by Anonymous Coward writes:
on Friday May 14, 2004 @10:40AM (#9151249)
I've been hit by this kind of thing before. Now I really look hard at the license. If you use proprietary stuff, you are at the mercy of the owner. It's not just a Microsoft thing, folks.
With a car, it's easy to switch to a different brand. There's not much new to learn; if you can drive one car, you can drive another. And if you can drive a stick, you can drive damn near anything on the road. Maybe not to the best of the car's abilities, but you can still get from point A to point B.
With software, it's generally much more difficult to switch vendors. System requirements and means of configuration, not to mention configuration options, are often vastly different.
Granted, proficiency with the underlying principles (Component functions in a car, protocols in software) go a long way in easing change. However, while many people aren't familiar with cars beyond filling the tank and checking the oil, most people aren't familiar with the workings of databases and HTTP.
With software, it's generally much more difficult to switch vendors.
In the general case, yes. In the case of MoveableType... well, you have the code... it is written in Perl... and all your data is safely stored away in a format that is easily retrievable.
At the end of the day, MT is just an interface into and out of a database. An open source database at that.
It has really cool features for puttting and getting the data... but, it doesn't "trap" the data.
The license allows for modification of the code for personal use.
Not for distribution.
I believe that is sufficient for the case of switching vendors. (Which was my point... that switching from MT is easy because of your access to the code and data.)
by Anonymous Coward writes:
on Friday May 14, 2004 @10:50AM (#9151390)
mmmmmmm Free beer..... GULP GULP GULP.. mmm MORE free beer GULP GULP GULP... (footstep) (footstep) (footstep) "HEY! stop blocking the bathroom door man, i gotta pee... What do you mean its $25 to use the bathroom!!! This is an OUTRAGE!!!"
Just use Drupal [drupal.org] instead. Free, powerful, extensible... Oh, and the blogger stuff is just a part of it, it's actually a lot more than that (kinda like a software to build Slashdot type of sites). I installed it on my server and dumbed it down so only the blog is active, and it's working great.
Based on my perusal of the site, this is not Open Source software and has nothing to do with the differences between Open Source and Free software (which are mostly marketing/presentation, by the way).
Most Open Source software is released under the GPL and is also Free software (again, the biggest difference is how the two are presented to PHBs).
This is, though, a good and common example of how proprietary software will usually come back to bite you when you least expect it.
Retroactively revoke all of their licenses... and somehow sue Google and get them to shut down Blogger.com... and and... then maybe I'll be able to locate actual information when searching the Internet for stuff.
by Anonymous Coward writes:
on Friday May 14, 2004 @10:50AM (#9151386)
Couldn't agree more that if this leads to fewer blogs, it's a Good Thing. They should raise the price even more.
But how will I be able to get through the day without Jerry B. Smith's Blog entries? Today he got up and found his cat had vomitted on the floor in the middle of the night. HILARIOUS! You can't pay for writing that good. A few days ago he described how he had to take his car in for an oil change and it took 15 minutes instead of the more industry standard 10 minute quick change because they were jerking him around. Damn quick change places.
The only thing I can think of to say to you and your parent post is: call the fscking wahmbulance.
Seriously.
The internet is supposed to be many things to many people and one of those is a forum for expression of ideas and thought. Who appointed you the gatekeeper? Do you really have the gall to think that just because someone posts something of no interest to you, that it is somehow not worthy?
More elitist crap from the geek contingent is all I'm seeing.
Not exactly. We don't really hear about what Cmdr Taco had for breakfast or how Timmy's dog is chasing the neighbor's cat. Slashdot is really just a set of discussion boards that periodically post some story to talk about.
Gotta love the proprietary world. Dole the juice, cajole the users and then when some event horizon is met, flip the tables and stick it to your users. Yeh haw I love it.
Not only do they still have a free version but also, no-one is forced to upgrade. It seems people aren't interested in whether it's free as in speech but when it's free as in beer, changes in the pricing structure bring bitter recriminations.
As I stated here [paulbeard.org], I paid $150 for a commercial license for MT 2.6. On December 22nd of 2003, a post to MT's site [movabletype.org] stated:
The next version of Movable Type will be version 3.0, a significant and free upgrade.
And
Movable Type 3.0 will be a free download and upgrade.
It isn't a free upgrade. The promotional price for the cheapest commercial MT license is $199. My earlier purchase of a commercial MT 2.6 license knocks $20 off of that. 6A might think they're going to move us to the presumably more lucrative TypePad hosted service, but many of us are simply going to switch to other software.
