When I travelled to Kraków for WordCamp Europe, I was not quite sure what to expect. I come from the Joomla community, so I assumed I would be something of an outsider at a WordPress event. Instead, from Contributor Day onward, I kept running into faces I already knew, many of them from CloudFest. It felt less like arriving somewhere new and more like continuing a conversation that had been going on for a while.

One sentence stayed with me. When I said how nice it was to know so many people even though I am not really part of this community, Carole Olinger (Head of CloudFest Hackathon & WP [Business & Agency] Summit) gently corrected me. She said she very much sees me as part of it. I have been thinking about that ever since. Being part of a community is not about which logo you carry. It is about connecting with the people around you, and in that sense she was right, and it meant a lot to hear it.

We have a lot in common

That thought carried into another conversation about how collaboration between open source projects should not only happen at the top, where leaders meet, exchange ideas and shake hands. It should reach all the way down to the roots. I really liked the idea Robert Windisch of CMS Garden shared, that we could use events like this to network more across projects and learn from one another. Every open source community keeps reinventing the same things, local user groups, Contributor Day formats, onboarding, each project working away on its own. We are not competing for the same ground. Every CMS has its own focus, and the goal is to strengthen your own community, not to take from someone else's. There is so much we could simply share.

Familiar names

The warmth of the event stayed with me too. I met Robert Jacobi, former President of Open Source Matters, spent time at the sponsor booths having genuinely good conversations. I also reconnected with members of the Joomla family who live and contribute here in Poland, and I was grateful to meet so many familiar names in person, including Kawshar Ahmed of JoomShaper, the YOOtheme team, Justyna Michallek, Wojciech Babicz of AlthumHost, and accessibility expert Anne-Mieke Bovelett. I also had the pleasure of meeting Mary Hubbard, Executive Director of WordPress, in person for the first time.

Running with new friends

Saturday morning brought a little adventure of its own. I am part of the parkrun community, a worldwide movement of free 5k runs that take place every Saturday at 9 am, and I have made it a habit to join wherever I travel, like in Washington during the Joomla Day USA, where Ira Gordon took me along. In Kraków I had actually decided to skip it, since the conference started early. But when a friend from my small hometown messaged me that she happened to be in Kraków too, I could not resist and quietly stole a few hours from my Saturday. On the tram I spotted a man in running clothes holding a WordCamp badge, so I asked him, and of course, he was a WordCamp volunteer on his way to the very same parkrun. When our connecting bus never showed up because of road closures, we picked up a third runner along the way, a girl we simply asked at the stop, and in the end the three of us jogged the last two kilometres to the start line together at an easy pace.

We made it in time, I ran the 5k with my friends from Schwäbisch Hall, and I was back at the venue in time for more great conversations. Looking back, that morning felt like the whole trip in miniature. Two communities I belong to, parkrun and the wider web world, overlapping on a tram in Poland, strangers becoming running companions within minutes. Community is not something that only happens inside conference walls. It travels with you, and it finds you if you let it.

Thank you Kraków!

Kraków itself surprised me. The old town has almost no pedestrian traffic lights, just crossings where people simply have right of way, which felt oddly freeing. Every café and bar seemed to have its own character, its own chandeliers, its own concept and ideas. And with my Polish roots, being here was also a small journey inward. I speak the language, though not always well enough to catch every word, and that gap is its own quiet reminder of where I come from.

I left Kraków grateful, and more convinced than ever that open source is at its strongest when we grow together, from the leadership all the way down to the roots.

Impressions from Kraków