 Okay, welcome everyone to today's online workshop from learn.wordpress.org. This is a guide to open source and WordPress. So welcome. Thanks for joining me today. In today's workshop will be talking about open source and WordPress so specifically will be going over the principles of open source and free software. What the GPL software licenses and what it provides. And finally why WordPress is an open source project and how this is important for both the users of WordPress and the contributors to WordPress. There's a lot to talk about in relation to the subject so my goal is to keep this discussion to an hour or less so that said here's what we won't be talking about today. You know, installing WordPress or any support for WordPress issues. We're focusing on open source principles today. So let's dive in. I'm curious what folks think just feel free to answer in the chat what do you think open source software is give folks a minute to answer in the chat. This is your definition of what open source software is Jerry answers open source free to use. Laura says resources available for free. Well, those are very those are good answers and they, they overlap here. So, Natalia says free to use and build by volunteers and a shell says community driven software. Welcome to open source.com open source software is software whose source code is available for anyone to view modify and enhance. So the term source code refers to computer instructions that are written by software developers in a programming language to manipulate the way software works. The proprietary software which is unlike open source software is distributed in the form of executable files where the source code has been compiled such that is that it's encrypted for computer use without the source code being available. If the source code were available without compiling and encrypting, then it would be possible to modify and study the program, which is what open source software provides which is the, the ability to read and modify the code behind the software. So, what WordPress is open source software, but it is also free software as some folks have mentioned in the chat. So let's talk about the concept of free software briefly. Do you think the definition of free software is. So we talked about in the chat that with that, you know, we think that open source means free software but interestingly, it's a separate but overlapping things so what do you think the definition of free software is feel free to share in the chat. Jerry mentions the platform is free. However, there can be purchasable and add-ins, such as plugins, themes, etc. Alrighty, well, I'll go ahead and move forward. So, as this quote from open source comm says the term free and I'm putting that in air quotes in free open source software refers to freedom and not the monetary costs. So the term that you may have heard freeware is generally used to describe software without a cost. So, there's a common misconception that the idea of free and open source software means that the software is free and price. The term free in free open source software refers to freedom and not monetary cost. So, though most free open source software is indeed free and price, the term free is referring to the freedom to use the software and source code as you please. To attribute the copyright to the person or group that created the software and the software will stay free and open source when it's distributed to others. Jerry also mentioned in the chat, another thought is the software is free, however, you still pay for hosting domains, etc. That's correct. So I do have another link here for more detailed definition of open source at open source.org. You can check that out when you have a chance. So more on free software. So free software refers to software that complies to the four essential freedoms to use, study, modify and distribute software for any purpose without any legal restraints. So these are the four essential freedoms of free software. Number one, the freedom to run the program as you wish for any purpose, the freedom to study how the program works and change it so it does your computing as you wish access to the source code is a precondition for this. Number two, the freedom to redistribute copies of the software so you can help your neighbor. And finally the freedom to distribute copies of your modified version of the software to others. So by doing this you can give the whole community a chance to benefit from your changes and access to the source code is a precondition for this. And so for more information about the very clear idea of the differences between free software and open source software. You can check out this link that I'm sharing in the chat. And so how do the four freedoms relate to WordPress. What do these four freedoms look like in WordPress. There's a software licensed under the general public license, which will often be heard shortened to GPL. So this license provides the user with the four core freedoms. So the first freedom which is the freedom to run WordPress can be run by anyone for any purpose. Number two, the freedom to study. Anyone can study any aspect of the WordPress code. Number three, the freedom to copy and share, which means WordPress can be downloaded and downloaded and shared with and by anyone. Freedom for the freedom to modify would be anyone is able to download and modify WordPress and distribute modified copies. Any work that's derived from the core WordPress software or requires the core software to run, such as plugins or themes. These inherit the GPL license WordPress derivatives can only be distributed under the same terms as WordPress itself. If a WordPress plugin or theme author doesn't license their software as GPL, they're limiting the rights of every WordPress user that uses their product, which in turn, also breaks the WordPress license. People are companies that don't embrace the WordPress license and protects the WordPress trademark are not eligible to organize speak at volunteer at or sponsor any official WordPress events. So when we refer to official WordPress events, we're