November 10, 2025 — Open Source projects aren’t just about code. They’re about the people driving them behind the scenes. As AI tools become smarter and more capable, we face new challenges.

How do we integrate these tools tactfully without losing what makes WordPress special? How do we utilize AI without eliminating low-friction paths for new contributors? How do we remain deliberate as we’re able to solve problems and implement faster?

In this talk, we’ll explore the thoughtful, sometimes uncomfortable ways AI is reshaping how we collaborate, make decisions, and maintain trust in an Open Source project like WordPress. Let’s talk not just about what we can automate with AI, but what we should.

June 10, 2025 — Every day countless WordPress sites are compromised or hacked. This simple fact has led site owners around the world to ask one question: why is WordPress so insecure? The reality is the exact opposite. With a security team composed of many experts and security researchers constantly working to patch all discovered vulnerabilities, a fresh WordPress site in isolation is incredibly secure. Security is a journey, a process, a practice, and a mindset. The security of a website begins with an authentic copy of the WordPress software and ends wherever you and your team lead it. This session will teach you how to think with a security first mindset, how to write secure code, and how to protect your site against the number one threat: humans.

June 7, 2025 — Every line of code added, removed, modified, or intentionally left unchanged in WordPress impacts millions of websites and hundreds of millions of users worldwide. But who decides what changes make it into Core, and how are those decisions made?

This talk takes you behind the scenes of WordPress Core development, shedding light on the decision-making frameworks, philosophies, and trade-offs that shape the platform. We’ll explore what factors determine whether a feature gets merged, a bug gets fixed, or a change is too risky—all while balancing backward compatibility, security, stability, and long-term maintainability.

Whether you’re an aspiring Core contributor, a plugin or theme developer, or a business owner curious about how WordPress evolves, this session will give you a deeper understanding of the thought process behind decisions that impact an entire ecosystem from a 6+ year Core committer with over 12 years experience contributing to WordPress.

Presentation Slides »

October 11, 2024 — Last September, a small but nasty bug was added to the WordPress Core code base and remained undetected until 6.4 was released in November.

Once the severity was clear, Core contributors worked around the clock to determine the appropriate fix, getting a new release out to the world in less than 8 hours from start to finish. Let’s examine what happened during this moment in the project’s history before zooming out in a case study of release management. Lessons the project learned will be shared in a way that you can relate to, allowing you to use them in your own work.

This is a joint talk by Aaron Jorbin and Jonathan Desrosiers, two contributors with over a combined 26 years in contribution experience. They have each led multiple minor and major WordPress releases, are both core committers and members of the WordPress Security team.

April 9, 2024 — Ensuring contributors feel appreciated is essential to the success of any open source project. In its 20+ year history, there have been over 5,400 unique contributors listed on the Credits pages for each version released. But even as one of the largest current FOSS projects powering 43%+ of the Internet, this number is inaccurate and low.

Have you ever considered what a contribution actually is? Where does it come from? Who is contributing and how? How are contributions tracked? What does recognition mean to contributors? And why is the number above lower than it should be?

Come learn about the types of recognition the WordPress project currently has, where the blindspots are, what the challenges are at scale, and what’s being done to overcome these obstacles in order to ensure every contributor feels appropriately recognized to create a more stable supporting community.

October 13, 2023 — As of 2023, WordPress is the most popular content management system in the world that also powers a global economy estimated to be worth billions of dollars. However, no corporation owns WordPress – it is open source and maintained by a global community, and it needs steady contributions to grow and thrive. Many WordPress companies support the project through the Five for the Future program by sponsoring up to 5% of their employees’ time to contribute to the software. Pledging contributions to WordPress will not only ensure the project’s long-term sustainability but will also offer tangible benefits and growth opportunities for individuals and companies.

This session will be in a panel discussion format that will bring together four seasoned WordPress contributors to share about their contribution journeys. We will discuss Five for the Future and explore various available growth opportunities as part of the program. The discussion will also explore how companies can set up their own internal contribution teams and how they can contribute efficiently and grow alongside the project. Together, we will explore how individual contributors of all experience levels can start their contribution journey through WordPress and use it to build a successful career. The discussion will delve deep into contributor sponsorship opportunities as well.

September 10, 2023 — In late 2020, WordPress Core started a multi-phase migration to move its automated testing to GitHub Actions. This talk will revisit this process to share what was learned along the way while gaining an understanding of the CI/CD concepts in GitHub Actions and how they can be used in your own projects.

September 13, 2022 — Moderated by @greenshady, the walk-through began with a planned feature review by @matveb that included the TT3 default theme, a refined template experience, fluid typography, and locking tools, amongst other features. Following the demos, the participating release squad members @davidbaumwald, @jeffpaul, @ndiego, @richtabor, @mikachan, and @desrosj spoke about the scope of their respective team’s release work. Closing out the event, the panelists fielded questions from the 80+ live attendees.

Speakers: David Baumwald, Jeff Paul, Jonathan Desrosiers, Justin Tadlock, Matías Ventura, Nicholas Diego, Sarah Norris

Thank you to the panelists, the WordPress 6.1 release squad, and contributors, @dansoschin, @priethor, and @jpantani for making this a successful walk-through.

November 18, 2021 — The WordPress project uses the Trac ticket tracking software to manage all tickets related to WordPress Core. However, Trac presents a lot of information, and is often overwhelming for new and experienced contributors alike.

This video will teach you everything you need to know about creating, updating, and browsing tickets so that you can effectively contribute to WordPress using Trac.

June 27, 2019 — Performance is something at the forefront of every site owner’s mind. A slow site will always scare off impatient users and customers. But how can you make your site faster without adding hardware? The answer: caching.

Let’s roll up our sleeves and dig into the different types of caching and how they relate to your WordPress site. If you are wondering how to improve your plugin or site’s performance, then this is the talk for you. Leave with an understanding of the different types of caching and when each type is appropriate so you can improve your site’s performance and conversion rate and start cashing larger checks.