(mt) Media Temple Doesn't Trust WordPress.org

31 Jan, 2010 | Written by | under wp news

First, let me say that after my last frustrations with (mt) Media Temple, things have been going much better. I haven’t experienced much, if any, downtime, page load time has been very good, and my WordPress Admin is working much smoother. Has everyone else noticed more consistency? I think so. I am very pleased with (mt) because of this. And they did give me one month’s hosting for free because of some of my previous downtime issues. Thanks (mt).

However, there is still something I find frustrating. I use (mt) primarily to host my WordPress sites, as I’m sure a fair number of (mt)’s users do. It’s the way to go – and I love the fact that (mt) has the 1-Click Installation of WordPress. that was one of the key components I was looking for, because I knew I’d be installing a lot of sites, and hopefully hosting some sites through my account (interested in hosting your site with me? contact me here). however, one of my frustrations has been that (mt) still only has WordPress 2.0.4 as the version they offer for the 1-Click. It’s not the biggest pain in the world, because after installing that, I just need to manually upgrade to the newest WordPress version. not a huge deal – but something that I shouldn’t need to do. it seems they should be able to offer the newest version of WordPress that is available.

Now, hold it right there. I know what you’re going to say. “What about WordPress 2.1.1? it was hacked. It’s a good thing (mt) Media Temple didn’t have that version available!” And you’re right – that does throw a small wrench in my argument.

But what is wrong with 2.1? Ella has been out since January 22, 2007, while 2.0.4 has been out since July 29, 2006. is (mt) saying that they don’t trust any more recent WordPress upgrades since July of 2006? That’s what I thought after I emailed (mt) Media Temple’s Customer Support and asked when they were planning on upgrading their WordPress 1-Click Installation. below is the email that I received in response:

We do not have plans to upgrade Wordpress at this time. once we have tested and believe it is up to Media Temple’s standards we will make a decision on weather to upgrade at that time.

If you have any further questions regarding your (mt) Media Temple services, please feel free to contact us at any time.

Customer Support
(mt) Media Temple

There is the frustration: “…and believe it is up to Media Temple’s standards…?” What standards might those be? And it’s not just because (mt) is a large hosting provider. I know many large web hosts who provide up-to-date WordPress installs in their 1-Click Installation, Dreamhost being one of them. In fact, within a day of WordPress announcing that 2.1.1 got hacked, Dreamhost had WordPress 2.1.2 up and ready for their simple 1-Click Install and 1-Click Upgrade.

So what gives, (mt)? is this one way in which a bit of (mt) Media Temple elitism is seen? or are there good reasons for their decision to stick with an outdated version of WordPress for their customers? Even if they were not ready to upgrade to 2.1 because they still wanted to test it properly, what about Ronan? or 2.0.7? or the most recent release of 2.0.9 on February 21? I really would like to understand this – and I’m hoping that someone might have some insight into this frustration for me.

Update: good news – Media Temple now offers WordPress 2.1.2.