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Not to take anything away from WordPress which like many others I use on my blog but... Moveabletype was the popular blogging software back in the day. It was

Not to take anything away from WordPress which like many others I use on my blog but... Moveabletype was the popular blogging software back in the day. It was also easy to install. About the same as wordpress. Copy the files, create a db, add the db/pass. Done. Moveabletype appeared to be open source. It was perl so you could read the source. It was free. It was hosted on moveabletype.org, the ".org" making it appear to not be commercial. But, then once they got super popular they announced to everyone they were not open source. They wanted something like $30 for a license. There was a huge backlash and it was during that time that wordpress was created and tons of people switched. At least that's my understanding of the history. The point being it wasn't wordpress that made blogging easy or popular. There were several products before them including moveabletype and blogger. Had moveabletype not made their fateful decisions wordpress might never have gotten popular.

_greim_ 13y ago
There is also the fact that Wordpress is written in PHP. Arguably, the number of Perl dabblers looking to make a buck freelance web-designing isn't anywhere near the number of PHP ones.
- greggman 13y ago
  I don't think that was as cut and dry when wordpress came out as it is today
alberth 13y ago
>>"[Moveabletype] was also easy to install." You remember a vastly different Moveabletype than I do. It was horrible to install and only became better years after Wordpress was picking up huge market share. I do agree about your comment on licensing. The MT licensing fiasco was the nail in the coffin. That, and the fact that where Perl once dominated the web - PHP was picking up huge traction and won over the script kiddies due to it's kitchen-sink approach to including everything you need for web development into the language.

_greim_ 13y ago

There is also the fact that Wordpress is written in PHP. Arguably, the number of Perl dabblers looking to make a buck freelance web-designing isn't anywhere near the number of PHP ones.

greggman 13y ago
I don't think that was as cut and dry when wordpress came out as it is today

alberth 13y ago

>>"[Moveabletype] was also easy to install." You remember a vastly different Moveabletype than I do. It was horrible to install and only became better years after Wordpress was picking up huge market share. I do agree about your comment on licensing. The MT licensing fiasco was the nail in the coffin. That, and the fact that where Perl once dominated the web - PHP was picking up huge traction and won over the script kiddies due to it's kitchen-sink approach to including everything you need for web development into the language.