WordCamp US & Ecosystem Thinking  ## Metadata - Author: [[Matt]] - Full Title: WordCamp US & Ecosystem Thinking - Category: #articles - Document Note: --- tags: [#wordpress, #opensource, #leadership, #ecosystem, #mattmullenweg, #community] Author: [Matt Mullenweg] Source: [Matt Mullenweg's Blog] Reference: [https://ma.tt/2024/09/ecosystem-thinking/] date created: 2024-09-28 15:30 --- # Title: Ecosystem Thinking: Building an Inclusive Future for WordPress ## Table of Contents: - [📝 Summary](#📝-summary) - [📖 Main Content](#📖-main-content) - [🗒️ Notes](#🗒️-notes) - [📖 References](#📖-references) - [🗣️ Paraphrase](#🗣️-paraphrase) - [📰 Newsletter](#📰-newsletter) - [✅ Action Items](#✅-action-items) - [🧪 Hypotheses](#🧪-hypotheses) - [📊 Methodology](#📊-methodology) - [❓ Questions](#❓-questions) - [🔮 Future Research](#🔮-future-research) - [💡 Implications](#💡-implications) - [🧠 Learning Styles Assessment](#🧠-learning-styles-assessment) - [📊 Accessibility Assessment](#📊-accessibility-assessment) - [🌍 DEIB Assessment](#🌍-deib-diversity-equity-inclusion-and-belonging-assessment) - [✅ Logical Validity](#✅-logical-validity) - [🔍 SEO Evaluation](#🔍-seo-evaluation) - [🎯 Conclusion](#🎯-conclusion) ## 📝 Summary: In this blog post, Matt Mullenweg discusses the importance of "ecosystem thinking" within the WordPress community. He emphasizes how the strength of WordPress lies in its diverse ecosystem, which includes developers, designers, users, and companies that build on and contribute to WordPress. Matt explores how collaboration, inclusivity, and adaptability are key to ensuring that WordPress remains a thriving and open platform. By advocating for a more interconnected approach, he highlights the role each participant plays in fostering sustainability and innovation. ## 📖 Main Content: Matt Mullenweg introduces the concept of "ecosystem thinking," where every participant in the WordPress community is both a contributor and a beneficiary. He emphasizes that WordPress's strength comes from the diverse groups involved in its growth—from independent developers to large hosting companies. Matt also explores how maintaining openness and transparency helps keep the ecosystem healthy. He argues that for WordPress to continue thriving, everyone must work towards inclusivity and resilience. This means providing support for smaller players, enabling contributors with diverse skills, and ensuring that WordPress remains a platform accessible to all—whether they are experienced developers or users building their first site. He also touches on how strategic partnerships, community-driven initiatives, and openness to new technologies are vital to WordPress's evolution. ### 🗒️ Notes - **Ecosystem Thinking**: - A collective approach where every community member's role strengthens WordPress. - Collaboration is key—individual contributors, businesses, and users all play a part. - **Inclusivity and Diversity**: - WordPress must prioritize accessibility to support smaller contributors and new users. - Emphasizing diversity within the community creates a more resilient ecosystem. - **Sustaining Growth**: - Growth depends on collaboration and adaptability. - Encouraging partnerships and openness to new technology will help WordPress evolve. - **Challenges**: - Balancing commercial interests with community-driven goals. - Ensuring fair opportunities for contributors of all sizes to participate. ## 📖 References: - [Ecosystem Thinking by Matt Mullenweg](https://ma.tt/2024/09/ecosystem-thinking/) ## 🗣️ Paraphrase: 1. **Original**: "The strength of WordPress doesn’t come from any single company or person, but from the entire ecosystem working in harmony, with each part contributing something unique." **Paraphrased**: "WordPress draws its strength from the collective contributions of its ecosystem, where each participant adds a distinct value rather than relying on a single entity." 2. **Original**: "To thrive, we need to embrace change and be open to new partnerships, new technologies, and new contributors, because our future depends on staying adaptable." **Paraphrased**: "For continued success, we must welcome changes, forge new partnerships, adopt emerging technologies, and support fresh contributors, as adaptability is crucial for our future." ## 📰 Newsletter: ✨ **WordPress and Ecosystem Thinking: Building Our Future Together** In this issue, Matt Mullenweg shares insights on "ecosystem thinking" and how every part of the WordPress community—developers, designers, users, and companies—contributes to the platform's success. He emphasizes the importance of inclusivity, collaboration, and adaptability in building a sustainable WordPress future. From encouraging partnerships to keeping the platform accessible to new users, it’s all about ensuring everyone has a place. Discover what it means to be part of the ecosystem and how you can contribute! 