Jonathan Desrosiers, principal software engineer at Bluehost and long-time WordPress contributor and Core committer, joined the Jukebox Podcast to discuss how releases, events, and contributor experience can reinforce one another to strengthen WordPress after the disruptions of COVID.
Sponsored by Five for the Future, Jonathan spends most of his time on WordPress itself, focusing on processes that lower barriers to participation: mentorship, clearer procedures, automation, and removing blockers so new contributors can make meaningful progress quickly.
Releases and live events
A memorable experiment tied a major WordPress release to State of the Word, creating a theatrical, shared moment where contributors gathered to flip a symbolic “release” button. The aim of syncing releases with flagship events—WordCamp Asia, WordCamp Europe, WordCamp US, and State of the Word—is to turn what is often a Slack or social post into a tangible celebration that raises awareness and builds momentum.
Jonathan notes the previous timing had some luck involved, but intentional synchronization can produce meaningful communal energy. These moments let contributors and users celebrate together and make feature rollouts feel like cultural events instead of quiet background updates.
Practical constraints
Aligning releases with global events has limits. WordCamps are planned around local realities—budgets, holidays, venues—and Core can’t expect all organizers to schedule for WordPress’s release calendar. Holiday seasons and regional breaks compress development windows, making branching and feature-complete targets harder to guarantee. Global coverage matters too: release squads need participants across time zones so someone can triage issues while others are offline or traveling. In-person presence is valuable but not required; distributed participation must remain reliable to avoid release risk from travel or venue problems.
Making releases feel like moments
Jonathan and the host discussed treating launches like major cultural releases rather than stealthy updates. Auto-updates improve security and reduce friction, but they also reduce the visibility of new features. Historically, manual updates directed admins to “about” pages highlighting changes; that discovery path has diminished with automatic updates.
Ideas to improve awareness include:
– Surfacing upcoming features earlier in the dashboard and inviting users to test them.
– Creating opt-in channels for pre-release testing, similar to browser feature flags.
– Leveraging Learn WordPress resources and dashboard widgets to educate users before and after releases.
Technical and process limits complicate these ambitions. Many parts of WordPress—particularly the block editor—are tightly integrated and managed via package dependencies, so shipping isolated features independently requires architectural work and automation. Moving to more frequent, smaller releases could shorten feedback loops but brings trade-offs in stability and maintenance.
Adoption and quality
Jonathan pointed to adoption trends as encouraging: recent majors are reaching high install percentages faster than earlier releases. For example, version 6.9 reached significant install milestones more quickly than prior releases, a sign of growing confidence in auto-updates and perceived quality.
Community health and recovery
The pandemic disrupted meetups and WordCamps, and many volunteer leaders stepped back, interrupting the mentoring pipeline where newcomers learn under experienced contributors. Recovery varies by region: APAC communities often appear strong, while some areas in the US and UK struggle to sustain meetups and speakers.
To rebuild, WordPress is investing in education and mentorship programs—WP Campus Connect, the Credits program, contributor mentorship rounds and similar initiatives—designed to attract younger contributors and provide structured pathways from first contributions to roles on release squads and as maintainers. Jonathan stresses that recruitment alone isn’t enough; new contributors need activation and support through clear, achievable tasks so their efforts quickly translate into tangible results.
Engaging younger contributors
Attracting younger people requires meeting them where they are and offering clear value: career-relevant skills, practical experience, and empowered opportunities to build. Formats and content for events and meetups may need to evolve to match different expectations for learning and participation. Educational programs aimed at students and early-career developers can feed local communities, but must be paired with mentorship and concrete follow-up roles to retain participants.
AI, open source, and empowerment
Jonathan views AI as a substantial enabler: it can summarize documentation, adapt explanations to learners’ needs, and lower the friction for experimentation, helping more people build and learn quickly. AI may also encourage individuals to own their content—blogs, RSS, Fediverse—especially as closed platforms change APIs and embed behaviors. That shift benefits open-source platforms like WordPress by motivating people to run their own sites and services.
Practical ways to recruit and retain contributors
Lower-friction release tasks are excellent entry points: shipping a release-candidate zip for testing, collecting structured bug reports (PHP versions, install method, reproduction steps), and ensuring contributor days produce lasting outcomes (committed patches, tests, or documentation). In-person events are opportunities to pilot onboarding flows and activation practices; fresh attendees often spot broken processes and suggest pragmatic improvements.
Outlook
Both hosts are cautiously optimistic. They see faster adoption of releases, renewed building energy, and tools—especially AI—that make development and contribution more approachable. The ongoing work is rebuilding mentorship pipelines, making contributor pathways clearer, and crafting engaging release moments tied to community gatherings.
Where to find Jonathan
Jonathan is at jonathandesrosiers.com, uses the handle desrosej across many platforms, and is active in the wordpress.org Slack.