If you look at the most popular open source server software, a very large proportion of it is written in PHP (popular by install base) with applications such as

If you look at the most popular open source server software, a very large proportion of it is written in PHP (popular by install base) with applications such as Wordpress, PHPBB, PHPAds, Drupal, Gallery, Zencart, Joomla, SugarCRM, MediaWiki, PhpNuke, BuddyPresss, Moodle, ezPublish etc. etc. Look at the list of apps that simplescripts supports[1], most of them are PHP (and simplescript in-turn is supported by a lot of hosts). Look at OpenSourceCRM - most of the applications there are PHP[2]. The most popular open source CRM applications are also written in PHP[3] PHP makes up a significant portion of self-install web apps because it is so widely supported[4] (LAMP), it easy to setup and a lot of sysadmins and designers understand how the apps work. I commented when Diaspora was announced that for these reasons, and because of the target market, PHP would have been a better choice. They could have slipstreamed the install on top of the already large install base of these other applications without admins and potential users having to purchase or setup additional servers (ie. if you already have Wordpress installed somewhere, installing a PHP Diaspora would be a cinch. It could even read and setup using WP or other config files). You may not like PHP (I don't know anybody who likes it from a design perspective), but you would be a fool to ignore it. [1] http://www.simplescripts.com/script_list http://www.simplescripts.com/script_list [2] http://php.opensourcecms.com/scripts/search.php http://php.opensourcecms.com/scripts/search.php [3] http://www.insidecrm.com/features/top-open-source-solutions-121307/ http://www.insidecrm.com/features/top-open-source-solutions-... [4] http://php.net/usage.php http://php.net/usage.php