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WordPress Is in Trouble

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Re: WordPress Is in Trouble

#141

Post by pier25 »

prepend wrote: post #95
internetter wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Consider a static site. They cannot be hacked, they are cheaper to host, and once the files are generated they are immutable

They can certainly be hacked, just like any static site. Web servers have vulnerabilities. And the files can certainly be edited as they aren’t immutable. They are less resource intensive and easier to maintain, but aren’t immune. (Running mostly static sites converted from Wordpress sites, but also running 10 year old+ word press sites that haven’t been changed in forever)

Even if it's remotely possible to hack Nginx... what's the motivation to hack a static site?

There's no DB with juicy data and no compute to abuse for mining crypto or running DDOS attacks.

Re: WordPress Is in Trouble

#142

Post by daitangio »

Sorry I switched to hugo my https://gioorgi.com and it was easier than expected.

Initially, I only followed the ‘drama’ tangentially, also because I have always considered myself a mere "end user" of Wordpress, even if long-time one (I used it for about 20 years).

For me, the fact that Wordpress.com sold a service based on an "extended" version of Wordpress.org was never a particular problem, but I never thought it was illegal to compete directly with it by taking the open source software and offering a simple hosting service.

Anyway I started to consider to switch from Wordpress to a static site hosted with hugo, retaining the comment system and all the URLs in the original form, more or less.

I was surprised because it took very little time (less 1 week of total work) to migrate my articles (1000+) and the comments.

I used open source tools, and I am a "hugo" newbie, so I make some trade off too.

Never less, I suggest all of you to give a try to hugo+isso (isso is a comment system very light).

Re: WordPress Is in Trouble

#143

Post by magicmicah85 »

munchler wrote: post #124
greggman7 wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What would replace it? PHP is unique in that it makes sharing a server trivial and low-resource compared to almost every other solution. A simple example might be that you can run 100s of PHP forums on a single machine low memory machine but if you want to use discourse (not written in PHP), it requires 10x 20x the resources for a single forum. This is true about almost every other solution AFAICT.

What is it about PHP that makes this low-resource scenario possible?

I would say the biggest reason might be that PHP doesn't have to worry about the web server aspect. Apache (or another webserver) serves the requests, PHP just returns the page to Apache. This is one of the ways that Apache can serve hundreds of PHP based sites, cause there's no need to spin up another web server and Apache is pretty fast at what it does.

Re: WordPress Is in Trouble

#144

Post by ethbr1 »

simple10 wrote: post #109
beshrkayali wrote: post #64

I really think Matt is suffering from some sort of a mental breakdown. It’s a sad situation and there’s a lot to learn about open source projects with a huge user base and where the bottle necks exist. But I think people who know or are close to him should seriously consider an intervention. I can’t believe after two decades he’d just decide to throw it all out in a blazing fire and tarnish his reputation (and Wordpr…

I feel for him and the people in his wake. Benevolent dictators of open source are great for productivity until benevolence gives way to malevolence. At this point, if he stepped down it would be seen as giving in. So highly unlikely until the legal dust settles a bit. I also agree with other commenters that it's not a mental breakdown but more of a poorly executed strategy that's been in the works for awhile. To tak…

> Benevolent dictators of open source are great for productivity until benevolence gives way to malevolence.

Autocracy is more efficient, with the best leaders.

Democracy is more stable, with the worst leaders.

The suboptimal cases are autocracy with bad leaders or democracy with good leaders.

I think it's also pretty common that autocratic leaders go badly quickly. The same focus and dedication that drove them also makes it unlikely they'll suddenly decide to step away cleanly. Instead, they'll decide that everyone else is wrong, they're the ones that really put in all the work, {insert rationalization here}, and fight change.

