T3CON24 Recap — Keynote with Jeffrey A. “jam” McGuire
Open Source Community Impact: TYPO3’s Global Journey
T3CON24’s keynote address came from long-time open source advocate Jeffrey A. “jam” McGuire — blending humor, community celebration, and thoughtful reflection on TYPO3’s 25+ year journey.
Taking the stage with his characteristic wit, McGuire explored TYPO3’s evolution from its earliest days to what he termed its present-day “resurrection cycle”. He praised TYPO3’s unique governance approach, challenged the “German CMS” stereotype, and highlighted global impact projects like the Rwanda initiative. McGuire celebrated the community members who have shaped TYPO3’s journey while demonstrating how open source can create economic value and positive global change – themes underscored by the recent announcement of TYPO3 becoming the official CMS for the German Federal Government.
Jeffrey A. “jam” McGuire
Open Strategy Partners
Jeffrey A. “jam” McGuire is a partner at communication specialists Open Strategy Partners, where he helps organizations grow by finding and telling the stories that connect their technologies with the value they deliver. He builds on more than a dozen years of experience and a strong following at the intersection of open source software, business, and culture. His approach to technology marketing — sharing the human context of complex technology solutions while celebrating the expertise and success of their creators — has left its mark in both business and open source communities.
From Hype Cycle to Resurrection Cycle
McGuire began his talk by examining TYPO3’s journey through technology adoption patterns, presenting his own version of the Gartner Hype Cycle.
“Who’s heard of the Gartner Hype Cycle?” he asked. “This is about technology adoption. Something happens. You have a good idea, you get early adoptions, everybody goes crazy about it. If we think about AI right now, we’re somewhere between inflated expectations and disillusionment. I think it depends on the day of the week.”
But TYPO3’s 25-year journey falls outside the typical boom-and-bust pattern that many technologies experience. While other projects were riding waves of hype and inevitably crashing, TYPO3 took a different path.
“Back in the 2000s when everybody was inventing like crazy, nobody knew what was going to survive. And TYPO3 had this amazing ambition, right from the beginning, to be an old and boring solution,” McGuire explained.
This steadiness has served the community well, replacing the “hype cycle” with a “survival cycle”. As McGuire noted, “There’s been a lot of great code and there’s been a lot of great business done. How many of you thrive and survive and feed your families and have a roof because you work with TYPO3? Fantastic, right?”
But McGuire sees reasons to be even more optimistic: the “survival cycle” is now transitioning into what might be called a “resurrection cycle”. He praised TYPO3’s recent rebranding efforts: “The TYPO3 community design team has been doing some incredible work that’s being revealed at this event. I’m really, really excited about the new look and feel, the corporate identity.”
Most importantly, McGuire highlighted the announcement that “TYPO3 and open source CMS will be the official content management solution for the German Federal Government starting in January,” adding that “this is huge news for us. This is huge news for open source.” Drupal (and open source in general) received a huge boost owing to similar government adoption in the 2000s. As McGuire recalled: “When we made the breakthrough to get whitehouse.gov on Drupal, it made it possible for people in the US, at least, to sell open source solutions to government and to big enterprise.”
Open Source Governance: Beyond the Benevolent Dictator
The anticipated “resurrection cycle” hinges not just on new opportunities but on the solid foundation of TYPO3’s community structure and governance model. McGuire next turned his attention to what makes the TYPO3 community so resilient: its approach to open source governance.
“One of the interesting things in the world of open source software is this equivalent of, ‘Hey, I start a company, I get to run that company forever’,” McGuire observed. “It’s really odd how a lot of open source communities turn out to have a benevolent dictator for life, right? Sometimes it works well, and sometimes it works less well.”
Although the “benevolent dictator for life” (BDFL) model has been common across many open source projects, TYPO3 took a different path from the beginning. McGuire highlighted how TYPO3’s founder, Kasper Skårhøj, made a crucial decision that shaped the project’s future.
“Skårhøj created TYPO3. Then he got interested in something else, and he made sure that other people could take up his work and he stepped away, and the community flew on its own, and no single person took it over. I think that's an incredible gift.”
TYPO3 has since grown into an exemplary model of open source governance. As McGuire put it: “You are here as part of a community that is truly well-governed and well thought-out. There are balanced structures. This community is a shining example of what motivated people can do, and how international cooperation and democracy work.”
For McGuire, TYPO3’s governance model represents the true spirit of open source. “When we talk about open source, we’re talking about freedom, right? The four freedoms: we’re free to use and study and modify and pass on the changed software.” TYPO3’s organizational structure ensures these freedoms remain protected while enabling the community to thrive collectively rather than depending on a single leader’s vision.
Breaking the “German CMS” Stereotype
While TYPO3’s governance structure sets it apart from many open source projects, it has had to contend with a persistent reputation challenge: being labeled “the German CMS”.
