php.net is the primary place where discuss various aspects of their packages and of the PEAR repository as a whole. pear-general@lists.php.net is a general support list that should be used for questions on using PEAR packages, installing PEAR, and other issues not directly related to the development of PEAR packages.

If you would like to get started with maintaining packages in PEAR, you are expected to be subscribed to pear-dev@lists.php.net. (Subscription instructions)

During your first steps in the PEAR community, you may stumble across the term "pear-dev", which is the abbreviation for the developers mailing list in PEAR's lingo.

Some people enjoy communicating via IRC channels. We are running the #pear channel in the EFnet network. Some of the most active PEAR developers hang out regularly on this channel. However, for serious inquiries or discussions, you should email the developers mailing list pear-dev@lists.php.net, as these discussions are the only official communication method of PEAR, and are archived for future reference.