So, finally, it seems everything is not as bad as everybody has been thinking.
I don’t personally care much about what was “miscommunicated” or what was simply changed by SixApart. What I care about is that instead of my previous calculation which brought the licensing fees I would have had to pay to use the new version of Movable Type for my current/ongoing projects to $600, I would now probably manage with the Personal Edition 13 authors license for $150. Mind you, it’s still expensive for me, but it’s not ludicrous anymore.
SixApart have also clarified what they mean by “weblog” in their licensing restrictions: a weblog is a site powered by Movable Type. If you use 5 different “system weblogs” to make up your site, it’s still just one weblog. I find this pretty reassuring. If the personal license you bought is missing a few authors/weblogs to make you happy, you can add individual licenses for $10 each (per extra author or weblog).
What am I going to do? Since the uproar yesterday, I’ve been doing two things: waiting for the dust to settle (and trust me, there is still a lot of it in the air) and, like others, looking pretty closely at WordPress.
When I left Blogger at the beginning of this year, I had been nastily tempted by WordPress. I had given up on it at the time because it was lacking a few functionalities I wanted, MT being a more mature application. Things have changed now, and between the hierarchical categories, the bunch of really sexy CSS templates, and the fact that I can find the development team on Freenode (not even mentioning that WordPress is completely free), it is a very attractive alternative to MT for me.
But as I said above, there is no rush. I’ll give it a few weeks at least, and maybe wait for both Movable Type 3.0 (the “real” one, not the Developer Edition) and WordPress 1.2 to be out.
Also published on Medium.
” I would now probably manage with the Personal Edition 13 authors license for $150. Mind you, it’s still expensive, but it’s not ludicrous anymore.”
Expensive? That’s just a little more than $10/author. Doesn’t sound expensive to me…
Well, let’s say “expensive” compared to “nothing” or “$20”. Depends on your budget, of course.
Strictly not expensive for good software, but not not the amount of money I produce casually.
Understood. Besides, producing money casually is dangerous and could get you in trouble with the Secret Service. 😉
Being a glutton for punishment and having only “3” blogs – which I now understand is only really *One* blog? – I downloaded and installed 3.0D. I can’t honestly say what has changed apart from a little eye-candy and the typekey comment system (which I understand would need me to make template changes).
Over on orkut I had heard that the pMachine people were offering free ExpressionEngine licences for the first 1000 askers so I did and I was a lucky applicant.
I now have all three CMS’s installed, WP, MT3 and ExpressionEngine which for the lacklustre blogger that I am is quite an achievement.
I haven’t quite decided what to do yet. 😉
Well, that’s why it’s called a Developer Release. Most of what’s new is under the hood, and the casual user won’t see it. Not many new functionalities, but new code behind which will hopefully allow for building more and better functionalities.
Well, let's say “expensive” compared to “nothing” or “$20”. Depends on your budget, of course.
Strictly not expensive for good software, but not not the amount of money I produce casually.
Update (long overdue): the licensing structure is now really good, imho, particularly for education, and there is an unlimited personal license available for just under 100$.
http://www.sixapart.com/log/2004/06/announcing_pric.shtml
Why did you end up choosing wordpress? I’m trying to pick a blogger now. I’m leaning towards movable type now.