Movable Type 3.0 and Eating.

MT has been promoted as a free, full-featured weblogging tool since day one; the only exception I recall was commercial use. More recently, Six Apart began talking about Movable Type Pro, and gave the impression that this would be a non-free upgrade for users whose needs exceed the features provided by the current Movable Type system. I had donated to Six Apart before, I've helped with Typepad beta testing and MT3 alpha testing, and was in fact planning to purchase Movable Type Pro simply as a display of gratitude. I'm sure other MT users felt similarly. The problem with the new pricing scheme isn't that people aren't willing to pay (though the prices are unreasonable for most users) -- it's that it runs counter to all of the expectations that Six Apart had built, and people don't know whether to trust Six Apart anymore; users had been led to believe that MT, with its existing feature set, would always be free of charge. Now this feels like a bait-and-switch. I have a friend who runs a family site that he had upgraded to MT3 while testing the beta; he's now looking at a $600 price tag.

Note that users of Wordpress, which is licensed under the GPL, will never face this issue.

On a separate note, the MT personal use license is absurd. It limits MT's use to a single computer on a single-processor system, which effectively precludes every web host out there.

But I'm also not a cheapskate.

It's not that people expect that the internet is free. That's an overly simplistic quite blidnly from the developer's point of view.

First, people will move to a service that's free. And why the heck wouldn't they? If it's as good as MT, or even almost as good, why shouldn't I use it if it's free? This isn't even an issue of morality as it was with mp3s and p2p. If something costs $69, and something of equal value costs $0, why should I _not_ choose the $0? So of course people will transfer to free blog software. And, the result is that that software will get better as people have made MT better.

Which brings me to my second point. MT became what is very much because of the community that surrounded it. Asking $69 (a discounted price!) is an insult to people that feel thay _made_ MT what it is.

Thirdly, People don't think the internet is free. They're paying for their net access, and they're paying for their webhosting. People pay for livejournal, and they pay for blogger. It goes without saying that they should probably be paying for MT as well. But $69, again a discounted price (!), is excessive. I might even say greedy. SixApart would have done much better - MUCH better - if they'd charged $40-60 for a personal license, and more for a license. Simple. Now, people won't pay the $69 at all.

Limiting the amount of blogs created hurts SixApart more than the money will help.

Ya... I was disheartened to find out about the new version of Movable Type 3.0. I was a beta tester. But now I think they put too many restrictions on the free use license. I've been looking at Drupal, but don't know if I can install as easily as Movable Type was. In fact, I've been thinking of doing something like that.

I still respect Movable Type, but to a limited extent now. I'm ashamed. :(

Open source and free software is a gift culture. You should not approach a gift culture expecting a payout. If you want to be paid for code, don't give it away. Duh.

Sixapart, of course, is free to set whatever terms they wish to. But the really interesting issue of this outcry has been missed: Sixapart shocked its userbase. Instead of working for conversions of the free base and slowly making changes, they shocked their users. Yeah, it's hard. Yeah, it sucks. But when you have legions grovelling at the Trott's feet, you don't kick them in the face. (See the Clutrain Manifesto for the significance of this.)

This was a monkey-effing-a-football disaster of a marketing rollout. Anyone who says otherwise clearly doesn't understand the power of word-of-mouth... WHICH IS WHAT BLOGGING IS ALL ABOUT YOU FOOLS.

A classic example of the absurd attitude I was pointing out. Six Apart has almost been giving aware their software for over 2 years and THEY owe the community? I agree that one of MT's strengths have been its community, but to say the community made MT what it is? Really now.

If you want to use something for $0 that is your prerogative and I begrudge no one for their choice. Flogging Six Apart because they don't want to play that game (or any other software developer for that matter) seems silly. You get what you pay for. I remain unconvinced that the current alternate tools, while promising and nice, provide the equal value you speak of.

Dismiss your users at your peril.

