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The WordPress community works hard on diversity and inclusion in all areas, are we doing ourselves a disservice by restricting speaking/sponsorship of WordCamps.
Is this a mixed message?
Could you specify what restriction you refer to? If you mean the restriction that speakers/sponsors need to follow the WordPress license, I’m not sure I see that as a diversity issue at all. Seems like asking that folks speaking/sponsored at events being organized under the umbrella of the WordPress Foundation to be in line with the WordPress license shouldn’t be burdensome…
If you mean another restriction, please clarify 🙂
What I think Peter may be referring to (and please do correct me if I’m wrong) is that for WordCamps sponsored by the WordPress Foundation one of the requirements has historically been that you must be a supporter of the GPL.
This has lead to situations like the 2010 debate with Chris Pearson at DIYThemes over Thesis. As well as some members of the Envato community being asked not to speak at WordCamps:
http://torquemag.io/org-envato/
Both of these events have created some ripples in the community.
To phase Peter’s question another way perhaps, what are the requirements to be a speaker/organizer of an offical WordCamp/WordPress event and should we look at if they are effective?
Yeah, I’m well aware of those issues (and the Envato dustup caused Envato to finally enable their authors to offer truly GPL licenses… which seems like a good thing).
I’d be happy to discuss this, but I don’t see it as an issue (and definitely not a diversity issue). WordPress/the WPF/WC Central only supports and promotes those products that pass on the same freedoms as WordPress itself (i.e. licensed with the GPL or compatible). Any previous debates around this have pretty much settled down.
As far as I know the only people who’ve had to bow out for failure to respect the license were white English-speaking dudes, not exactly a diversity issue. If there is a real diversity issue, please specify. If it’s more of a desire to remove the GPL requirement, I’m afraid that is unlikely to change for official events, since without the GPL we wouldn’t exist and respecting the license is a bare minimum.
The people I know (& would like to hear from) are from non-english-speaking backgrounds and non-mainstream religions. The white guys just get the attention when they speak out.
I agree, people breaching the GPL should be excluded. It is the groups above – and a diversity of GPL compatible business practices – that I am interested in hearing from.
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