web developer
A web developer is a programmer who develops World Wide Web applications using a client–server model. The applications typically use HTML, CSS, and JavaScript in the client, and any general-purpose programming language in the server. is used ...
and writer. He is the co-founder of the
free and open source
Free and open-source software (FOSS) is software available under a license that grants users the right to use, modify, and distribute the software modified or not to everyone free of charge. FOSS is an inclusive umbrella term encompassing free ...
WordPress
WordPress (WP, or WordPress.org) is a web content management system. It was originally created as a tool to publish blogs but has evolved to support publishing other web content, including more traditional websites, electronic mailing list, ma ...
.
Biography
Mike Little was born in
Manchester
Manchester () is a city and the metropolitan borough of Greater Manchester, England. It had an estimated population of in . Greater Manchester is the third-most populous metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, with a population of 2.92&nbs ...
,
England
England is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is located on the island of Great Britain, of which it covers about 62%, and List of islands of England, more than 100 smaller adjacent islands. It ...
in 1962 to a
Nigeria
Nigeria, officially the Federal Republic of Nigeria, is a country in West Africa. It is situated between the Sahel to the north and the Gulf of Guinea in the Atlantic Ocean to the south. It covers an area of . With Demographics of Nigeria, ...
n father, who was a
mathematics
Mathematics is a field of study that discovers and organizes methods, Mathematical theory, theories and theorems that are developed and Mathematical proof, proved for the needs of empirical sciences and mathematics itself. There are many ar ...
lecturer
Lecturer is an academic rank within many universities, though the meaning of the term varies somewhat from country to country. It generally denotes an academic expert who is hired to teach on a full- or part-time basis. They may also conduct re ...
and
musician
A musician is someone who Composer, composes, Conducting, conducts, or Performing arts#Performers, performs music. According to the United States Employment Service, "musician" is a general Terminology, term used to designate a person who fol ...
, and an English mother who worked as a
primary school
A primary school (in Ireland, India, the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, Trinidad and Tobago, Jamaica, South Africa, and Singapore), elementary school, or grade school (in North America and the Philippines) is a school for primary ...
teacher
A teacher, also called a schoolteacher or formally an educator, is a person who helps students to acquire knowledge, competence, or virtue, via the practice of teaching.
''Informally'' the role of teacher may be taken on by anyone (e.g. w ...
. Little was placed into
foster care
Foster care is a system in which a minor has been placed into a ward, group home ( residential child care community or treatment centre), or private home of a state- certified caregiver, referred to as a "foster parent", or with a family mem ...
when he was four months of age, and was later
adopted
Adoption is a process whereby a person assumes the parenting of another, usually a child, from that person's biological or legal parent or parents. Legal adoptions permanently transfer all rights and responsibilities, along with filiation, from ...
by the same family. He grew up on a
council estate
Public housing in the United Kingdom, also known as council housing or social housing, provided the majority of rented accommodation until 2011, when the number of households in private rental housing surpassed the number in social housing. D ...
in
Brinnington
Brinnington is a north-eastern suburb of Stockport, Greater Manchester, England, on a bluff above a bend in the Tame Valley between the M60 motorway and Reddish Vale Country Park.
Description
Brinnington was open farm land before the local aut ...
,
Stockport
Stockport is a town in Greater Manchester, England, south-east of Manchester, south-west of Ashton-under-Lyne and north of Macclesfield. The River Goyt, Rivers Goyt and River Tame, Greater Manchester, Tame merge to create the River Mersey he ...
, and was educated at
Stockport School
Stockport School is a mixed 11–16 secondary school in Stockport, Greater Manchester, England.
History
The school was established in 1888 and moved to its present site in 1938. In its time it has played many parts. In the 1880s Stockport was ...
.
In 2003, Little and
Matt Mullenweg
Matthew Charles Mullenweg (born January 11, 1984) is an American web developer and entrepreneur. He is known as a co-founder of the free and open-source web publishing software WordPress, and the founder of Automattic.
Early life and education
Mu ...
started working on a project in which they built on ''b2/cafelog'' and later named it
WordPress
WordPress (WP, or WordPress.org) is a web content management system. It was originally created as a tool to publish blogs but has evolved to support publishing other web content, including more traditional websites, electronic mailing list, ma ...
, releasing the first version on 27 May 2003.
Little states that, despite not being invited to join his co-founder's
for-profit
Business is the practice of making one's living or making money by producing or buying and selling products (such as goods and services). It is also "any activity or enterprise entered into for profit."
A business entity is not necessari ...
business
Automattic
Automattic Inc. is an American global distributed company most notable for WordPress.com and its contributions to the WordPress system. The company was founded in 2005.
Automattic's brands and products include WordPress.com, Akismet, Gra ...
, he and Mullenweg remain on good terms. He clarified: "I don’t want it to sound like he cheated me out of something or ripped me off in some way. He didn’t."
In June 2013, Little was awarded the
SAScon
The Search, Analytics and Social Media Conference (SASCon) was an annual UK marketing conference series focused on search engine marketing, social media marketing and search engine optimisation.
Little has been described as " modest" and living in "virtual
anonymity
Anonymity describes situations where the acting person's identity is unknown. Anonymity may be created unintentionally through the loss of identifying information due to the passage of time or a destructive event, or intentionally if a person cho ...
". He has one daughter. He identifies as a follower of
Stoicism
Stoicism is a school of Hellenistic philosophy that flourished in ancient Greece and Rome. The Stoics believed that the universe operated according to reason, ''i.e.'' by a God which is immersed in nature itself. Of all the schools of ancient ...
and a
humanist
Humanism is a philosophical stance that emphasizes the individual and social potential, and agency of human beings, whom it considers the starting point for serious moral and philosophical inquiry.
The meaning of the term "humanism" ha ...
, and in 2021, he became a patron of charity
Humanists UK
Humanists UK, known from 1967 until May 2017 as the British Humanist Association (BHA), is a charitable organisation which promotes secular humanism and aims to represent Irreligion in the United Kingdom, non-religious people in the UK throug ...
.
Bibliography
* Douglass, Robert T.; Little, Mike; Smith, Jared W. (2006). ''Building Online Communities With Drupal, PhpBB, and WordPress''