WordPress Security is About More than WordPress

[davecoveney]

Hmmm - this is rather like the early days of cars. You used to have to decoke the things on an annual basis, and be prepared for serious, regular maintenance. Now, apart from annual oil changes (less in some cases) you can expect 200,000 miles and ten years of regular use without ever touching a mechanical part.

Cars, similarly, are open facing. They get stolen, they get, attacked, they get stonechips and so on. The quality car makers produce cars with tough, chip resistant laquers, Thatcham grade car alarms and immobilisers and so on. They accept the weaknesses of the world and they work to reduce the hassle and cost of ownership. They also do an incredible amount of testing.

We're in the early days of web software, but I can assure you that this kind of situation we find ourselves in absolutely cannot continue if we want mass market self-management of sites. Either that or we accept that self-hosting is a specialist job. But it didn't used to be, so it shouldn't continue to be.

We need to deliver quality solutions to our clients, not constantly shifting high maintenance heath-robinson items.

[Jeffro]

Where can I buy a car like this?

Now, apart from annual oil changes (less in some cases) you can expect 200,000 miles and ten years of regular use without ever touching a mechanical part.

[Ryan]

Where can I buy a car like this?

Most Japanese or European cars are like that.

Although it depends if you count brake pads, clutch plates, tires, cam belts, light bulbs, windscreen wiper blades and a bunch of other disposable parts as "mechanical parts" as you would at least need to replace all of those at least once (and some a lot more often) within that 200,000 miles/350,000 kms.

[JohnM]

We need to deliver quality solutions to our clients, not constantly shifting high maintenance heath-robinson items.

I think We is the important word. WordPress is not aiming to make a light cms for wedevs with real clients. I believe however that a guild of WP webdevs doing client work could collaborative address lots of issues, including legacy security patches. 25-100 small businesses collaborating in a guild running BP would be a powerful community.

[JohnM]

Devs on legacy support:

MarkJaquith – I’d rather direct resources to making upgrades smoother and showcasing well-coded plugins that won’t break on upgrade.
westi - The only way a LTS branch is going to exist is if the person that wants it creates it. our resources are better directed elsewhere

the person that wants it creates it = A guild ?

[JohnM]

Can you spot the funny part of this site?

http://www.wefixwp.com/help-me-upgrade-my-blog/

[andrea_r]

*chuckle*

My radio button is't there. :D

[Len]

Can you spot the funny part of this site?

http://www.wefixwp.com/help-me-upgrade-my-blog/

Hmm, a site that specializes in WordPress updates is offering to update your blog to the latest version 2.8.3?

[Jeffro]

Hmm, they have been around for awhile. I wonder how business is doing for them?

[WeFixWP.com]

Business is great over in WeFixWP land (apparently so busy, we can't even keep our own site/forms/info up to date!)