Content Management, Web Development

Celebrating 20 years of WordPress!

Happy 20th Anniversary to WordPress!

KWALL has actively participated and made contributions to the realm of open source content management systems (CMS) from their inception. It is with great satisfaction that we observe the insightful conversation between the co-founders of WordPress, Matt Mullenweg and Mike Little, and Dries Buytaert, the founder of Drupal. 

Take a look at our favorites quotes from the talk on topics from human evolution to AI and megatrends of the next 20 years! Their insights and perspectives shed light on the future direction of the industry and offer inspiration for those interested in the ever-changing landscape of web development and open source software.

Open-Source Freedom

"So just because I knew no one ever read it. But on the opposite side, what open source does GPL (General Public License) in particular gives you? Freedoms and rights. And so as we are all trying to create a more free society, ... I believe like a fundamental human right is the four freedoms of open source, which is the freedom to use the software for any purpose, the freedom to see how the software works, the freedom to modify the software and the freedom to redistribute those modifications."

Matt highlights the importance of making contributions and improving the world through open source. He draws parallels between the evolution of life and the evolution of open source software, emphasizing the significance of the four freedoms of open source: the freedom to use, see, modify, and redistribute software. He expresses his desire to build a more free and autonomous world through open source!

Innovation

"But the beauty about open source is you have all of these people that can contribute their own version and even fork existing versions to make it better. And eventually, just like evolution and Darwinian, evolution sort of the best solutions bubble to the top and bad solutions tend to disappear. And it's a great way of innovating, it's a beautiful way of innovating.

It's open market in a lot of ways and a meritocracy of ideas can happen. That's why I've never, like Drupal and WordPress have never had beef ever. We have beef with proprietary software before when they've stolen our code ...

Unlike the occasional disputes that arise with proprietary software, Drupal and WordPress stand united in their shared vision of advancing the field of content management systems. The absence of any animosity or "beef" between them is a testament to the ethos of open-source development and the commitment to collective progress!

Megatrends 

"So if you're going to remember something that I said 20 years from now, it's that open source and AI are the two megatrends of the next 20 years. And the reason they're complementary is that GPT Four hasn't read Shopify's code. It's read Drupal's code, WordPress's code and all 55,000 plugins and everything else.

So it can write it. And if you ask it to write a website, it's going to write it in an open source thing. It's not going to write it in these proprietary things."

As AI continues to evolve, its ability to generate content, such as writing websites, becomes increasingly remarkable. The choice to rely on open source platforms for such tasks highlights the inherent value and trust placed in the collaborative efforts of the open source community. By leveraging open source technologies, the potential for innovation and creativity is amplified, empowering individuals and organizations to build robust, adaptable, and customizable solutions.