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WordPress Is in Trouble

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Re: WordPress Is in Trouble

#431

Post by ethbr1 »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #401
ethbr1 wrote: post #383

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the short or intermediate term? I'd argue that democracy is almost always a roadblock to a great leader's ability to execute their vision quickly and fully. On the other hand, it often wins out in the long run by not losing as much when the inevitable terrible leader comes to power. (As well as providing a pressure release mechanism to prevent populist revolution)

> democracy is almost always a roadblock to a great leader's ability to execute their vision quickly and fully Quickly and fully, sure. In the end, however, good ideas see daylight. (Even if it means the other side co-opts and renames it!) That doesn’t happen in autocracies because the same people remain in power longer; this means by the time the opposition dies everyone who supported or potentially remembered it (o…

All good points!

There can be some mal-incentives in democracies when it's in the opposition's interest for things to fail though (read: positioning for the next election).

Imho, that's more a US problem of an overly-visible executive (whoever that currently is), to the detriment of congressional visibility (i.e. 95% of congress supported this, including your congresspeople).

From a US perspective, parliamentary style systems, with checks to prevent German/Italian/Israeli-style deadlock when the party percentages don't line up, seem the superior implementation.

Re: WordPress Is in Trouble

#432

Post by akho »

ismail wrote: post #250
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…

If was running a major site that depends on Wordpress , or am an agency that makes use of Wordpress extensively I would be very concerned. Irrespective of who is right/wrong, Matt’s actions come across as rash, irrational , and reactive. Definitely not the type of leader I would want to be leading an open source project I depend on. From a risk analysis perspective, this would make me question if wp is fit for my com…

If Wordpress no longer receives security updates, tons of sites will have to be migrated. Many are not economically efficient to migrate, and will be lost. Given the scope of that ecosystem, this is an extinction event for the Web.

Re: WordPress Is in Trouble

#433

Post by philistine »

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)

The beauty of a static site is you can then put it on something like Github Pages or S3 to give the responsibility of the server to someone else.

Re: WordPress Is in Trouble

#434

Post by philistine »

prepend wrote: post #414
eslaught wrote: post #389

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Other siblings have piled on this, but let me just add: Your source of truth for a static site will never be the deployed contents of the server (even if you do go that route). It will be your local Git repo or possibly your upstream Git forge. Even in the rare case that such a simple case gets you hacked, you can throw away your entire setup and start over quite easily. Whereas all of the Wordpress/Drupal/etc/etc. o…

I understand all this. I didn’t say that static sites are easy to hack or valuable, I responded to GP’s claim “They cannot be hacked” I think static sites are a good technique that has vastly improved security over dynamic sites, but thinking that using them makes you invincible is faulty.

If it makes you as vulnerable as S3, that's as close to invincible as you're going to get.

Re: WordPress Is in Trouble

#435

Post by micromacrofoot »

gamblor956 wrote: post #394
micromacrofoot wrote: post #312

Earlier quoted context omitted.

it's somewhat valid though, why continue providing free code for wp engine to resell when wp engine doesn't contribute to open source themselves? wp engine has also bought out multiple competing hosts, so they're a direct competitor with deep pockets

If "free code" being resold is the issue, then Matt's eve worse of a freeloader, since most of the code in WordPress was provided for free by people not employed by Matt.

> most of the code in WordPress was provided for free by people not employed by Matt

Automattic previously spent ~4k hours a week maintaining wordpress, so I'm not sure what you're on about

Re: WordPress Is in Trouble

#436

Post by BlueTemplar »

ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #426
BlueTemplar wrote: post #422

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, I roughly got that, but in which specific way is it bad ?

It looks like you are wanting to argue on some specifics. I probably won't be able to give you what you are looking for. With me, it had to do with the languages I wrote (C and Perl), that required CGI to publish. CGI did fine, but it's fairly primitive. Just another system text pipe (which, TBH, is pretty much what is going on, under a Webserver). But for most folks, CGI is unapproachable. That's what PHP gives peop…

You misunderstand, it's more that I have a very limited knowledge of web programming : besides dumb HTML+CSS, only a small project using JQuery and (then bleeding edge) async JavaScript on the frontend, Python on the server, and... CGI for the communication between them.

