I'm a big Movable Type lover. I use it on a jillion websites - and it is an awesome, powerful and extremely customizable tool for webmasters everywhere. One of the reasons Movable Type IS so loved by people like myself is because it was free -- although most of us have donated at some point or another -- and the support network online is unbelievable. You've got hundreds, probably thousands, of plugins written for this program by volunteers. People freely give their time to develop cool additions to MT ... do you see people freely writing plugins and additions for Microsoft products? Mac OS? Uh no ... because we figure they're getting $$$$ for their product, and they should be developing their own stuff.
SixApart just released MT 3.0 Developer Edition ... and announced their new pricing structure. Minimum regular price is $99 -- and thats for a max 3 authors, 6 blogs. Yeah, they still offer the free version -- but thats max 1 author, 3 blogs. Argh ....
While I'll continue to use MT ... I'll have to think long and hard before upgrading to a free OR paid version. The author limit doesn't bother me personally (but I know a lot of people have multi-authored sites and this will put their sites 'out of business' so to speak) -- but the blog limit would kill Silverberry. I'm running 7 on this site right now. I'm using MT on four non-profit organization websites -- and one of those has 12 blogs running on one installation.
And to quote Jennifer at scriptygoddess --
I'm thinking that maybe they're now strictly going for COMMERCIAL end-users - and see TypePad as the option for users like me. Unfortunately, I like hosting stuff on my own servers. I like tinkering with the blog engine and hacking it to do all kinds of funky stuff. So TypePad is out. ....I would HAPPILY pay, even what they're asking, if it would do all this on it's own. I have to WORK to get MT to do what I want - and for that I'm asked to pay a premium??"
For now ... I'm keeping my version 2.661 with unlimited blogs, authors, etc. I'm trying to download as many plugins that I think I might eventually want to use -- to have a "backup" copy of everything thats compatible with that version of MT.
And I still love MT. It's still the best option out there (in my humble opinion at least) -- I haven't found anything else that allows so much customization. Anything I've ever wanted to be able to do in MT, I've been able to find a way to do it. The online community has loved and supported MT -- geez I've even written a few tutorials -- and so if you need to know how to do something, it's usually just a matter of doing a google search. They're having a plugin contest now ... with $20,000 in prizes -- but the development of new hacks and tricks will probably slow to a snails pace eventually. I wonder what will happen now with the new version ... the trackbacks on mena's post are growing every minute with people slamming them for their new pricing structure.
Why can't we just have a personal version with all the options we have now. Unlimited authors and blogs ... $99 is fine! I don't think too many people would complain about that. I guess only time will tell ...
I agree, $99 for an unlimited non-commerical version would be reasonable, particularly in comparison to paid-blog scripts and would keep many MT users happy.
maybe i'm wrong - but aren't the licenses retroactive as well? if they weren't, then i would see zero need for people to be up in arms. well, except for the fact that plugins will go the way of 3.0.
girlwonder - yep - but there are a few new features in 3.0 that many people will want to take advantage of. I'll be keeping my sites at 2.661 for the time being though. I want to see how SixApart responds to the non-commercial users outcry.
Amen, Thats pretty much what I have been saying since I found out. $100 is a good price point to match what we have now and add new features.
As it stands now, most of us have been charged right out of existence.