Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is so true. Open source and hosted commercial products fill totally different niches. Sure, there are some projects where either one would suffice, but many where that's not true. I'm working on an open-source Wordpress replacement right now. (No link yet. I want to get a little farther before I put it out there.) The basic concept is: 1) Use Rails, to ease development of plugins and per-site functionality. 2) D…
I'd actually rather see a hardcore nice CMS in something like Laravel, which is fairly similar to Rails. I don't think Rails is a non-starter but I'd like to see something that's LAMP friendly due to the ease and availability to beginners, students, and the generally broke.
The choice of language in particular is a place where I don't want to compromise, because it's such a fundamental component, and it sets the tone for everything else. It's not just the language itself, but the community you're importing when you choose a language. There are plenty of good programmers using PHP, but the language also attracts a high percentage of the clueless. (If you're reading this and you code PHP, chances are you're in the first camp, so this isn't a stab against you.)