The mission of WordPress is to democratize publishing, which means access for everyone regardless of language, geography, gender, wealth, ability, religion, creed, or anything else people might be born with. To do that we need our community to be inclusive and welcoming. There is beauty in our differences, and they’re as important as the principles that bring us together, like the GPL.
There are thousands of reasons why a person might pick one technology over another. Cost, support, growth, platform, user interface, etc.
The biggest one to me, and one that I’m happy to say WordPress embodies well, is the culture and community around such technology. After watching Matt Mullenweg give his State of the Word presentation at our WordCamp San Francisco Viewing Party, I’m glad to have aligned myself with such an awesome community. I want to work to use technology like WordPress to make other’s lives more rich. To improve my own knowledge of technology. To better myself as a person and be more including and welcoming.
Here’s to the future growth of WordPress, and all those who make it what it is. Grand.
Agree with everything above. I do wish the MediaWiki ecosystem that I know we both also are active in would look and take some lessons from the WordPress world.