🌿 [Read Matt's blog post](https://ma.tt/2024/09/ecosystem-thinking/). ## ✅ Action Items: This article reinforces the importance of open-source advocacy and contributor engagement, both of which are at the core of my work as a Developer Advocate. By focusing on ecosystem thinking, it provides a framework for growing WordPress sustainably while being inclusive and community-driven. These principles are aligned with my aspiration to lead an OSPO, as they emphasize fostering collaboration, inclusivity, and community-driven growth, all of which are critical for a sustainable open-source future. ## 🧪 Hypotheses: - Encouraging diverse participation within the WordPress community will lead to a more resilient ecosystem. - The success of open-source platforms like WordPress is highly correlated with their ability to adapt to new technologies and form strategic partnerships. - Fostering inclusivity and supporting smaller contributors will enhance WordPress's overall sustainability and innovation. ### 📊 Methodology: - **Surveys**: Conduct community surveys to assess the impact of diversity and inclusivity on contributor satisfaction. - **Case Studies**: Analyze the growth patterns of WordPress over the past decade, focusing on the role of partnerships and community-driven initiatives. - **Interviews**: Interview key contributors and smaller players to understand the challenges and benefits of their participation in the WordPress ecosystem. ### ❓ Questions: 1. How can we make the WordPress ecosystem more accessible to new and diverse contributors? 2. What role do strategic partnerships play in ensuring the long-term sustainability of open-source projects like WordPress? 3. How can ecosystem thinking be applied to other open-source communities to improve inclusivity and growth? ### 🔮 Future Research: - Investigate the effect of inclusivity programs on contributor retention rates in the WordPress community. - Analyze the balance between commercial interests and community-driven goals in maintaining a healthy ecosystem. - Explore the adoption of new technologies within WordPress and their impact on the community’s evolution. ### 💡 Implications: - **Community Growth**: Findings could guide initiatives aimed at fostering a more inclusive and diverse contributor base. - **Open-Source Governance**: Insights could be applied to develop strategies for balancing commercial and community-driven interests. - **Technological Adoption**: Understanding the role of adaptability could help shape future decisions about adopting emerging technologies within the WordPress ecosystem. ### 🧠 Learning Styles Assessment: **Visual Learners (Spatial)**: - **Present**: Minimal visual aids. - **Improve**: Include diagrams illustrating the interconnections within the WordPress ecosystem. **Aural Learners (Auditory-Musical)**: - **Present**: None. - **Improve**: Provide an audio version of the blog or a podcast discussing the ecosystem concept. **Verbal Learners (Linguistic)**: - **Present**: Rich language and detailed descriptions. - **Improve**: Add storytelling elements about contributors' journeys in the ecosystem. **Physical Learners (Kinesthetic)**: - **Present**: None. - **Improve**: Include practical exercises for readers to engage in community activities or small WordPress projects. **Logical Learners (Mathematical)**: - **Present**: Logical arguments supporting ecosystem think - Document Tags: [[Matt Mullenweg]] [[WordPress]] [[wpdrama]] [[wp engine]] - Summary: Contributor day just wrapped up for Portland for WordCamp US. If you ever have a chance to visit a WordCamp, I recommend it. It’s an amazing group of people brought together by this crazy id… - URL: https://ma.tt/2024/09/ecosystem-thinking/ Contributor day just wrapped up for [Portland for WordCamp US](https://us.wordcamp.org/2024/). If you ever have a chance to visit a WordCamp, I recommend it. It’s an amazing group of people brought together by this crazy idea that by working together regardless of our differences or where we came from or what school we went to we can be united by a simple yet groundbreaking idea: that software can give you more Freedom. Freedom to [hack](https://paulgraham.com/hp.html), freedom to charge, freedom to break it, freedom to do things I disagree with, freedom to experiment, freedom to be yourself, freedom expressed across the entire range of the human condition. Open Source, once [ridiculed and attacked by the professional classes](http://www.catb.org/~esr/halloween/), has taken over as an intellectual and moral movement. Its followers are legion within every major tech company. Yet, even now, false prophets like Meta are trying to co-opt it. Llama, its [“open source” AI model](https://www.llama.com/), is free to use—at least until “*monthly active users of the products or services made available by or for Licensee, or Licensee’s affiliates, is greater than 700 million monthly active users in the preceding calendar month*.” [Seriously](https://ai.meta.com/llama/license/). Excuse me? Is that registered users? Visitors to WordPress-powered sites? (Which number in the billions.) That’s like if the US Government said you had freedom of speech until you made over 50 grand in the preceding calendar year, at which point your First Amendment rights were revoked. No! That’s not Open Source. That’s not freedom. I believe Meta should have the