If you look at the most popular open source server software, a very large proportion of it is written in PHP (popular by install base) with applications such as Wordpress, PHPBB, PHPAds, Drupal, Gallery, Zencart, Joomla, SugarCRM, MediaWiki, PhpNuke, BuddyPresss, Moodle, ezPublish etc. etc.

Look at the list of apps that simplescripts supports[1], most of them are PHP (and simplescript in-turn is supported by a lot of hosts).

Look at OpenSourceCRM - most of the applications there are PHP[2]. The most popular open source CRM applications are also written in PHP[3]

PHP makes up a significant portion of self-install web apps because it is so widely supported[4] (LAMP), it easy to setup and a lot of sysadmins and designers understand how the apps work.

I commented when Diaspora was announced that for these reasons, and because of the target market, PHP would have been a better choice. They could have slipstreamed the install on top of the already large install base of these other applications without admins and potential users having to purchase or setup additional servers (ie. if you already have Wordpress installed somewhere, installing a PHP Diaspora would be a cinch. It could even read and setup using WP or other config files).

You may not like PHP (I don't know anybody who likes it from a design perspective), but you would be a fool to ignore it.

[1] http://www.simplescripts.com/script_list

[2] http://php.opensourcecms.com/scripts/search.php

[3] http://www.insidecrm.com/features/top-open-source-solutions-...

[4] http://php.net/usage.php

We know and so what?

Not only is it in a language that many hackers dislike, but it's a supposedly decentralized social app in a centralized (and, in this context, archaic) SVN repo.

That has to be the most ridiculous criticism I've ever heard of any project ever.

I strongly and completely disagree. For a supposed next-generation, distributed open source application, language and version control choices are important. There are arguably valid reasons for using PHP, none of which you provided in either of your comments, but there is no excuse for using SVN. SVN has its place, and that place isn't in a project like this.

I'm completely down with the idea the SVN isn't a great choice, but I don't see what that has to do with the decentralized nature of the app whose source it's hosting. It seems like saying you should use XWindows to develop all network-related software because it uses sockets.

No. If your differentiating feature is a principle, then you can't ignore that principle.

Today, DVCS is essentially the foundation of developer social networks, both formally (github, bitbucket) and informally. How are you going to make a supposedly decentralized open source social network when the foundation isn't decentralized? Mom doesn't care right now whether a social network is decentralized and open source, developers do.

Judging by the amount of open source PHP code out there, some of it powering major websites, I'm not sure at all it's "a language many hackers dislike".

It's pretty universally acknowledged, even among PHP developers, that the language is a mess. There are reasons to use it despite this, but don't try to pretend it's something it isn't.