In reply to Chuck Reynolds.

Ahh, the million dollar question. Not much actually. So the question I'd ask you is if there is not much of a difference, why is it then called the Official, annual conference for the WordPress Project? Which is it? That or WordCamp? Maybe WordCamp Miami or WordCamp Europe can start saying their the southern annual conference for the WordPress project or European version. That's just semantics really.

Using the story I shared in the post, it will take educating one new WordPress user at a time what WordCamp San Francisco really is because it's not just a WordCamp. Seems stupid to me. Maybe a couple Google searches would help new people to the community figure it out, but is that really necessary?

The big differences you already outlined, State of Word, organized by the co-creator of WordPress, has sessions by speakers outside of the WordPress sphere, and this year, community days and contributor days have been bolted on, because it's THEE WordCamp aka (official, annual conference of the WordPress project). If it's not just another WordCamp, why the heck is it called WordCamp?