right to set their terms—they’re smart business, and an amazing deal for users of Llama—but don’t pretend Llama is Open Source when it doesn’t actually increase humanity’s freedom. It’s a proprietary license, issued at Meta’s discretion and whim. If you use it, you’re effectively a [vassal state](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vassal_state) of Meta. When corporations disingenuously claim to be “open source” for marketing purposes, it’s a clear sign that Open Source is winning. [Actual Open Source licenses](https://opensource.org/) are the law that guarantees freedom, the bulwark against authoritarianism. But what makes Open Source work isn’t the law, it’s the ethos. It’s the social mores. It’s what I’m now calling **Ecosystem Thinking**: the mindset that separates any old software with an open source license from the software that’s *alive*, that’s humming with activity and contributions from a thousand places.  Ecosystem Thinking has four parts: 1. Learn 2. Evolve 3. Teach 4. Nourish **Learn** is about keeping ourselves in a [beginner’s mind](https://zenhabits.net/beginner/), the curiosity to always engage with new ideas and approaches. **Evolve** is where we apply those learnings to our next iteration, our next version. We see how things work in the real world: it’s the natural selection of actual usage. **Teach** is actually where we learn even more, because you don’t really know something until you teach it. We open source our knowledge by sharing what we’ve learned, so others can follow on the same path. **Nourish** is the trickiest, and most important part: it’s where we water the garden. If you’ve done the previous three steps, you’ve been very successful; now your responsibility is to spread the fruits of your labors around the ecosystem so that everyone can succeed together. This is the philosophy behind [Five For the Future](https://wordpress.org/five-for-the-future/), which you’re going to see us emphasize a lot more now. That’s the ecosystem. [But if it’s the yin, what’s the yang](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yin_and_yang)? This openness and generosity will attract parasitic entities that just want to feed off the host without giving anything back. There are companies that participate in the Learn/Evolve/Teach/Nourish loop like a [FernGully rainforest](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FernGully:_The_Last_Rainforest), and there are those who treat Open Source simply as a resource to extract from its natural surroundings, like oil from the ground. Compare the Five For the Future pages from [Automattic](https://wordpress.org/five-for-the-future/pledge/automattic/) and [WP Engine](https://wordpress.org/five-for-the-future/pledge/wp-engine/), two companies that are roughly the same size with revenue in the ballpark of half a billion. These pledges are just a proxy and aren’t perfectly accurate, but as I write this, Automattic has 3,786 hours per week (not even counting me!), and WP Engine has 47 hours. WP Engine has good people, some of whom are listed on that page, but the company is controlled by [Silver Lake](https://www.silverlake.com/), a private equity firm with $102 billion in assets under management. Silver Lake doesn’t give a dang about your Open Source ideals. It just wants a return on capital. So it’s at this point that I ask everyone in the WordPress community to **vote with your wallet**. Who are you giving your money to? Someone who’s going to nourish the ecosystem, or someone who’s going to frack every bit of value out of it until it withers? [Newfold](https://newfold.com/), especially since its acquisition of Yoast and Yith, gives back. (I’ve asked them to consolidate their Five for the Future pages to better represent the breadth of their contributions.) So does [Awesome Motive](https://wordpress.org/five-for-the-future/pledge/awesome-motive/), [10up](https://wordpress.org/five-for-the-future/pledge/10up/), [Godaddy](https://wordpress.org/five-for-the-future/pledge/godaddy/), [Hostinger](https://wordpress.org/five-for-the-future/pledge/hostinger-international/), even [Google](https://wordpress.org/five-for-the-future/pledge/google/). Think about that next time it comes up to renew your hosting or domain, weigh your dollars towards companies that give back more, because you’ll get back more, too. Freedom isn’t free. Those of us who are makers, who create the source, need to be wary of those who would take our creations and squeeze out the juice. They’re grifters who will hop onto the next fad, but we’re trying to build something big here, something long term—something that lasts for generations. I may screw up along the way, or my health may falter, but these principles and beliefs will stand strong, because they represent the core tenet of our community: the idea that what we create together is bigger than any one person. *(Hat tip to [Automattician](https://automattic.com/) [Jordan Hillier](https://jordanhillier.com/) for the great ecosystem image.)* [](https://ma.tt/2024/06/wordcamp-europe/), WordCamp US & Ecosystem Thinking, Matt, 01j81n33cnggbcymjmng0k41ws.