So I was literally trying to know more. (And I understand a bit better now, thanks.)

Re: WordPress Is in Trouble

#437

Post by jzb »

CrimsonRain wrote: post #211
daitangio wrote: post #142

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 w…

What did you use to migrate posts? I'm going to move three WordPress sites (15yr+ running) off soon.

Not the OP but I have migrated to Hugo as well. There's a number of tools to convert to Hugo from a WordPress XML export. I used wp2hugo, IIRC: https://github.com/ashishb/wp2hugo

Dead easy. Took an afternoon to do everything, including fiddling with DNS and trying different themes, etc.

Re: WordPress Is in Trouble

#438

Post by jzb »

lbhdc wrote: post #27
huijzer wrote: post #19

Hopefully many sites will switch to a static site generator like Hugo or Zola. Way lower costs, lower risk of being hacked (almost impossible actually), and a reliable backup thanks to Git. I’m running multiple static sites for years already and am very happy with it. It has been very reliable.

I think the popularity of Wordpress comes from the access it gives to non-technical people (plus ecosystem). I am sure someone is smart enough to write a CMS that can effectively do that under the hood, but I don't think it matters to the people who choose Wordpress.

I use Hugo for my own site, now, but it's not a WordPress replacement for a lot of use cases. A single techie's personal blog? Sure. A small company that has five or six people who have to post to a website? No. An organization that wants to integrate a sales cart and such, without a full-time developer? Absolutely no.

Until last September I used to encourage non-tech folks to just use WordPress.com and pay for the hosting. It was pricier than DIY solutions, but also I was happy to suggest it to help put $$$ in Automattic's pockets for WordPress development. I'm sad I can't recommend it in good faith anymore.

Re: WordPress Is in Trouble

#439

Post by 65 »

vcoisne wrote: post #311
65 wrote: post #69

Hmm, crazy narcissist Matt Mullenweg does something for attention at the detriment of everyone else, again? The problem is that there's a bit of a black hole in CMSs right now where you need developers who want to work on the CMS and ordinary users who can host/create content on the CMS. Strapi was almost there, but alas, headless is not going to cut it for your average business trying to make a website. Static site…

(Disclaimer—I work for Strapi). I would love to know why you think Headless will not cut it or what Strapi could improve. We're seeing many SMBs succeed with it.

I really like Strapi, it's very intuitive, etc. But headless is a headache to set up for a tech illiterate person/org who wants to start some kind of blog or small news site.

I'll give you an example: https://newyorkyimby.com/

This is a relatively simple site that posts housing development news for New York. Ultimately they're not going to need a super complicated front end. Most sites just want a theme and deployment.

If Strapi had a non-headless mode and had themes I'm sure it could be used for the many millions of these small sites that run Wordpress.

Additionally Strapi isn't a great choice for blogs or portfolio sites, it's simply too much to set up for most people. I think the barrier to entry is what prevents it from becoming great. If a random person can start a blog, then more developers are going to want to work on it, meaning more plugins, meaning more of a reason to use Strapi. A feedback loop that got Wordpress to where it is.

Shopify is so big because they make setting up a site extremely easy, and now there are tons of plugins and themes to use on your Shopify store, which only gives people more of a reason to use Shopify.

Re: WordPress Is in Trouble

#440

Post by Suppafly »

GavinAnderegg wrote: post #408
Suppafly wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>down from nearly 4,000 a week Do they really pay that many people to work on development? That's 100 fulltime jobs.

Automattic has over 1,700 employees. [0] They had more than 1,900 before the buyouts and departures. [1] With that many people, I’m sort of surprised that they only had around 100 full time staff working on WordPress core. [0]: https://automattic.com/press/ [1]: https://web.archive.org/web/20240801231830/https://automatti...

Full time employees? 1700 employees from 90 countries sounds to me like they are counting anyone that's ever contributed anything as an employee.
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