Could you PLEASE publicly (as in, post it in a blog, and then e-mail a copy) challenge M&B about this! I remember this as well and I find this kind of about-face to be a real kick in the teeth. Yes, I understand that they're trying to run a company and keep a roof over their heads, but this new license is really not suitable for a LOT of the folks who use and love MT. I mean, c'mon, I'm running MT on a dual-CPU PII, a half-dozen blogs (only 2 public) and 20+ authors (my friends and a couple of accounts that are just for automated postings & such). Do they seriously think that I'm going to cough up $600+ out of brand loyalty? I appreciate their effort, and I've donated to them in the past, but they're putting themselves in competition with several free (speech & beer) alternatives. While I can see MT becoming the tool of choice for ISP/ASP markets who want to provide weblog services to their clients, I think that the 'hobby' and 'lightweight' marketshare will either freeze at MT 2.6x or go elsewhere and take their marketshare to other blogging tools. I also imagine that all those folks writing MT 2.x plug-ins will quickly start duplicating the 'new' features that MT3 is hawking. Remember what happened when Kazaa sold out and a raft of other free P2P clients turned up the heat and started giving them a real run for the corporate money? I'm sure that this won't be the last we hear of it, and I wouldn't be suprised if MT rethinks it's licensing policy, but I'm almost positive that I'm going to move my MT blogs over to something else in the next 3-6 months. Best of luck to Mena & Ben in the wild woolly world of corporate software, but I hope you've got your mittens; a lot of folks are going to start giving you the cold shoulder over this.
It is free, look on the site:
Not willing to pay for Movable Type yet? This fully-functional version of the application is available free of charge. Important limitations of this license include:
* No support from Six Apart
* No access to paid installation service
* No access to fee-based services
* No promotion of your weblogs through the Recently Updated list
* No commercial usage
* No more than one author and three weblogs
Just so you know, the corporate necessity out there is greed... Oh, I have to be PC. It's maximizing shareholder return on investment. Anything else and they have a NPO, or a group of hobbyists.
Lest folks rag on hobbyists, they are the ones who brought you:
-Airplane -Car -Phone -Electricity It's a long list, you know.
How much do you want to bet that whoever came up with fire was a geek? How about the wheel? How about writing. Dang, I don't see a bunch of grunting jocks inventing writing, even today.
By the way, once people understand that about companies, it's not that hard to figure out why the world runs the way it does.
Well, that and religion.
On an aside: my solution for Iraq: flood the country with 100 billion in small bills. This will really get rid of the bad guys. They'll be too busy killing each other amassing their fortunes, and then whisking themselves off to a chalet in Lausanne. Then the rest of the people can have normal lives again. The only other thing thy need is a small and deadly military. Why are we trying to hire 200,000 of them for a pittance with AKs and old uniforms when what you really need is 20,000 of them with 1500/mo salaries, tanks, helicopters, and kick ass officers. Then you make them into a shock and rapid deployment force. Also, you need to make sure that they are NOT under US command, but have their own command. Like the Kurds. Kurds fight well in the Kurdish armies because they fight with Kurds, for Kurds. Ah, I feel better now... Back to work.
Great fucking point. Imagine how great all of these things would still be without big companies! Nothing could be better than reading an article about the one guy in Pennsylvania who has electricity, or the neighbors in New Jersey who can call each other. Brilliant!
I disagree. I think everyone really wants free as in speech, but thinks free as in beer is the same thing. Real world objects don't come with complex licenses. We've grown up in a world where both "free"s are the same, so few people really understand how and why software is different. I still don't understand why it's different or at least why we accept it that way.
WordPress (GPL), which is an equally powerful CMS, seems like a perfect candidate for those who are considering a switch to a non-crippled, free alternative.
Presumably you believe it's crippled because you have to pay for it, which I have to say I find a poor argument. Pay for the stuff if you think it's worth the money, use something else if you don't. It's not a hard choice.
He thinks it's 'crippled' because of the new restrictions involved (and by implication, that it isn't worth the money); that seems like a perfectly good use of the term. Especially since the restrictions are artificial in nature.
I can certainly see people being upset by what looks like a classic bait-and-switch, exploiting the goodwill of the community for personal gain. Like so many other sites who have tried this (and failed), it requires its biggest fans, supporters, and users to pay the largest price,
Presumably you believe it's crippled because you have to pay for it, which I have to say I find a poor argument.
Not necessarily.
Product A (commercial) is non-crippled, and non-free.
Product B (shareware) is crippled, and free (gratis).
Product C (GPL) is non-crippled, and free (both ways).
Product C is hence a non-crippled, free alternative to A. Non-crippled is not redundant, as there are other free alternatives to product A which are crippled: C's advantage over them is that it is non-crippled and fr
Pay for the stuff if you think it's worth the money, use something else if you don't. It's not a hard choice.
It doesn't quite work like that. In practice, I find it's more like: "Find the product with the best feature set. Then look for second best, and so on down until features start lacking or you run out. Be mindful of ties. Consider crippled payware as two products, one with registration and one without. Then, check prices, and download/buy the one with the best features for the lowest price."
I just switched from Movable Type to Text Pattern [textpattern.com] and I couldn't be happier. It's more CMS like AND easier to use (granted MT was easy to use but Txp feels much smoother). It makes a good separation of content and display and has a few goodies that make this feel natural. It's got a few minor bugs that'll be fixed before release; but it's worked great for my blog [andrewvc.com].
