Interview with WCSTL Speaker: Wolf Bishop

If you don’t understand what GPL is and the ethics of it, then Wolf Bishop can help clarify that. He will be speaking on WordPress, The GPL, & Ethics at WordCamp St. Louis. Please enjoy reading about Wolf’s WordPress journey.

Interview with Wolf Bishop

Wolf says, “here is a picture of me (attached) with my biggest passions (after WordPress of course): Air rifle & crossbow hunting, and my homestead. I live on 19 acres of off-grid Ozark paradise with 63,000 acres of Mark Twain National Forest as my back yard.”

NILE FLORES: When did you start using WordPress?

WOLF BISHOP: I first discovered it in 2005, but did not start using it regularly until 2006.

NILE FLORES: What are a few takeaways that attendees will get from your talk?

WOLF BISHOP: First and foremost, attendees should take away a better understanding of the GPL, and how they can apply it to their own use, either as an end user or as a developer.

Attendees will also be better prepared to defend their use of GPL licensed work in a way that benefits them.

Developers will better understand the implications of releasing under the GPL. Users will understand how they can legally and ethically use GPL products.

NILE FLORES: WordPress is turning 15 years old. What would you like to see in the future for WordPress?

WOLF BISHOP: There are a few plugins that I would love to see available in the WordPress sphere. Like a full featured, stand-alone billing platform, something along the lines of BoxBilling or WHMCS, but inside of WordPress sites.

For WordPress in general, I would like to see themes created with theme generators like Template Toaster or Pinegrow be allowed into the theme repos. I have seen some really great works from these tools, some of my own in fact. The ones I have created meet all other requirements for entry into the repo, except they are created with a theme generator software.

NILE FLORES: “And just for funsies”, over the past few years, the WordPress community has seen the rise of the cute Wapuu character? Heard of it? And if so, what’s your favorite Wapuu? (Wapuu Reference: https://wapu.us/ )

WOLF BISHOP: Well, so far my favorite WAPUU is Remote Working WAPUU. I would love to add this to my growing collection. So if anyone knows someone……(hint? lol)

NILE FLORES: What is your favorite area of the WordPress admin?

WOLF BISHOP: Hmmm, I guess I would have to say the Dashboard. It gives you a nice quick overview of what is going on with your site and the ability to add other widgets to make it really pop is great.

NILE FLORES: What are the top three WordPress plugins that you believe every WordPress user should have installed?

WOLF BISHOP:
1. Wordfence – Security should be priority 1 on EVERY site
2. Akismet – There really is no better way to stop spam
3. Jetpack – I know, a lot of folks complain it is very heavy. But when you consider how many plugins you would have to install (and the resource impact of that) to do everything Jetpack does, it really is not that heavy at all.


Don’t want to miss Wolf’s talk? Then, buy a ticket and come out to WordCamp St. Louis, on May 12 and 13, 2018.