The gravy train ends....
So, this is mostly for the movabletypo folks. I'm not sure how I beat kwc to the punch, but, there will probably not be an upgrade to MT 3.0. For those who don't want to follow the link, all you need to know is that MT 3.0 is only free for a single-author/3 blog configuration. From there, it goes to $100 for 3a/5b, and $150 for 6a/8b. That's before the "introductory price" discounts.
Ergh. Yeah, they've gotta' make a living... but they're also playing in a field full of competition. This kind of pricing might bring them commercial success - or quickly inspire a set of open-sourced imitators who are "good enough". As one with development experience, they're pushing the limit for how valuable I find the features in the tool.
This will make things complicated, though, even for my personal blog, since I've imported old content from a previous site, which thereby increased the number of authors. sigh
Comments
It's a little harsh to state that the gravy train ends. Of the people we know using Movable Type (excluding MovableTypo), only I would really encounter the restrictions, due to the fact that I am currently running 6 blogs on my kwc.org installation (I could bring it down to 4 if need be). You wouldn't have any problems, even with your multiple authors, unless you have more blogs that I don't know about (see note on honor system below). For the majority of MovableType users, it will remain free, which is a whole lot cheaper than TypePad.
I'm also not too worried about Movabletypo: they've suggested before that people who have donated will get a discount, and there are creative enough solutions if I don't. The licenses that don't make too much sense to me are the corporate licenses. If our former 20-person lab wanted to have a single communal blog, it would cost $700 ($600 intro), which seems pretty silly, especially in situations where not everyone you give an account is going to participate. It doesn't seem to me that the number of authors scales up well in this model, and it feels like a strong disincentive for using this as a community tool; i.e. it seems more geared towards a publishing model, where there is a small set of writers, and a large body of readers, instead of being geared towards a co-equal community, where the readers and writers are one and the same.
However, with all that said, you'll notice that Mena says that they aren't going to actively enforce the licenses; you're on your honor. They care more about the spirit, rather than the letter of the law, so if you happen to have an extra author due to importing, they aren't going to hunt you down. This is another way of saying, personal users, don't fret.
I, personally, have gotten a lot of value for the tool, which is why I donated the first time around. If I like 3.0 even better, then I'll probably pay again to encourage more businesses to adopt their business model.
I wouldn't worry too much about the pricing causing havoc with open source imitators. I think the true test of MT's survivability will be their ability to correct a lot of the usability issues with the 2.x generation, perhaps by porting over some of their TypePad enhancements. MT still caters to the tech-savvy, which isn't very appealing to a company that wants to adopt it internally.
Posted by: kwc | May 13, 2004 04:26 PM
I've checked, and I get a $60 discount on MT 3.0. However, I don't make up my mind on the license until I figure out what to do about the fact that BookQueue is not multiple author friendly.
Posted by: kwc | May 13, 2004 04:39 PM
one last comment before I go to boston. found this on o'reilly: "Rumor around the MT community is that Six Apart was collecting less then 50 cents (US) for each copy of MT downloaded."
http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/wlg/4870
Posted by: kwc | May 13, 2004 08:57 PM
Bryan! I don't know if you remember me, but we went through junior high together. You and Ben Bostrom used to tease me all the time. :) Anyway, I was cleaning my closet and found my old yearbooks from my high school years, and I started feeling nostalgic. So I went to the alumni site, came across your name, and the rest is history.
(I have a ridiculous amount of free time at my job. You have NO IDEA!)
Anyway, if you're so inclined, drop me a line and let me know how you're doing. It would be interesting to play catch-up.
Posted by: Vanessa Anderson | May 19, 2004 09:41 PM