Oh, and it imports movable type files. Seriously, with the wide variety of free, quality, blogging software out there, Six Apart has their work cut out for them.
I am not seriously into blogging, but so far I've been using Blogger [blogger.com]'s free service to edit Blog posts on-line and then publish them to my free web storage at my ISP. This works well for me because I have limited storage space (about 10 Mb) at my ISP and I'm not able to upload software to run on their server. I could of course pay some other business for web site hosting, but hey, this is still just a hobby for me at this point.
So my question for the Slashdot community is, do any of these free and open sou
I just switched from Movable Type to Text Pattern and I couldn't be happier. It's more CMS like AND easier to use (granted MT was easy to use but Txp feels much smoother). It makes a good separation of content and display and has a few goodies that make this feel natural.
Sounds like you've already got a solution, but others should really consider Blosxom [blosxom.com] - it's truly free [blosxom.com] (not just GPL), and in additoin to being really easy to use, has a bunch of advantages, the bidggest of which is that it understands the concept of using a heirarchical file system to organize posts. Blog entries are simply text files thrown into the appropriate directory. Blosxom can also generate pages dynamically, as most blogs do, or statically, allowing batch updates if you want.
It's written in Perl, and has a large and rapidly growing collection of "plug-ins" that extend its functionality, often in ways that is similar to (or sometimes better than Movable Type's. don't be fooled by its simplicity and small size - Blosxom does nearly everything the larger packages do, and is much, much, easier and more flexible than any other blog program I've run across.
Blosxom really is one of the most impressive programs I've seen in some time. It's worth checking out, and should be considered as an alternative to Movable Type, GreyMatter, Blogger, and the rest more often than it is. Fortunately, a growing number of hosting providers offer Blosxom support, since it's so easy and reliable.
Sounds like you've already got a solution, but others should really consider Blosxom - it's truly free (not just GPL), and in additoin to being really easy to use, has a bunch of advantages, the bidggest of which is that it understands the concept of using a heirarchical file system to organize posts.
I'll second or third that. Blosxom is a very powerful, very simple tool (the upcoming version 3.0, which has grown significant in size, is a scandalously large 15KiB in size!:-)
Blosxom allows an extension of its features via Plugins [blosxom.com], which allows you to get the features you want without also getting loaded up on the ones you don't. I didn't care for MT's CMS with its various logins, complex scripts, etc.
The other feature that I really enjoy in Blosxom is the easy easy easy syndication; all you do is add/index.rss to your blog's URL, and you have an RSS 0.91 feed. And since Blosxom is heirarchical, people can choose to read an RSS feed of only a specific portion of you blog if they want with no additional work on your part.
So yeah, ditch MT and go Blosxom. You won't regret it!
....it would be CAPITALISM, savior of the common man and the greatest force for freedom ever known.
Perheaps you would care to explain it in more detail to the 90% of the planet's population, livng in places where dog-eat-dog capitalizm is the religion de jeur but it is curiously coupled with unspeakable misery and poverty of the "common man", freedom is unheard of and outright slavery common. What is your solution? More capitalism? More US-based pan-national megacorporations owning more of everything? Less governent restrictions on "investment"?
My imagination is too feable to understand how could one have less restrictions for the capitalists in some of the African and Latin American bannana republics then they have now. Most even come with a friendly dictator who would promptly kill/maim/torture anyone who would object to a capitalist investment. So, please, by all means, do enlighten me how does capitalizm further freedom. I for one was under this irrational impression that capitalizm is a religion of money and the only thing it is concerned with is multiplication of "wealth" with no regards as to its distribution and human costs. We in the west are just lucky that our history and culture resulted in other, completely unrelated ideas like "democracy", "representative governemt", "free press" etc to colaborate with some of the more palatable capitalist ideas to form our present, somewhat successful social systems.
Now I'm admittedly unfamiliar with MovableType, so please correct me if I'm wrong. But I don't recall anything saying that their blogging services was going to be free indefinitely.
Given MobableType's popularity, this really shouldn't come as a surprise. The more people they have using their service, the more it costs to maintain a quality level of service. That's the price they pay to give blog space to anyone who wants it.
So as with any business in a capitalist society, if you don't want to go along with this pricing plan, do as the submitter suggests and go to another service.
The more people they have using their service, the more it costs to maintain a quality level of service.
Movable Type is a product, not a service. Scalability doesn't come into play here, unless you want to count bandwidth for downloading the source. It doesn't cost them anything extra (again, except bandwidth) to provide something which they have already developed to 10,000 people rather than 100 people.
You can upgrade to as high as version 2.66.1, and the new pricing scheme won't affect your Movable Type site. That's what we're doing at Polstate.com [polstate.com].
By the way, shameless plug:
Polstate.com is the Political State Report [polstate.com], a web site held together by contributors from each state (US) who report on grassroots and statewide political news, especially when relevant to local and state elections. We offer a different flavor of political news, distinct from most other blogs and news sites that focus on the Presidency, war on terror, and national economy.
