Every year, WordCamp Europe brings together thousands of WordPress enthusiasts from all over the world. Part of the Be API and Mediapapa team was in the game: debrief!
Edition in a few digits
2442 participants
81 countries represented
23% of Newbies (first edition)
Almost a quarter of the participants discovered WordCamp Europe for the first time. This figure alone tells something: the WordPress community does not turn in a vacuum. It continues to attract new profiles, new professions, new ways of doing things.
Developers, designers, project managers, entrepreneurs... Each composes its own agenda, according to its stakes or desires.
This year, the meeting was held in Krakow. A true discovery: a living energy, an old city preserved, welcoming inhabitants. If you don't know, you are strongly advised to go for a city-trip.
The WordCamp was installed at the Kraków Congress Centre in front of Wawel Castle.
« The organization was top: a neat branding, volunteers with little care, something to eat throughout the event. And between the conferences, we felt the desire of people to meet, to exchange. This human warmth is really unique to the WordPress community. » Tell Elisabeth.
Mediapapa, sponsor of the event
This year, there was another first for us: Mediapapa sponsored the WordCamp Europe.
For Jason and Nicolas, who held the stand, it was a great step: to confront Mediapapa with the expectations of an international audience of WordPress professionals.
And if for Jason, the terrain was not unknown, the experience was new.
« I managed the sponsors in the 2022 and 2023 editions, in Porto and then in Athens, and I was part of the organizational team in Turin. This year, for the first time, I was on the other side of the stand. ! »
On the first day, we didn't really have time to blow. Nearly 100 visitors came to discover Mediapapa. Some already knew the project, many discovered it. Demonstrations have chained up, questions too.
« We chained the demos, and people were really interested. At WCEU, there is no respite: there is a world permanently, even between conferences. » Nicolas
« The most important thing is to meet with the world, especially the other sponsors: 70 to 80 companies of all sizes and sectors, people you don't meet the rest of the year. » Jason
On an event like this one, we gain visibility and contacts that we would find nowhere else. More food for the road map.
Talks for all trades, and a background: l的IA
As every year, topics cover various themes: development, accessibility, design, business, content, open source... A lot of AI.
Artificial intelligence went through almost every conversation, either as a central subject or as a context.
Especially with WordPress 7.0, presented during the event, which now integrates a native AI client and connectors to the main models of the market. A development expected, but approached with some caution. The idea being to integrate these new uses without giving up what makes WordPress DNA.
Under this technical question, there was another, broader one: who controls the models? Data? The content generated?
This is where the open source comes back, not just as a legacy, but as a concrete answer to a question today.
The opening of the WCEU, provided by the CERN, gave the tone perfectly. The European laboratory of particle physics – where the web was born, literally – came to explain why he had chosen WordPress under GPL license for all of his online presence. And most importantly, why he intended to publish his own internal migration tool as an open source.
The message is simple: enjoying a common good is good. In return, it's even better.
The open source: a choice, not an acquis
Behind the usual enthusiasm of WCEU, a conference decided in its tone.
At its conferenceMarcel Bootsman recalled a truth that it is sometimes easy to forget: much of the software blocks on which the web is based is maintained by a handful of people. Sometimes one. Often volunteer. With, however, a huge responsibility.
This is not a situation at the margin, it is the real functioning of a large part of the open source ecosystem.
He took the opportunity to recall the Five for the Future program.
Its simple principle is to encourage businesses that use WordPress to devote part of their resources (time, skills or financing) to the project. Not by philanthropy. Because a common person remains alive only if those who benefit from it also contribute to its advancement.
In this context, and for the first time without Matt Mullenweg to close the event, Mary Hubbard, Executive Director of WordPress, spoke:
Open source is why WordPress has threed. The same value should shape AI. And the community should be much welder about it.
Mary Hubbard, Executive Director of WordPress
In other words: if the open source allowed WordPress to become what it is today, it should also guide the way in which we build the tools of tomorrow.
Why does it talk to us, and why does it matter?
At Be API, the open source guides our way of designing the web from the beginning. Not in principle, but because it offers something precious: the freedom to build on open, sustainable and manageable foundations.
And this conviction does not stop at the projects we develop. It also translates into our way of contributing to the WordPress ecosystem: by developing and sharing open source resources (such as Johannes or the DSFR recently), participating in Contributor Days or speaking at conferences.
For an agency that accompanies companies and large groups, this belief affects the way in which we advise, build and support over time.
Building on open foundations is:
- Keep your hands on technology. No lock by a publisher, no license whose rules can change overnight. The code remains auditable, evolving and can be changed without starting from scratch. –
- Build in time. A platform driven by a global community does not depend on a single supplier's strategy. This makes it possible to think of a project at ten years, rather than the next change in roadmap.
- Keep control of his data. At a time when AI redistributes maps, where they live, who access them, and what it is possible to do with them is no longer a technical detail. It has become a strategic issue.
Three dimensions, the same idea: do not entrust the foundations of his web to anyone else.
In conclusion
A beautiful edition, from which we go back with ideas, contacts (and a few dozen open tabs).
But that's not what we're holding back.
What marks each time is that thousands of people spend time building something that exceeds them. Documentation. A plugin. A conference. A discussion. A line of code.
As the AI pushes more and more actors to close their ecosystems, WordPress continues to defend another vision: that of a web that is built together.
So meet next year, in Malaga
And if the open source is a subject that talks to you, or you'd like to dig, we're always ready to discuss it!