talking about WordPress meetups and word, word camps. So we always make sure that folks that are contributing to the project are aligned with the GPL. So more of the GPL. All right, so the four freedoms that we just talked about, these are codified into the software, which is called the GPL. So the GPL is what is referred to as a copy left license, which is in contrast to the term copyright, since it flips the terms of the copyright onto the software. So this means that derived works can only be distributed under the same license terms. The license was originally written in 1989 by the Free Software Foundation and is the founding license for all open source software. Its goal is to protect the four fundamental freedoms that are considered the foundation of free software and rather than restrict distribution the GPL is used to specify the ownership of the source code and the terms upon which it may be shared. So if you make a piece of software that's that's licensed under the GPL and you make a derivative work of it. As I mentioned derivatives would be like plugins and themes. So you'll need to make sure that your version is also licensed under the GPL. This is important because if you don't are the GPL, the license to use the source program will terminate, and it would breach the terms of usage. Another good news is that the GPL makes it possible to create new projects based on existing ones as long as you stick to the same license. There have been a few different versions of the GPL over the years, but the one that WordPress is WordPress uses is called GPL v2 or later from the Free Software Foundation. So if a derivative work of GPL licensed software like WordPress is distributed in the original or modified form it needs to be licensed under the, the, sorry, I lost my place there. The licensee is the source program will terminate and it will breach the terms of usage as I mentioned. And so this makes it possible to fork the open source software project into a new project. The open source software project is under the same license. So if you haven't heard, you heard the term fork before in relation to software. This means to take the source code from an open source software program and develop an entirely new program. Alrighty. So as I mentioned, WordPress is licensed under GPL v2. And this is included the software of the copy of this license is included with every copy of WordPress but you can also read the full text of the license at this link that I've just provided in the chat. That was a lot wasn't it any questions so far let me take a look at the chat here. All right, that's so far. You're still with me. All right, so you might be wondering, is there a difference between open source software and free software. So open source software is characterized by public accessibility of its code, while free software focuses on the capabilities for using and sharing the software. So these terms overlap somewhat, but they're not interchangeable. So you'll see in the middle, they're overlapping to what you see here is fos s or fos. So the abilities and conditions given to software users depends upon the particular software license involved. And there are variations on the licenses used for open source and free software. So the additional terms. And additional terms for describing these overlapping ideologies for software projects so which, for example fos fos which is free and open source software. And you might see around floss f l o s s so that stands for free slash Libra l i d r e, which means no cost open source software. So here's a question from Jerry in the chat. Is this how companies such as elegant themes Divi can sell access to their products, even though they are they are under GPL. Yeah, that's a that's a good question. We do go over how folks make money with WordPress a little bit later but to answer this question briefly. So like premium themes, they often have a free version of that theme or plug in and with the like the premium version gives you like support and updates like guaranteed support like access to support after that, after you pay for the premium but again we'll talk more about that later. So thanks for the question. All right so moving forward with the principles of open source software. So these principles are described in this book that you see here that's called the cathedral and the bizarre by Eric Raymond. There is a free version of this book online so you know, if you like paper books, you feel free to order one but there. Here's a version online. So I shared a link in the chat to a copy of this book. So in this book, Raymond talks about the rise and growth of opens of the open source software movement. So it primarily focuses on the Linux project. So Linux was one of the first efforts that provided that proved, excuse me, that the shift in approach to software development could not only work, but even work better than closed source methods that usually result in proprietary software. So these different approaches to software development by describing them as the cathedral and the bizarre. So the idea is to look at traditional closed source software as a cathedral, a Scott or even a skyscraper or any privately built architecture. Open source software is looked at as a bizarre or a marketplace. So in the cathedral approach software is built by a group of developers working in isolation that are focused on a central plan. You can find code, find bugs and fix as much as possible as part of a closed or private team and then maybe after a year or so they eventually ship the product and which is much like building a cathedral where everything is carefully crafted and installed before the doors open. This closed source method of development depends strongly on the skill and determination of the small group of developers. On the other hand, the open source method which we refer to as the bizarre here. This turns the idea upside down so instead of asking a few developers to work in private open source development opens up the software's imperfect source code and accepts contributions which would include bug reports, bug