The november 2003 issue of Business 2.0 [business2.com] showed an intention to go in that direction, even the MT license debate [movableblog.com] gave clues a long before. It shouldnt be a bad surprise for anyone, but a great loss to the blog comunity.
"OMG, my free blog software changed, i have to pay for it now"
"i'm poor and can't afford it, if you read the past entries of my blog, which are all bitching about how i'm poor and can't afford anything"
"i'm going to bitch about MT changing to a non-free system on my blog."
Really, who cares? There's some blogs out there that are worth reading (pervscan, MSDN Blogs), but 99% of the users of Movable Type are retards. Charging for MT is keeping the shit off of the web.
I'm sick of people always saying that blogs are annoying or stupid. I have family and friends all over the country. Email isn't efficient because A) their email addresses change and B)I don't have the time to write a long email every week. Blogging provides me with an efficient communications medium that lets them stay up with what I'm doing in my life. This, combined with Gallery [sourceforge.net] has made it easier for me to keep in touch with people I care about.
The development of a meta tag that stopped Google from index
Or, we could all just RTFSite, which apparently our dear submitter didn't do, and see that they clearly state that they will still offer a free version. I read the news yesterday (since I've been waiting for the 3.0 release to install it) and was slightly disturbed by the "pricing scheme", but I actually read the whole thing, and it does state that they will still offer a free version (the google cache hasn't been updated since the new stuff has been posted, so it's pretty pointless to check it out).
There is a v3 free version for a single author/single blog, this is crippled from their current free version. My current setup wouldn't be able to use the v3 free version, I have two blogs (one is a sub-blog for book reviews) and host two blogs for friends, so have a total of 3 authors. The free version doesn't officially support this. If the Trott's are *wink-wink-nudge-nudging* that people with my type of setup can still run their free software they shouldn't have written their license to specifically forbid it.
That said, it's obvious to anyone with a pair of brain celss that this pricing structure is to make their Typepad service [typepad.com] more attractive for casual bloggers and non-techies. If you you're willing to get your elbows dirty you can run a blog on your own machine from home with the free version.
The post containing the rationale [sixapart.com] for the licensing change contains hundreds of trackbacks from the MT community. Guess what most of them are saying.
Because I love Perl and I don't much care for PHP/SQL. Check out Coranto here. [gweilo.org] It's more of a news system (the successor to NewsPro) but it works quite well for my website, destination-life.com
Not willing to pay for Movable Type yet? This fully-functional version of the application is available free of charge. Important limitations of this license include:
* No support from Six Apart
* No access to paid installation service
* No access to fee-based services
* No promotion of your weblogs through the Recently Updated list
* No commercial usage
* No more than one author and three weblogs
So let me interpret these points...
* No mooching. * No mooching. * No mooching. * No commercial use. * Limited (yet otherwise fully functional) personal use.
Why is this so bad? I've paid a lot more than $70 for software that I've really liked. This is pretty cheap.
I like MT, and I use it for my blog, but I think their new pricing is just set too high. I'd be glad to pay a lower price, but at $70, it's a bit outside what I'm willing to pay. Give me a $35 version, with no installation support, and 10 blogs and 10 authors, and I'd be happy, it gives me the freedom to do what I want in the future, and still puts coins in SixApart's coffers.
There's nothing I hate more than overpriced software, especially from vendors who make things which are handy, but not critical.
It's not bad because it's unreasonable, it's bad because it's stupid. There are so many other blogging packages out there that I fail to see how they can possibly manage to make money selling one, especially for more than just a couple bucks. As far as I can tell, the majority of their income will be from people too stupid to be able to switch to another software package, and when all your customers are idiots, your business becomes hard to manage unless it's a monopoly. You know, like government.
There is a free version of Movable Type, available on our site, which like all versions of Movable Type consists of the exact same code. There's no crippleware, no nagware. We trust you. We never said this is the last free version of Movable Type.
The only thing this does is a) allow SixApart to eat, and b) allow large corporations to buy MT. I know plenty of organisations that want to use it, but couldn't even look at it until it cost more than nothing. Many procurement processes can't deal with Free.
From backroom hobby to multinational company in three years: Good for them, frankly.
When you say "not crippled in any way" you mean that limiting it to 1 author and 3 blogs is an improvement over the current unlimited authors, unlimited blogs restrictions?
I don't have anything against SA trying to make a living, but they priced me out of the market. I run 3 or 4 blogs with around 10 - 15 users, I earn $0.00 on them and am expected to pay $600 to upgrade to a new version that only offers one new feature (comment management).
Like I said on my site, if they had offered me something that would meet my needs for $40 - $50 I would probably pay up. Instead I'm going to stick with 2.6.
bloxsom [blosxom.com] and pybloxsom [subtlehints.net] (a port of the original Perl) offer an elegant plugin-based architecture with a gentle learning curve if you want to set up your own blog. And because so little is hardcoded into the app itself, you can leverage it to do all sorts of non-traditional sites; I wrote a plugin to enable a webcomic in a few hours.
