A presentation at All Things Open by Francesca Marano
Selfish contribution
Ciao! Sono Francesca Marano ● WordPress core team lead at Yoast ● Release co-lead WordPress 5.3 and 5.4 ● https://noti.st/francescamarano @FrancescaMarano
Accidental OSS contributor @FrancescaMarano
My path ● 2010 - WordPress freelancer ● 2011 - Translated a plugin I was using ● 2015 - Discovered organised contribution ● 2017 - Community team representative ● 2019/2020 - Co-lead two WordPress releases ● 2020 - Core team representative ● 2020 - Joined Yoast and full-time contribution @FrancescaMarano
The Cathedral and the Bazaar Eric S. Raymond @FrancescaMarano
Be selfish @FrancescaMarano
Step 1 - Pick a project ● You use it ● Needs fixing to allow you to move forward ● Just for fun @FrancescaMarano
Step 2 - Get involved with the project ● Partecipate ● Connect ● Be polite @FrancescaMarano
Step 3 - Learn from the project ● New tools ● New processes ● New skills @FrancescaMarano
Tangible results - individuals ● Knowledge ● Connections ● Opportunities @FrancescaMarano
@FrancescaMarano
Tangible results - companies ● Better product ● Knowledge ● Training ● Recognition @FrancescaMarano
Be selfless Be generous @FrancescaMarano
Step Up Step Down @FrancescaMarano
My experience ● Mentor ● Handover ● Delegate ● Document @FrancescaMarano
What’s in it for me? @FrancescaMarano
● Accomplishment ● Pride ● Validation ● Recognition ● Growth @FrancescaMarano
Make it better, give it back John Blackbourn @FrancescaMarano
Let’s continue the conversation Where? Online ● Yoast.com ● @FrancescaMarano ● @Yoast Francesca Marano francesca@yoast.com noti.st/francescamarano
Why do people contribute to the open source projects? If you’ve ever wondered this but never gotten involved before, you might want to know the value of spending time contributing to one.
All contributors do it for the greater good — making the web a better place — but we also do it for ourselves: to advance personally and professionally.
In less than five years Francesca went from being a small-town website maker to landing a dream job in tech and leading two releases of WordPress. In this talk, she will share some of the benefits you can get by contributing to open source, such as improved skills, increased reputation, and meeting new people.
The following resources were mentioned during the presentation or are useful additional information.
Yoast is very active in a number of communities. We sponsor many events and clubs in our hometown of Wijchen, The Netherlands. We like to make sure that our employees can help out in their communities by giving them free time off for volunteering. But we are not only supporting local communities because we’re very embedded in one huge worldwide community: that of WordPress.
Yoast sponsors dozens of WordCamps around the world, organizes events such as WordPress contributor days in our HQ and even supports valued WordPress community members with a special grant called Yoast Care. We just love to give back to the people that gave us so much!
A website that has information about all the teams involved in making WordPress with handbooks, how to get involved, tools, etc…
Great resource from GitHub to get you started on contributing to open source, where to find a project, etc…
The online essay.
Helen is the only female lead developer of the WordPress.org open source projects. She has been contributing for years, she led releases, projects, etc… Great talk for people new and experienced contributors.
During my first time as a release co-lead, I wrote a post about my personal experience and what I learned about myself in the process.
WordPress needs YOU!
Five for the Future is an initiative promoting the WordPress community’s contribution to the platform’s growth. As an open source project, WordPress is created by a diverse collection of people from around the world.
for free. You
can too.