Keynote from WordCamp Maine 2014 in Portland. Archimedes said give me a lever long enough and a fulcrum to place it on and I will move the world. The WordPress software project is that lever, and the WordPress community is that fulcrum - get involved!

1. John Eckman • @jeckman • #wcme14
B U I L D I N G S O F T WA R E & B U I L D I N G
C O M M U N I T Y: T H E P OW E R O F
WO R D P R E S S
WO R D C A M P M A I N E 2 0 1 4

2. A B O U T M E
• 1998: PhD in American
Literature and Culture
• 1999-Present: Design and
Build of Digital Experiences
for Clients, at Agencies:
Developer, User Experience
Designer, Project Manager,
Strategist, Director
• Currently CEO at 10up
• (Why yes, we are hiring)

3. – A R C H I M E D E S
“Give me a lever long enough and a fulcrum on
which to place it, and I shall move the world.”

4. – S I R T I M B E R N E R S - L E E
“I have always imagined the information
space as something to which everyone
has immediate and intuitive access, and
not just to browse but to create.”

5. John Eckman • @jeckman • #wcme14
T H E F U LC R U M -
C O M M U N I T Y

6. – J E R E M I A H O W YA N G
“Communities are bodies of people loosely
joined together by a common interest that
exchange information using web tools.”

7. “There’s really only one rule for
community as far as I’m concerned . . . in
order to call some gathering of people a
‘community’, it is a requirement that if
you’re a member of the community, and
one day you stop showing up, people will
come looking for you . . .”
– A D A M F I E L D S

21. M A K E
WO R D P R E S S
Whether you’re a budding
developer, a pixel-perfect
designer, or just like helping
out, we’re always looking for
people to help make
WordPress even better.
If you want to get involved in
WordPress, this is the place to
be. We’ve got blogs for each
contributor group, general
news, and upcoming events.

22. – J O H N N Y A P P L E S E E D
“Type a quote here.”

23. John Eckman • @jeckman • #wcme14
T H E L E V E R - C O D E

24. WO R D P R E S S
R E L E AS E S
WordPress powers ~19% of
the web.
Running the spectrum from
individual hobby blogs to
major commercial media
outlets

26. John Eckman • @jeckman • #wcme14
T H E F O U R F R E E D O M S
• The freedom to run the program as you wish, for any purpose
(freedom 0).
• The freedom to study how the program works, and change it so it
does your computing as you wish (freedom 1). Access to the
source code is a precondition for this.
• The freedom to redistribute copies so you can help your neighbor
(freedom 2).
• The freedom to distribute copies of your modified versions to
others (freedom 3). By doing this you can give the whole
community a chance to benefit from your changes. Access to the
source code is a precondition for this.

27. F R E E AS I N
W H AT ?
Free / Open Source Software is:
A. Free as in Beer
B. Free as in Speech (or Free as in
Freedom)
C. Free as in Puppies
D. All of the above
The “free as in puppies” meme
captures accurately that open
source software still requires
“care and feeding” – but so do
proprietary platforms!

28. “Type a quote here.”

29. John Eckman • @jeckman • #wcme14
P O S T- L I C E N S E WO R L D?

32. John Eckman • @jeckman • #wcme14
T H E O P P O RT U N I T Y F O R
WO R D P R E S S I S T H AT I T I S B OT H
A C O M M U N I T Y A N D A C O D E B AS E

33. http://teleogistic.net/2014/08/free-software-free-labor-and-the-freelancer-
wordcamp-nyc-2014-keynote/

35. “Tux, the Linux
Penguin, is beginning
to nibble away at the
grim view of
humanity that
breathed life into
Thomas Hobbes’s
Leviathan.”
– Y O C H A I B E N K L E R

36. John Eckman • @jeckman • #wcme14