fixes feature requests, etc. We would accept those contributions from anyone who's interested in capable. So it's kind of like a bizarre or by modern standards that would be like a farmer's market or a fair kind of like you see in this photo here. And everyone brings what they're best at and contributes to a living thriving ecosystem. So based on conventional wisdom open source development shouldn't work. It should be a mess of diverse agendas and approaches, and lots of voices that don't necessarily agree. But open source does work as WordPress proves. So let's go over each of the principles of open source. And Alex in the chat mentions working in public by Nadia Igbal, I hope I said that right. That's another resource for those interested. Yeah, thanks for sharing that we'll check that out. All right, so the first principle of open source. This is with many eyes all bugs are shallow. Another way to say this is that the more people using the software in different ways are reviewing it the more problems will be that will be found rapidly so they can be fixed. Open source depends on that large group of vocal users, because the project can rely on many eyes. One person can report a problem and someone else can suggest or provide a fix. A third person or set of people can test to the fix and give feedback. And so with a large number of people using testing and fixing the product improvements happen more quickly and benefit a broader set of users. The more perspectives and use cases you have on a project or product, the more bugs you can find and fix and the better features you can design. So as Eric Raymond says, and I quote, the next best thing to having good ideas is recognizing good ideas from your users. A large contributor base will also mean that if someone loses interest in working on something it's possible and more likely that other motivated people will step up to work on it. For the highest quality observations and contributions from your user base. It is software project must make it easy to access its source code and be transparent about progress and challenges. If people can't read the source code they won't understand why the program does something in a certain way, and they won't be able to suggest better methods or install bug fixes. The next principle release early release often. So with an active community of vocal engaged users, those users will suggest changes or tell you about new features that they need. And hopefully, they'll provide patches and help test them. Quick responsive iterations means that contributors feel more satisfied and successful and keeps them coming back to help engage contributors are more likely to get involved in more complex and riskier projects. Contributors will respond when they're engaged and they're engaged when they see that their contribution is valued. So accepting contributions, even small ones from as many people as possible will mean that many more people will feel invested in the community, and they're more likely to contribute again. Put another way. Volunteers are paid in gratitude so they paid in ear quotes. In gratitude and influence. So the more often you create opportunities for quick iterations that respond to your contributor base, the more contributions you're likely to gather. All right, the next principle is scratching a personal itch. It's a very evocative statement. And I think we all understand what that means, which by just by reading it. So this principle is actually was considered the first lesson in the book. So this, which it says in the book that every good work of software starts by scratching a developer's personal itch. Because contributions to open source projects are usually volunteer work contributors are usually driven by some personal reason to work on a bug or feature. So this usually results in a developer or other kind of volunteer who approaches the problem with a strong motivation and a passion for solving it plus a personal experience, which informs their direction and creates and creates empathy for the end users of the feature or program. So this principle can turn the world's most effective can turn into the world's most effective recruiting tool. If the project avoids perfection and communicates transparently enough. So paying attention to where the program needs improvements and showing the impact that those improvements might have can make recruiting contributors even easier. So you'll notice that a lot of folks in open source, well specifically in WordPress, you may have noticed that we, we all work in the public we work in, you know, we post on the public blogs and talk in a public slack instance. So if folks can see the work that's being done. That way they can hop in where they feel like they can share their expertise. So simply put, with this principle, folks can't help fix it, unless they know it's broken. The final principle. Last but not least is egoless participation, because open source depends on transparency and participation product leadership and contributors must both work in an ego less environment. So the term ego less was coined by Eric Raymond to mean without ego or without an exaggerated sense of self importance. This knowledge base can only grow through transparency and all contributions are made to benefit the overall project and not any one person or business in particular. If the project is to iterate quickly then no one could be territorial about their code. As a matter of fact it's quite the opposite. If people are encouraged to look for bugs and potential improvements in a project, then the project naturally improves that much faster. Raymond comments in the book that bug hunting and criticism are always projects labeled, not person labeled. Raymond further observes that an open source communities boasting or self importance is suppressed because it behaves like noise, tending to corrupt the vital signals from experiments and creative and cooperative behavior. In the community, one's work is one statement authority in the community arises through high quality contributions that have a broad impact, which is