I especially don't ever want to continue to give away a free version, but charge people who are using it in a business environment. That would suck even more if people who are using my software to make money themselves.
PEOPLE! You can still use MT for free with one or two authors, personal blog, etc. If you're using it for more industrial stuff, then don't expect it to be free forever, especially since you GET SUPPORT FROM THE DEVELOPER.
I'm not talking about the typical "RTFM, l0s3r" support you get from certain GPL apps, I'm talking about actually ask-a-question-get-a-polite-and-helpful-answer kind of support.
Just because they need to make money (who doesn't?), doesn't mean you should dump them completely.
For the K5 members out there, there are more details here [kuro5hin.org]--apparently the licensing structure is considered a bit outlandish (for what used to be a free product), perhaps to push their (cheaper) blog webhosting services. But for those outside the "Blogosphere", this will only lead to momentary head-scratching [kuro5hin.org], as to what these crazy kids are talking about now.
Personally, I've been spoiled by/. and K5--I can't stand discussion forums that don't at least have nested comments and a few other basic refinements, and it's even better if they have sane implementations (that don't involve doing O(n) SQL queries recursively to build the list of comments, for example)
I use a Mac and have had no problems with iBlog, from Lifli software. The price fluctuates based on your currency and it's relationship to the Indian Rupee. I paid close to $20 for it. You can install it on up to two seats for that price. It integrates extremely well with.Mac hosted sites too. Read all about it. [lifli.com]You can even hack the css and such with your editor of choice.
It would be a shame if this raised the entry barrier for blogers so high that angsty teens, burnouts and uninteresting 30-somethings couldn't post about every little thing that happens to them.
http://www.opensourcecms.com/ is a good site to search for alternative weblogs. The nice thing is that they have working demos up that you can access to try out stuff.
The reviews are pretty generic and not much help.
Does anyone know of a good source for reviews on CMS systems?
I also have to question the stats on the link stating moveable type is the most popular weblog. Some prominent blogging software is not counted, such as geeklog, scoop, and (ahem) slashdot.
It's not entirely fair to lambaste moveabletype, they are still offering a non-commercial version of limited capability.
A few weeks ago, when I was evaluating CMS systems, I came across moveable-type, and their lack of a free license is what turned me off. The system that most impressed me was PHPNuke.
My biggest complaint about most of these CMS's are the big holes in documentation.
I've never personally used it, but I've noticed what seemed to be a large number of security issues found in the product at a time when I was doing a security audit of a system that was using it.
That's not to say that the other CMS systems don't have their own security problems, and I know the couple that I've written probably had their own issues, but I didn't pull a Matt Wright [of FormMail [securityfocus.com] fame] and go distributing crappy software all over the place, either.
Nuke Security [nukesecurity.com] seems to have some information
I've tried a few CMS and read about many. Obviously some are more suitable than others for certain situations. Drupal [drupal.org] has been perfect for running my two [webhop.net] sites [mattschwartz.net]. One has a book and news stories while the other is purely a blog. Drupal's online documentation is very good and the community is very very helpful with users. I highly recommend it.
I was a Movable Type user, but with my latest ISP change I ditched MT for Geeklog [geeklog.net]. Geeklog is really cool, and nicely integrates with Gallery [menalto.com] which I use for images. Both are Open Source and free, so the decision was easy.
If you like the idea of a mod_perl/Postgres-based BLOG, check out http://blog.dachte.org [dachte.org], and if you like what you see, drop me a note and we'll get it installed on your system. I'll start to regularly make public packages soon..
I've been reading ALOT of the track backs over the last 24 hours linked from Mena's post on the SixApart web site. Clearly there are some angry users... and their anger isnt' entirely unfounded. I don't think Six Apart's intentions were to screw anyone or to try and capitalize on a dominent market position via bait and switch. That said, I do think the new pricing schedule is a bit ornerous and it doesnt' seem to have much of a migration strategy for people who are hosting multiple blogs on a shoestring budget. Hopefully SA will add one or two more pricing schedules that will accomodate the grass roots community they helped build. At the very least I think folks would like to see more blogs / authors available at the lower cost teers of the pricing schedule. Just my $0.02
Since MT is written entirely in perl and other non-compiled languages, how hard could it possibly be to hack these limitations out of the free version? I'd bet you just have to comment out a few simple checks, and then distribute a patch...via your blog, of course.:)
That violates their copyright, license and probably a bunch of other stuff. Unless you plan to run the hacked version on 127.0.0.1 all the time, it's not too hard for SixApart to find your site, double-check the customer list and then send you cease-and-desist.
Since MT is written entirely in perl and other non-compiled languages, how hard could it possibly be to hack these limitations out of the free version?
There are no limitations coded in. The license works on the honor system.
"You may install the Software on only one (1) computer or server having a single CPU."
Who came up with that one?? I'd wager that the vast vast majority of hosting clients have no clue how many CPU's the server their website is running on has, while a very large number of hosting providers use multi-CPU servers.
