Gregory's Server@jalefkowit I remember things slightly differently. I remember Movable Type had a search function, that, when abused (and this was trivial, anybody could, and did, write one-liners to exploit this), would sponge all resources on a server until bringing it down. I also remember hosting companies banning Movable Type on shared hosting and VPS environments, forcing MT users to either 1) switch to something else, or 2) fork out for big iron to save everyone else from you.
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 @BalooUriza @jalefkowit Let's not forget the part about being written in Perl. I'm about as likely to debate Perl vs. PHP as vegemite vs. marmite, but it certainly didn't help keep MT in hosting companies' good graces.  @Obdurodon I don't think that was much of a player because I feel like if everything was just heat seeking the latest thing, WordPress would have come and went (along with 4 or 5 other things since then) leaving us with some abomination written in Go and Rust now. @Obdurodon I also think of it less as Perl vs PHP as Perl vs Python, and PHP vs...anything even slightly less jank (including Perl or Python). @Obdurodon @BalooUriza Yes, when I did see hosts pushing back on MT usage, it seemed mostly to do with them not wanting to be in the business of hosting arbitrary user-uploaded Perl/CGI scripts anymore. PHP (especially once mod_php came along) let them offer customers roughly the same functionality with fewer risks. (Disclaimer: I never worked on the hosting end of things, this is just my understanding from reading and talking to people.) @jalefkowit At least not for the managed hosting folks. And in that environment, it wasn't just perl/cgi (and quite a few places will still happily host it) but literally all software they weren't willing to support and manage in-house. And for literally 99% of users, that's Good Enough for $9/mo. But, Movable Type was the straw that broke the camel's back for most managed/shared hosting environments, especially ones that didn't want to provide shell access. |
@jalefkowit So, the licensing might have been a component. But for the overwhelming majority of Movable Type users, I get the impression moving away from MT was less a move to something with a better license, but more of a *severe* tech debt that exploded so badly hosting companies were willing to tell people their money wasn't good anymore, and WordPress happened to be "Well, shit, the site's down and I gotta change it or stay down...fuckit, Wordpress exists, right? Can't be worse."