Re: WordPress Is in Trouble

#145

Post by forgetfreeman »

dangrossman wrote: post #86
beshrkayali wrote: post #64

I really think Matt is suffering from some sort of a mental breakdown. It’s a sad situation and there’s a lot to learn about open source projects with a huge user base and where the bottle necks exist. But I think people who know or are close to him should seriously consider an intervention. I can’t believe after two decades he’d just decide to throw it all out in a blazing fire and tarnish his reputation (and Wordpr…

I don't think it's a mental breakdown, I think this is a (poorly executed) long pivot into Matt's companies having tighter control over the ecosystem and keeping more of the profits from hosting, plugin and theme sales. He's burning down "the community" on purpose. In a couple years, it'll be run more like Shopify, where the theme store and app store only list products that run their billing through Shopify and give…

Eh. Aquia tried a similar stunt with Drupal (centralize all the tings at the community's expense) and that hasn't exactly been a rousing success. I don't have a great feel for how dependent upon the larger dev community the WordPress ecosystem is so maybe it'll work for them?

Re: WordPress Is in Trouble

#146

Post by brookst »

add-sub-mul-div wrote: post #110
dangrossman wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think it's a mental breakdown, I think this is a (poorly executed) long pivot into Matt's companies having tighter control over the ecosystem and keeping more of the profits from hosting, plugin and theme sales. He's burning down "the community" on purpose. In a couple years, it'll be run more like Shopify, where the theme store and app store only list products that run their billing through Shopify and give…

One reason that Reddit's API changes killing the best clients was so poisonous is that the resulting non-exodus showed other companies that they can take user-hostile actions with impunity. A big enough mass of passive and undiscerning users will stay no matter what. Hence there being more freedom to take a strategy like this.

> undiscerning users will stay no matter what

That's one take.

Another is: ecosystem partners are often surprised what users actually value. We all like to think that our contributions are critical, but the Reddit example shows a huge disconnect between the value 3P partners thought they were delivering and what users actually valued.

Re: WordPress Is in Trouble

#147

Post by hn8726 »

frereubu wrote: post #134
lolinder wrote: post #67

> Now it seems like the community needs to take over, but Mullenweg still holds all the keys. This move by Matt to pull out of development all but guarantees a fork. The biggest argument against was the work that Automattic was putting into WordPress would be very hard to replicate in a new project. But if the community is going to be expected to do ~all of the work anyway, there's no reason to do that work inside Ma…

Has he said he was going to pull out of development? I hadn't read that anywhere in all of this.

From the article:

> Automattic announced that it would restrict its contributions to the open source version of WordPress. The company would now only put in about 45 hours a week total — down from nearly 4,000 a week — so as to match the estimated hourly contributions of WP Engine.

source: https://automattic.com/2025/01/09/aligning-automattics-spons...

Re: WordPress Is in Trouble

#148

Post by bsimpson »

andix wrote: post #98
greggman7 wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What would replace it? PHP is unique in that it makes sharing a server trivial and low-resource compared to almost every other solution. A simple example might be that you can run 100s of PHP forums on a single machine low memory machine but if you want to use discourse (not written in PHP), it requires 10x 20x the resources for a single forum. This is true about almost every other solution AFAICT.

That's probably the best explanation. There is no real alternative to PHP if you want to host cheap and simple. It's also really easy to deploy WordPress to a shared hoster, just by uploading a few files via FTP/etc and setting up a MySQL connection. Or is CGI still a thing and a possible alternative for shared webspaces?

When Wordpress first came up, PHP was something anyone with $5 could administer, and Python/Ruby required a lot more money and expertise that put them outside the reach of junior hobbyists.

This was before the days of PaaS solutions like AppEngine.

Re: WordPress Is in Trouble

#149

Post by zo1 »

I think Matt should reach out to Elon Musk to assist him. And I don't mean that in a weird or snarky or "jabbing at Elon/Matt" kind of way. Clearly he is struggling to deal with a competitor and community wanting to impose their will on him, and make him behave like a "good boy" for their benefit (whatever that may be). Unfortunately he doesn't have the kind of "Fuck You" money that Elon has to deal with said interlopers.
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