what we call in WordPress a do walk or see. Within this context, it's important to remember that removing a person's name from a project history credits or maintainer list is absolutely not done without the person's explicit consent. The only idea that's packed into this concept is that of leadership, but no one leader. So this flat leadership structure and open source allows for more contributors to show leadership and for a project to iterate more quickly. Ego driven self promotional behavior also serves to build trust amongst the contributor community. Often open source projects will bring people together from different parts of the world and vastly different lived experiences. When you all have it in common is your interest in building or improving a collective project. The willingness to collaborate will frequently depend on the belief that your fellow contributors share the same priorities. And that was the four principles of open source. I just want to check if we have any comments or questions in the chat. None so far. Alrighty. So why, why choose open source as an end user developer or business manager why should one consider whether or not to use open source software. So some of the key factors. There is typically little cost, although some projects may add a small distribution fee. There is no contractual license. So instead the license outlines the rules for sharing the software is customizable and public forums and documentation support that. There is no vendor lock in for customization and bug fixes. And software projects can be adopted by new development teams. Actually WordPress is an example of that. Open standards are typically employed rather than proprietary standards and bugs and security issues can be quickly resolved with software patches. So today, some of the most popular applications in the world are open source software. So Android, Mozilla Firefox, LibreOffice, Git, and of course, WordPress. The WordPress open source project is maintained and advanced by a global community of volunteer contributors. So these contributors bring an incredible variety of experience and skills to this effort. Some contributors are sponsored by companies that built their businesses on WordPress and many more independent users who would use WordPress for any reason whatsoever. It's not necessary to be a software developer though, if you want to contribute to WordPress, although development is of course an important role. There are many other ways that any person can contribute to the project by assisting in support forums, writing or editing documentation, making language translations, helping with WordPress meetups or WordCamps, and even online workshops like these, like the one that you're in right now. These are all valid contributions to the WordPress open source project. So to learn about various teams working on WordPress and how to get involved, you can go to make.wordpress.org. There are, I think to this date, 21 different teams for all sorts of skills and talents, and I hope you could find some way to get back to WordPress with one of these teams. So the WordPress ecosystem includes anyone who uses or builds WordPress in any way. This includes not just the open source contributors, but also bloggers, web agencies, hosting companies, freelancers, companies that sell plugins or themes, community organizers, designers, small business owners, nonprofits, webmasters, site builders, security companies, and the list just goes on and on, but of course you are all a part of it. And Elise asks, didn't GPL used to mean a new public license? Yes, that's correct. Anyway, it does sound a little redundant to say GPL license, doesn't it? I see that said a lot. So a frequently asked question is, how do people make money with WordPress? The WordPress software itself has become a tool used across the world by a wide range of users. So its ecosystem also includes a booming economy of WordPress based businesses, which include software as a service, classes, web hosting, site building, security and other tools like premium plugins and themes, as we mentioned earlier. And Jerry asks in the chat, how would you counter that the idea that GPL might be considered out of date? It's a solid manifesto, but others try to monetize everything. I'm not sure when it was the last time the GPL was updated, but my personal thoughts on that is that it's a good basis and it's true that people try to monetize everything because we have to support ourselves. So as long as, as mentioned earlier, as long as any derivative works honor the GPL, you can find ways to make money like selling premium themes, premium plugins. And I think it was mentioned earlier in the chat about selling hosting, selling security software. Oh, thank you, Alex. GPL 3 was written in 2007. Yeah, I actually I don't know if I've heard of directly heard the idea that the GPL was considered out of date I'd like to like to hear more about that so if you have any resources that I could review I'd love to read about that. Speaking of resources. I have a lot of resources because we've gone over a lot in this session. So I will be sharing these a copy of these slides and after our session. I'll share it in the meetup group also share it alongside the recording on WordPress dot TV. So that way you can peruse these links at your convenience. So I wanted to call out the last link that's listed here. Learn WordPress has a course on open source basics and WordPress so you can test your knowledge about open source. So that's a good one to go over after this session or after you review review the rest of the resources that we've shared today. I'll go ahead and just share that link because the rest of these links are largely what I had shared earlier in the presentation I just wanted to have a complete list here. And as I mentioned at the beginning. I'd love for folks to keep in touch. So you can join the WordPress slack at chat dot WordPress dot org note that you have to have a an account on WordPress dot org which is of course free to create. So there's a channel in that slack called training, that is where