This past weekend at FOSDEM, I had a proud moment that had me reflecting on open source collaboration.
We all experience moments like this throughout life. On occasion it’s a result of my own efforts, such as finally publishing something I’ve spent a considerable amount of effort on. But it’s more common that the feeling is triggered by something someone else does.
Late on day 1 of the conference, fellow WordPress Core Committer Dennis Snell gave a talk in the Collaboration and Content Management track called Stronger interop through HTML and better tooling (recording can be found on the session page). The talk detailed how the HTML API within WordPress came about, the considerations that were made while building it, and how the end result has helped the broader web in addition to WordPress itself.
Dennis did a fantastic job! While I’m also a Core Committer, I have only been casually involved with this feature at best. It’s impossible to keep track of everything being worked on within a project as large as WordPress. His talk filled in many of the gaps of my knowledge, and I learned a ton!
Letting Go
When you’re involved with a project in a sustained and meaningful way, it can be difficult to “let go” of the urge to weigh in on as many tickets, pull requests, and discussions as you can. While it’s often true that you could add something that’s valuable or mention a non-obvious detail, knowing when to engage is a craft that requires consistent refinement and reflection.
When Dennis was presenting, I found myself thinking “I’m so glad he worked on this project.” He deeply researched prior art both internally and externally to WordPress, and he put a lot of care into thinking through what would be best for the users of the software. In the context of this challenge the users are primarily two groups: the developers interacting with the API and end users viewing sites with HTML manipulated by the API. Watching him present made me realize something important about collaborative work.
In many ways I was relieved. It was a great reminder to “let go”. We need to have confidence in each other to take on challenging problems and share that work openly, creating space for emerging contributors to learn and grow.
Impact On Others
As a number of thoughtful questions were asked following his talk, I couldn’t help but feel proud. Yes, I was proud of Dennis. But I was also proud of everyone that contributed to this feature in some way (he was certainly not the only contributor who invested time and effort into researching and building), and of the software that we all invest so much time and effort into maintaining.
There are so many incredibly smart and talented people who contribute to WordPress and open source. His talk not only reminded me to step back and trust others, but also of the impact we can have on our peers and colleagues by caring about our craft and sharing that generously in the open. Though we try our best, thoughtfulness can be really hard to detect through written communication. In-person presentations and discussions will always be the best way to share passion, enthusiasm, and care with other humans.
As contributors, we are solving real problems with solutions that don’t only benefit users of WordPress. In the case of the HTML API, the contributors working on this feature submitted bug fixes back to the HTML specification to benefit every single person building on and using the Internet. The impact that open source work has is unpredictable and surprising.
Being Project Ambassadors
As a senior mentor within the WordPress community, I’m often asked what it means to be an ideal contributor to an Open Source project. While the qualities of a good open source contributor are long established, I’ve been meaning to publish a “reloaded” breakdown for some time. This recording has been added to my list of examples to include when I finally get around to it.
To some degree, every member of the community is a representative of the project. But this is especially true for Core Committers. I couldn’t have asked Dennis to be a better ambassador for WordPress at the largest open source conference in the world. In an extraordinary way he represented the collective work of all our contributors and the way we advocate for our users above all else.
So thank you, Dennis. And thank you to everyone who contributes to open source. 
Featured image credit: CC0 licensed photo by Jennifer Bourn from the WordPress Photo Directory.
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