A fair bit of noise around lately in relation to the scalability of SixApart’s MovableType blogging platform. I’ve not used the current version so I can’t chime in on this, although having said that the older versions scaled like set concrete. But amongst the noise it looks like the battle has become personal, with SixApart’s Anil Dash attacking Automattic (the company behind WordPress.com) head Matt Mullenweg.
From the comments at Corante:
Anil Dash: “We’ve got the biggest dedicated development, support, and product team working on Movable Type that has ever been focused on any installed blogging tool ever. And they’re not drifting off into creating bulletin board software, or writing wiki apps, they’re just focused on kicking ass with the most powerful blogging platform around.”
then:
Matt Mullenweg: As someone that makes blogging software with probably not the biggest team ever, and also drifts off to make bulletin board software and wiki apps, I can safely say that it hasn’t had an effect on product success in the market. One of those drifting distractions was also an anti-spam system, which seems to have worked out well and is now one of the most popular plugins for MT.
Anil, I have a lot of respect for you. MT actually has a lot of great things in its code, and I’m sure you can make its case without making oblique digs at open source projects and competitors whose entire company is probably smaller than your aforementioned product team.
Matt once again demonstrates that he’s got a lot more years in terms of wisdom than he has in physical age.
Are we seeing the start of an all out war between SixApart and Automattic, or is this just more petty snipping that is typical unfortunately of large stretches of the blogosphere, even including the occasional commenter here at 901am?
Either way, the high moral ground in this battle was clearly won by Automattic.
One to watch.
Originally posted on February 26, 2007 @ 7:26 pm
“Are we seeing the start of an all out war between SixApart and Automattic, or is this just more petty snipping that is typical unfortunately of large stretches of the blogosphere, even including the occasional commenter here at 901am?”
Unfortunately, I think it’s nothing more than catching me on a day when I had been frustratingly stuck in airports all day and responding to private emails in a public comment form. I apologized to Matt, and both he and I have been on both sides of these conversations before. I’d had this conversation with Toni Schneider just a few months ago about how we’re both much more interested in growing the entire audience for blogging than we are in taking petty shots at each other.
Of course, being human, we all do that sometimes, too. I suspect you’d find the same answer when Matt and I have been on the opposite sides of these conversations as well.
Sorry, that should have read, “I suspect you’d find the same answer from Matt when he and I have been on the opposite sides of these conversations as well.”
I was going to say the same thing, but Anil has beat me to it. You forgot to add Anil’s apology in your excerpts.. I guess that was an oversight?
Sorry Everton, until I just went back a read the entire comment thread (that’s one serious thread BTW!) I hadn’t seen it. We all have bad days and thankfully this is all it was. Anil, great response, and fair call, we’ve all been there before.