That clause is basically setting up thousands and thousands of people to break the license agreement they agreed to without even knowing it.
The only reason I can see for that clause, other than pure oversight on the behalf of Six Apart, is they want to push people using MT to their own hosting service(TypePad).
...but it should cost.01 cent (or 1/100 Euro) per word entered. If every blogger had to think about what they were writing, blogs might not the emo, angsty, tedious wasteland they are now.
And yes,/. is included, so I owe Taco 53 cents. Sigs don't count.
I'm not a cheapskate. I believe in paying for good software.
But I won't pay for Movable Type. Here's why.
On SixApart's behalf, they made several big mistakes in launching their pricing structure. Since they announced MT3 and that they were going to charge for it, they also promised a free non-crippled version of MT3. Blogging is generally a communual experience. I blog casually, and I have a couple of friends who write posts on my blog from time to time, and a wife who keeps her own blog. The free version of MT3 is crippled, because it limits the users and number of blogs. Limiting user base is bad thing to do when blogging is still relatively new.
Secondly, the pricing structure is much higher than what people anticipated. Those in the beta test for MT3 had absolutely no idea that it was going to cost this much, and many who did participate have publically stated they wouldn't have if they did know. Why the hostility?
Two reasons. It's the community that made MT what it is now. There's not really that much new functionality in MT3 that makes it worth paying $100 for (the $70 is a temporary discount remember?). Many of the features that made MT2x worth using were coded by non-SixApart people. Users - with no profit motive whatsoever - coded hundreds of MT plugins that exceeded the coding ability of SixApart. Others wrote far more detailed tutorials and instructions than SixApart provided for their own software. So, SixApart is compensating them by running a contest for the best plugin? That's insulting, honestly.
Secondly, there are blogging apps that do as good a job as MT3, if not better. And, they're [textpattern.com] free [wordpress.org]. Others have similar pricing structures as MT3 but do more. So, why MT3? And let's get this straight: using something for free isn't necessarily being a cheapass. If maintaining my blogs as they are will cost me upwards $150, why shouldn't I migrate to a free solution? Imagine if Windows had the same stability and security as Linux, but cost the same as it does now for a company to run. Why wouldn't a company move to Linux? Are companies being the durgatory form of cheapskates by moving to a lower priced product? No. It's common market sense, and because of its love for linux and open source, slashdot should be aware of this better than anyone. Some MT users probably are cheapass, and will warez the MT software if they can or do whatever they can to avoid paying.
But a larger portion are paying for accounts on livejournal and blogger. They are paying for internet access and webhosting. They're not cheapskates. Instead, like me, they just don't want to pay $150-200 for what is basically a hobby, and a hobby that can continue for free if we switch software. Why should we support a company that doesn't announce its pricing structure beforehand, and keeps it as close to their chest as possible? Why did SixApart do that? Why didn't they announce it before time?
Because they knew people would be pissed. This reaction is no surprise to anyone.
b2evo [b2evolution.net] This is what I would recommend people check out first. BBlog [bblog.com] (requires PHP version 4.1 or greater & MySQL version 3.23 or greater) Bit 5 Blog [sourceforge.net] blosxom [blosxom.com] (only need ability to run CGI scripts) drupal.org [drupal.org] (mySQL or similar required) LiveJournal.org [livejournal.org] MyPHPblog/Simplog [myphpblog.org] (seems to require MySQL would have to download to be sure.) Nucleus [nucleuscms.org] (requires PHP version 4.0.6 or higher and access to a MySQL database version 3.23.38 or higher) Pivot [pivotlog.net] (only php required) pLog [plogworld.org] (requires PHP 4.1.x or higher and MySQL 3.1.x or higher) Scoop [kuro5hin.org] (requires Apache with mod_perl and mySQL) TikiWiki [tikiwiki.org] (requires PHP 4.1+ and MySQL. Very powerful software.) WordPress [wordpress.org] (requires PHP version 4.1 or greater
and MySQL version 3.23.23 or greater.)
Many alpha bloggers have been waiting for MT3 a long time - SixApart has been dragging it's feet, since they were very busy developing their big purely commercial version TypePad.
TypePad has many features many MT users have been waiting for a long time - especially since many MT users paid some money to use their tool. Some of that money kept SixApart alife and financed the developement of TypePad.
MT3 hardly offers ANY new features - none of those we can see in TypePad, like list management, gallery etc.
MT was for many people the only real alternative to Blogger, but MT2.x or even MT3.x now lags behind in terms of features and most of all performance.
There has been a long time announcement for a MT3 Pro version - which never surfaced.
MT3 is still based on static pages, so if you change your layout (CSS or templates) you have to rebuild all pages - which can take down many shared servers. There have been reports that some ISPs won't allow MT installs on their severs, because those rebuilds eat all cpu power. MT is also very slow when it comes to comments.
Many long time MT bloggers with hundreds or thousands of postings and comments are sick and tired about the rebuild issue. Many of the other weblog systems are dynamic since they are based on PHP.