Germany, McGuire noted, has not always represented the easiest environment for technological innovation – from brand new parking payment machines that accept only cash, to cafés that refuse card payments for small purchases, to hotels with “24-hour check-in kiosks” that only operate between specific hours and require staff assistance.
Nonetheless, TYPO3’s reputation as being “difficult and German” is undeserved. While joking that “TYPO3 is very easy to use, as long as you know how to use it,” McGuire noted that the TYPO3 community’s values, approach, and impact extend far beyond German borders.
Open Source Global Impact: TYPO3 Doing Good in the World
McGuire presented his personal countdown of TYPO3’s most meaningful contributions to the open source world and beyond.
In fourth place, he recognized TYPO3’s commitment to community outreach: “The fact that the project can afford to send Mathias Bolt Lesniak to other communities, to the European Union and elsewhere, to talk about open source and to talk about TYPO3 and to make people TYPO3-curious — these are really terrific contributions.”
In third place, McGuire highlighted a remarkable show of solidarity from years past, when TYPO3 supported the Joomla Foundation during a legal crisis: “The Joomla Foundation in Germany were in some legal trouble because they were going to lose their non-profit status. The TYPO3 community donated money to their legal fund to be able to stay a non-profit. I think that’s incredibly generous. And I think it really shows the spirit of what we’re here for in open source: helping each other out and making sure things keep on going.”
In second place, McGuire praised the TYPO3 security team’s contribution to the entire open source ecosystem: “Benni Mack and the security team were among the first people to figure out the PHP for deserialization vulnerabilities. As far as I know, the TYPO3 technical community was the first community to figure out the solution for that, and TYPO3 shared that patch and how to fix it with Drupal, with WordPress, with Symfony, and with other open source projects who had this vulnerability. So we are making all of open source more secure and better and improve the quality for everyone.”
In first place, McGuire saved his most significant example: the Rwanda project, which represented a transformative approach to international development through open source technology.
Open Source Economic Value in Developing Nations: The Rwanda Project
“It was a dark and stormy night when the telephone rang at TYPO3 offices,” McGuire recounted, “and it was the government of Rwanda, and they said they had 250 TYPO3 websites that they did not know how to update.”
What made this project remarkable was the approach TYPO3 took in responding to the request. Instead of seeing it as a business opportunity to exploit, the community chose a path focused on sustainable local development.
“In a lot of situations, I think they would have called their top contributors, their top agencies, their top Platinum sponsors, whatever it was, and said, ‘Hey, here’s a super cool opportunity. Go down to Africa, fix this stuff, make a bunch of money and you’re welcome. That’s part of our partner program’,” McGuire observed. However, “instead of behaving in a colonialist and exploitative manner, the TYPO3 community decided to do something incredible.”
That incredible approach involved building local capacity rather than creating dependency: “TYPO3 used the power of our community, got a bunch of volunteers from partner agencies and paid for them to work with the people in Rwanda remotely, and to go down to Kigali and train IT people from the government, and IT people from the private economy, from the local economy, to work with TYPO3 to update and secure their own sites and to build new sites.”
The results have been transformative: “The 250 sites that they were able to upgrade and secure since then, in the last few years, have become 500 sites, and the work is being done in Rwanda, by Rwandans.” This means that, rather than going to foreign agencies, money is now being spent “inside the Rwandan economy to create more value, to create more jobs and to create more expertise and skills.”
The impact extends beyond immediate technical work: “The people doing this work have better opportunities, and the country has better opportunities, whether internally or whether to offer themselves as service providers to the outside.”
McGuire highlighted that this initiative has now expanded beyond Rwanda and led to TYPO3 becoming part of the “gov stack” around the world: “The government of Rwanda is on TYPO3. The government of Quebec, the government of Somalia is training now for TYPO3 adoption.”
And now, of course, the German Federal government has joined them.
Conclusion: Looking Forward
As McGuire noted, the upcoming adoption by the German Federal Government represents a potential turning point for TYPO3 similar to whitehouse.gov’s adoption of Drupal, which opened new doors for open source in government and enterprise settings. But perhaps more significant is the community’s demonstrated ability to use technology as a force for good, particularly through initiatives like the Rwanda project.
“We’re an example of global democratic collaboration, doing good in the world and creating economic value,” McGuire emphasized.
As TYPO3 enters this new chapter of its “resurrection cycle”, the community can look forward with optimism, building on a 25-year foundation of stable technology, balanced governance, and genuine impact. For McGuire, this represents what open source is truly about — not just free software, but freedom to collaborate, innovate, and make a meaningful difference in the world.
Did you enjoy this recap? If you would like to relive all the exciting moments from T3CON24, be sure to check our our recap of the entire conference and get ready for T3CON25!
