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The term alpha here doesn’t really mean anything at all. It kind of makes sense when you are talking about unreleased software or limited previews (like a beta channel) but when the software has been released publicly for over a decade, it’s not an alpha anymore.

That's irrelevant here. They said what Alpha means to them: their code for internet based multi-player needs an overhaul.

Is the any public notice like a blog post or a github issue that that's what they're waiting on and are looking for help with?

See https://trac.wildfiregames.com/roadmap But basically more threading and optimizations. We're looking for experienced C++ programmers mainly. Javascript experience is mostly needed for gameplay, ai, random map generation and GUI layout.

Here’s the list of open ‘networking’ related task if anyones interested.

https://trac.wildfiregames.com/query?group=status&component=...

Maybe they just stay with the "alpha release" icon like a brand. As you said, 26 releases mean that there took some hardening place.