One of the main points for MT2.x have been it's active plugin developer scene - which was mostly born out of the lack of features. Many people hoped that MT3 would include many of these plugins as regular features... especially since TypePad has all those goodies!
SixApart has a bad reputation in terms of licenses and communication. They behave a bit like Apple: we are sooo cool therefore you have to pay more. This may work if you have a product like the iPod, which is really outstanding - but MT3 is not really far ahead of the competition.
Many MT users will switch, because they are disappointed, because they are sick and tired of waiting for better features and constantly putting up with bad communcation.
The pricing schemes is confusing and not very useful for neither private nor business users. A good CMS/blog is worth some money, but not several hundred dollars/euro.
Another point certainly are those many more dynamic weblog systems based on PHP - they are easier to hack for most people and less bitchy about server performance. They should have released a home (around $30) and a business version (around $75) - PLUS different kind of support contracts - like so many other companies do. Let's say a MT3 Gold service contract will cost you $500 a year, but you will hava a three hour response time etc.
MT/SixApart once hat the lead and they had the buzz. The negative wave has been building up for at least six months now. I am sure SixApart won't disppear over night, but it will take them a long time or a very bold business move to get rid of that bad vibe and earn the trust of their users again.
Meanwhile I personally will go for WordPress some day (my weblog [orangeguru.net]).
AFAI understand, the main reason why there's a lot of bitching going on against the MT authors is that they were using their loyal users to beta-test their new MT release (3.0) while keeping them under the mistaken impression it was going to remain free. I quote from one blog [drunkenmonkeys.org]:
No business ethics problems? How about this.
You ready a beta release of a piece of software, and ask people to beta test it. Mention nothing about paying, or even that you are considering changing the license. Being the loyal folks they are, lots say "OK" and you give them the software. They upgrade to it, and there's no way to downgrade.
Then, about 5 weeks later, you say, "Oh, by the way, most of you will have to pay to upgrade out of beta". Keeping in mind that most of the people who are the most loyal to MT, and therefore the most likely to have signed up for the beta program, are the ones who take MT to its' limits by using multiple blogs for things like link sidebars, book reviews, photoblogs, etc., and a lot of them no longer qualify for the free version because of the three blog limit.
You've just stranded a whole bunch of people on a beta version of your software, and you're basically extorting them to allow them to upgrade to a non-beta release.
It does look like SixApart [sixapart.com] have shot themselves in the foot and alienated themselves from their fanbase. They have violated the golden role of starting to charge for something that was previously free. In the world of tech where everyone wants the latest and greatest (and MT users are particularly tech-savvy given the requirements to install and maintain the software), this was always going to be an unpopular decision. How could they not have foreseen this?
The launch of their TypePad [typepad.com] service last year (which is basically a fully commercial, hosted MT package with bells and whistles like photo gallery management) was a smart business move; make a service out of your product, and keep the original product free. This latest move, though, is beyond comprehension and will only hurt them. It will sure be interesting to see how they backpedal from this.
I am sick of hearing how some company that used to give away software for "free" suddenly starts charging money or imposing adverts or whatever.
My software procurement policy is "no source, no sale" and I have never had cause to complain. I don't get spyware. I don't get adware. I don't get browser hijacks. I don't get banner adverts {they are blocked at the proxy}. I don't get viruses. I don't have to reboot my computer for unexplained reasons {I have had to do so for explained reasons..... like when I was trying my hand at a bit of C programming in a spare 15 minutes, got a bit adventurous, and forgot I was logged in as root. That's not a mistake you make twice}.
Purveyors of closed-source software are really just after something they can get from you -- whether it be money, or information about you that they can sell to other people for money. You get what you deserve for using it.
This is not an open source vs. closed source issue. You get the source whether you pay or whether you download, you just don't get the re-distrubution rights.
MovableType is written in Perl, so you do get all the sources. Ironically, since it's written in Perl, MovableType can be considered a closed-source package, since who the hell wants to parse someone else's Perl code.
I think the problem with MovableTYpe isn't that they're charging $$, but rather their pricing architecture is too restrictive to the 3rd party programmers that made it happen...... and too much based upon the success of TypePad...
All you MT apologists need to check the license and double check your hosting setup. If your hosting provider hosts you on a dual CPU system then you break the license to use MT 3.
Besides, it isn't about the money. It is about the community. MT has quite the devoted community around the and Six Apart pissed on a lot of shoes.
Time will tell if it is worth it, but perhaps Six Apart now wants to get into the commercial CMS business dominated by other, just as crappy, outfits providing 'solutions' that include invalid markup, bad Information Architecture, and outrageous fees.
