Erin: I’m glad you enjoy this blog. Thanks for reading.

One thing I want to make clear is that I do not think CH is run by a “classless, lazy jerk.” I don’t think I said that, and if I implied it, that wasn’t what I was after. I think his complaining in this instance lacks class, but I don’t think he himself lacks class.

What hit me on the side of the head with this post is that a large majority of the bloggers that I regularly interact with who don’t use Blogger use WP, and they tend to make it work more or less with an online smile on their face. (A few use MT but it’s a distant third.) They (like me) have issues with WP and come to the MBN Forums and search ask around: “Is there a plugin that does X?” And almost always there’s a solution that does at least 90% of what they want, and things hum along. I’m not used to people voicing so loudly how much they expect out of their free products.

As for whether my post is a legitimate way of responding to it, I guess that’s for my wonderful readers and the rest of the web to decide. I have at least one “nay.” There are other situations that this can apply: hand-me-downs, gifts, services done gratis, etc. If you’ve gotten more than what you paid for, I don’t think it’s right to complain about it.

I did not say that reading a blog and utilizing open-source software was the same thing. YOU said that “ragging on free stuff lacks class” – well, I stand by my point that the value you get from CH (and there must be some if you read it every single day) is free to you, so it counts as free stuff.

Though of course you may have communicated with Jeff privately or through his blog to make your point known, THIS post is not debate. Just as you accuse Jeff of “not too subtly insulting the developers”, you state directly that his content is lacking class, reeking of laziness, and just about useless. That is not high-minded debate, that’s an attack; moreover, it’s one that has even LESS of a chance of resulting in some positive change than his original post had (since at least in that case, other developers may have taken up the cause, while in this case the most you could hope to accomplish is making people agree, “Yeah, that guys sounds like a real jerk!”).

Now, look, I love MBH and read it regularly. I think in general you have a very positive, insightful take on things which is why I value your opinion. But nothing will convince me that you pointlessly and angrily ragging on a fellow blogger is legitimate, while him pointlessly and angrily ragging on a product makes him a classless, lazy jerk.

Responding to a blog post is part and parcel of being a blogger. It’s like engaging in a conversation, or a public debate. Do people lack class because they debate?

Me enjoying CH is not the same thing as me using and enjoying WordPress. CH is not an open-source product. I can’t change anything about CH. Nor is the content the real product there: it’s the traffic that he sells to advertisers and uses to earn affiliate commissions. Now, if I got free advertising and complained that the conversion sucked, then that would lack class.

WordPress, on the other hand, can be changed and developed by anyone who knows what they’re doing, Jeff included. The correct response to problems in this case is to roll up one’s sleeves and fix it.

Instead, he wrote a post on it, not too subtly insulting the developers, and goes on to comment that he hopes that the post will have some positive effect (as if someone over at WP will take his comments as constructive criticism).

Since WP’s default installation includes wp-cache as an unactivated plugin anyway, I don’t even know what he’s complaining about. It’s a two-click deal. Was it that hard for him to click “Plugins” “Activate”?

Free, as in, does not cost you anything. Yet you are complaining about it. To quote you, “Ragging on free stuff lacks class.”

Presumably, you are complaining about it for some of the following reasons: you feel your gripe is justified, you feel the issue should not have arisen in the first place, you feel that by making your voice heard some change might arise. Jeff was likely complaining for the same reasons, yet you accuse him of lacking class because WordPress is free? So, what’s your excuse for ragging on HIM?

To adapt your list, I would recommend you NOT complain about a blog you read for free because (1) it’s free, (2) you didn’t contribute a single piece of writing to it, and (3) a solution to the problems are usually available with a small — sometimes surprisingly small — amount of work (i.e., stop reading it).

The other thing you have to consider is while caching saves on CPU, it consumes more memory. Caching isn’t free. On a blog with low traffic, caching can consume a great deal of memory and provide little to no value.

I honestly don’t see what the big deal is, install wp-cache or even better wp-super-cache and move on.

My opinion is, the only people that have a right to complain about Wordpress are the people contributing to the code. It’s open source, if you don’t like something, fix it.

If your blog is anything like mine, I doubt you get more than a few hundred visitors a day. I imagine that the *vast* majority of Wordpress users are the same.

So for most users, this is a none issue for the entire operating life of their software.

Jeff Atwood is running in a different league to what we’re operating in. He’s probably getting a visitor every couple of seconds. Under that load profile, you definitely need some sort of caching.

Should caching be rolled in to the main product? Yes, I absolutely agree with Jeff on this one. Wordpress should be able to handle his use-case just as easily as it handles ours.

Does he have a right to bitch about it? Perhaps! The quality of a great deal of open source software is now so high that you do have a realistic expectation of quality when you use it.

But I think you’re right to highlight the fact that we should be grateful of the work these people and release for free.

Simon