Its certainly one of the easiest to use. If innovation is about bringing ideas to market then WordPress is a great example of same. I was talking to Dale Vile of Freeform Dynamics the other day and he questioned whether open source could deliver innovation in the way proprietary vendor models had. I would argue innovation is often a matter of packaging – our industry is still in the process of digesting and innovating Xerox PARC’s inventions.
WordPress is innovative because its so flexible and extensible, without having to hack through scripting code. It is a beautiful thing.
Even Chris, an avowed Microsoft head, just canned his .NET blog platform for WordPress. I am particularly taken by this microplatform to take libraries onto the web. Skeptics like Dale tend to argue open source just clones other technologies. But i think its the implementation that really matters, and WordPress is providing unprecedented level of capability, which is fostering a massive and helpful community. And its not a clone of anything.
disclaimer: Redmonk.com and our individual blogs all run on WordPress.
Awsome insights James! I dig “Innovation is often a matter of packaging”
I think WordPress is revolutionary both in terms of the community construction and the deluxely easy UI. I use Typepad, Blogger, Drupal and WordPress (plus a thousand social network apps) for various projects and WP is the top pick for easy+useful+cool.
It’s all about easy self-expression.
“But i think its the implementation that really matters, and WordPress is providing unprecedented level of capability, which is fostering a massive and helpful community. And its not a clone of anything.”
I have to agree with this. The community is really excellent and it’s not a clone – it is probably the most original CMS out there.
I’ve just installed it on my server and I have been amazed by its ease of use, especially using plugins and writing my custom theme.
Where and how exactly is WordPress.com OpenSource? Is it licensed under the GPL or LGPL or any similar license?