the training team, including myself, we do our work on the resources at learn dot WordPress dot work. You can connect with me on master on our Twitter I've provided my user names there. I really are getting in touch if you're interested in contributing to learn print learn WordPress but if you're interested in contributing to the WordPress project at all. Please feel free to reach out with your questions. I've been a full time contributor to the project since 2016. And a little bit about contributing so yeah feel free to connect. So with the training team, you can help with online workshops like these, you don't necessarily have to present if you're not comfortable, but you can contribute to editing the content. Editing slash reviewing the content you can co host an online workshop. I know Laura who's here this today she has been a co host a few times, more than a few times really. And that means with helping us progress our goals. So let's see. I think that's it for content. I wanted to thank you all for learning with us today. If you want to learn more. And we have more online workshops and some video tutorials at learn dot WordPress dot org. So I wanted to check the chat. If you have questions. You're newbie and really trying to learn WordPress, you can install it and create rudimentary pages. But overall it can be a bit daunting to absorb and understand everything. Yes. We hope to with our resources at learn WordPress. We hope to make that a little less daunting. So if there's any particular subjects that you would like to learn about related to WordPress Jerry I'm sure you can find that unlearn WordPress but if you'd like to see another like workshop or tutorial on a particular thing and WordPress please let us know, or let me know. Alex asks, if we are interested in contributing to the WordPress project, what's a good way to get started or involved. It depends on your interests and skills. So, as I mentioned, one of the easiest no code ways to get involved with WordPress is to get involved with the community team. So the community team overseas like WordPress events, like WordPress meetups and word camps, and does a lot of outreach to folks. Another way is getting involved with the training team like, like we're doing today workshops, reviewing content. Reviewing slash editing content is an easy way. Laura mentions that yeah she started as a co-host for the training team. Another way is taking notes for a training team meeting and any of the teams if they do take notes at their other meetings. That's a good way to get to know the work that a particular team is doing. Also review lesson plans as Laura mentioned. Oh yeah, submitting photo to the photo directory. I keep forgetting about the photo team because they're fairly new. If you're interested in photography, you can submit photos to the photo directory. You can also provide a link there. Perfect. Yes. I think that's it. Alex, if there was their particular like skill that you would like to contribute to the project or again, like what do you do with WordPress that you would like to attribute to? Yeah, so like maybe the core team. So like attending the core team meetings in Slack. So I think they purely just do those on Slack. Just sit in on them, see what happens, what they talk about during these meetings. So yeah, make.wordpress.org. You can learn about all the different teams. Working with headless WordPress and want to make sure our use of WordPress is represented too. Yeah. That's a scratching your scratching your personal itch. And if you're a plugin developer or you're interested in developing plugins, you can contribute to the plugins team. So Laura mentions the Triad Meetup where you're doing an overview of 6.2. Yes. Yeah, join your local WordPress Meetup. There are last I checked it was like over 800 WordPress Meetups worldwide. So you're likely to find some a Meetup group that is close to you. One of them are still doing Meetups online like this. But it's, I would say actually that's the easiest way to to get involved just attend your local WordPress Meetup. See what folks are talking about. And, you know, sometimes you'll have an opportunity to contribute some Meetups will do standalone like contributor days where you contribute to a particular team. And getting involved your local community is something I highly recommend. All right, folks, if we have no other questions or comments. We will wrap up for the session. I will be doing the session again in many hours, close to the end of my day to hit another time zone. So you're welcome to join that as well. Or let your folks know on the other side of the world to that they can join. Oh, yes. Thank you. Thank you Laura for answering Natalia's question I just missed that. Yeah, who contribute with code. Yes a bit scary to it's intimidating for sure. Great to know that the community I would say if you're more comfortable with non technical contributions. That's a good way just get your foot in the door and feel, get a feeling for the community. Yeah, you can always try out different teams. There's no rule that like once you commit to contributing one team that you're stuck with it. We always welcome folks to hop around. I personally started with the community team. I'm now with the training team, primarily, I've also contributed to the TV team which puts on all the these videos online. And we've contributed. I guess briefly, it's all my word pressed out hard profile that I've contributed to the core team, even though I'm not a coder I helped with with the development of a plugin that was on the repo so they put my name on that plugin and maybe a plugin and core contributor. So really good advice from Laura to join and observe. And when you get more comfortable start contributing more so that's really great advice. Yeah, I'm also the kind of person that likes to like observe for a little while and then to try to understand where I fit in so yes, I agree with you Laura. All right, I think that might be it. Thank you all for being here. Keep in touch, and we'll see you at another workshop soon. Thank you all for being here.