There is a huge community that has surrounded SixApart, but I would bet that a good percentage of them run personal or volunteer sites that really don't generate revenue justifiable to acquire the adequate license. I'm sorry that the old license structure didn't work, but going from unlimited weblogs to 3 is a lot to handle. People ARE willing to pay and I think would be happy to, but it has to be balanced.

vBulletin is a prime example of pay-for software the is VERY popular. Sure there are free forum software out there, yet vB continues to be a top choice among webmasters. MT was very much the same thing in the weblog space, but with this unbalanced licenses scheme, I can't see people staying with them in the manner in which they did.

My only hope is that changes are made to the licensing scheme, or that 3.0 ends up becoming a more full-featured CMS client. But wasn't that was MT Pro was supposed to be?

perhaps in your next article you can check up on radiohead to ensure they're also eating properly in this era of rampant file-sharing.

also, to call MT users 'cheap' is just plain wrongheaded. you're talking about a community of artists and writers - ranging from the erudite to the illiterate - who enrich the internet on a daily basis with their words and images. for most of whom, the thought of being paid (however absurd or reasonable) doesn't cross their mind. why? because the very spirit of blogging is that information wants to be free. it only makes sense that they're going to use a platform that embodies this principle.

it comes down to this: we suspected six apart weren't in touch with their users before and now we know they weren't.

I ran a music zine for years (at a loss -- for years) and met many a starving artist. (I was one of those starving writers.) I know that even the successful artist really never got duly compenstated for their work. So I absolutely support artists and writers getting compenstated. Two wrongs don't make a right though.

Writing software of the quality they have takes talent and a lot of work. Supporting it and working with the community even more. Posts like your are the type that dishearten me and my profession because it shows a lack of appreciation for what I and others do.

They are a young business trying to learn what it means to be just that -- a business. Could this have been handled better? Yes. Mistakes are bound to happen. Cut them some slack and stop being so insulting.

I have a smallish personal site which I don't get a dime from, and yet if I were to upgrade to MT3, it would cost me at least $150, which is just ridiculous. The tiered pricing based on the number of users and blogs makes sense for commercial licenses, not for personal ones.

Kottke has a good post about this, so I'll save myself the repeating / rewording and just point to it.

What's making me annoyed about this new pricing structure isn't that now I'll have to give Six Apart money for MT. I very much want to give money to Six Apart for MT - it's a great tool and I've been enjoying it for a while. I'd already planned to donate to them once I actually got a job, and so had money to do so. Right now though, with this pricing structure, I really can't afford to pay as much as they're asking.

The prices for personal licenses are too high - that's what's annoying most people I've seen complain, not the fact that MT now actually costs money.

It's funny, though, in a way, if you think about it. I really want to give them money, but they're making it quite impossible for me to do so.

I read Kottke's post and I'm sot sure if I totally agree, but its well argued and I can't say it doesn't have its merits.

Their inability to see this and their pathetic people skills in communicating this have cost them dearly. And will continue to do so.

You might betatest software but you never ever beta test price in public that they've done.

Bonehead business error #1. You have to know what you are worth before you ask for it.

They didn't.

They believed their own myth, but this is reality. They've blown their base apart when they could have rallied them behind them.

Silly people.

By the way, I truly understand your pain as a software developer. I am also one of them I truly understand that, but this pricing scheme is totally stupid. They could come up with a fantastic licensing scheme where they could still make lots of money without pissing people off.

For example,

3 blog 3 authors restriction for free version.
unlimited blogs/unlimited authors for personal edition without reselling to others and not hosting other authors' blogs with this license and charge something around 40-60$ for this.

and then commercial licenses which I don't care

author, blog restriction is totally arbitrary, trying to increase the price based on these is not a good idea. That's the main point.

Also provide some more features for the MT 3.0, right now Typekey is not that interesting.

That's a classic example of an 'argument from geek science" and really does miss the point. It's like saying, "If you could only see the deep internal greatness that I with my superior geek skills can see..."

Ten yards and loss of down.

Rather than his post being "an over reaction", I think the resulting furor shows that your saying "The rollout could have been handled better by SixApart" is an understatement of epic proportions.

I think the best assessment of this whole MT license thing can be found here:
http://diveintomark.org/archives/2004/05/14/freedom-0.

MT users seem to have made the mistake of equating a free version of the software with Open Source software, which it is (and has been) NOT. The way Six Apart handled all of this just woke a lot of people up to that fact.