Count me a very happy WordPress [wordpress.org] user; the install is simple, no restrictions on use, and it validates. Most importantly though, no more using stupid
I quote from Techdirt Mike [techdirt.com]'s analysis:
It seems that they've screwed up one of the most basic rules in pricing: never take away features and charge for them. You can charge for new features - but taking away features that were included for free before always pisses off your most loyal customers. They feel suckered. They feel like you've pulled a bait and switch on them. In this case, many MT users set up multiple blogs with multiple authors. That's what the software encouraged them to do. Now, they're looking at the pricing and realizing to continue doing so on the new platform would cost them around $600. "Costs more for doing less" isn't a way to make users happy.
I don't see a problem with SixApart deciding to charge for MovableType. Taking away certain features that have been free before seems like a dumb decision, but what do I know, it might work out for them. This is not such a big deal as a lot of people portray it to be.
Basically, anyone running MovableType right now has several options:
Pay up for commercial 3.0 license if you fall under new categories that require payments.
Stay with 2.6.x, which won't require anything on your part (unless some exploits are discovered)
Switch to alternatives, some with similar licensing [pmachine.com], some GPLed [wordpress.org].
I've developed and ran sites based on MT, pMachine and WordPress, the site in signature is completely WordPress-based and you can read my impressions in WordPress Testimonials [wordpress.org] section. I find pMachine the easiest to use, MT the most powerful and WordPress the most attractive with licensing terms and least likely to pull shit like that.
Hopefully this decision by SixApart will move more bloggers and developers into WordPress, which would accelerate improvement. I mean, realistically, MT is not that much better, and even though Wordpress can be rough if you don't know PHP or not willing to play with the code, they seem to be progressing at good speed right now.
As a Shareware author in the late 80s and early 90s, I have some specific opinions on these issues. I wouldn't be as successful as I am today if it weren't for the jump start Shareware provided, but I often wonder whether or not I could do the same thing in today's industry. I doubt it.
I can see both sides of the issue. On one side you have people and companies whoring themselves out, giving away free software and services in order to compensate for not having resources to advertise, but at some point they need to see some return or else they can't sustain the development of their products.
On the other hand, you have have users who have become spoiled and selfish and expect everything to be free, and eveything to be super-cheap.
On yet another front, you have both commercial and shareware companies flooding the market with buggy and inferior products with little or no tech support. And then you have mafia like Quicken, forcing users to pay more and more each year to simply maintain the functionality of their software once they hoodwink users into converting over.
The whole industry is a mess. The one shining star in all of this is Open Source. There is a clear delineation between the for-profit and for-development arms of most of these projects and that's a refreshing change.
It used to be a gamble relying on shareware. You never knew if the company was going to be around or there'd ever be an update, or whether things would just suddenly stop working or break. Now you have the same thing with most of the commercial companies. I don't blame the users for being cautious about which products to support, but the bottom line is that people work hard to create these systems and if they don't get compensated one way or another, they can't keep up the work.
In the end, you get what you pay for, literally and figuratively. If you've never given a dime to the developers of systems you use on a regular basis, then shut your trap when they close up shop or are forced to adopt the new industry-standard of strong arming users into paying.
What many of the posts here have failed to mention is the restriction Six Apart has carefully hidden in their Terms of Service:
"You may install the Software on only one (1) computer or server having a single CPU."
This presents a problem for many people who purchase webhosting; if their webhost using servers with more than one CPU (very likely), they legally cannot install/use Movable Type.
Oh, and to address the people who say to stay with version 2.6: holding back on the upgrade is only a temporary solution. The next time a Movable Type bug or security hole is discovered, I'm willing to bet that Six Apart is only going to patch the 3.0 tree.
I have a much longer rant about the license change here [evilcoder.com].
If you wanna come to wordpress, you might find this moving guide [carthik.net] handy with all the details about what needs to be done before, during and after the move.
Ben & Mena Trott, created MT while both of them were unemployed from the dotboom. While wondering how they were goingt to pay for their bills, they continued to work on this awesome program that thousands of people got to use for free. So now they want to get paid for all the work they did....i say good for them. If somebody is cool enough to still have the motivation to develop a product while under great stres, they deserve sucess....
Is there any other blog software out there with the template flexibility of MT? My main index template and other templates for MT2.661 are actually aspx pages, with aspx extensions. I use MT for the blogging and maintenance of the static pages. But the page templates can be anything you like, in my case they are part of an asp.net website. One big appeal of MT is that you can use it as a defacto CMS system for your entire site.
I'll probably be modded down for plugging my own work, but I wrote a very simple blogging tool that uses phpBB to manage blog entries and replies. It's phpBB Blog [outshine.com], and it's available under the new BSD license (no advertising clause). So it's free beer and free speech. I'll have a new version release in early June. Maybe some of the MT defectors here could consider it (although really, it's quite simple, probably not useful to many MT fans).
Good example of why open source != free (Score:5, Insightful)
I got hit with it too (Score:5, Funny)
It seems like with anything you buy today, you're at the mercy of the people working to make the product and sell it.
Re:I got hit with it too (Score:4, Insightful)
With software, it's generally much more difficult to switch vendors. System requirements and means of configuration, not to mention configuration options, are often vastly different.
Granted, proficiency with the underlying principles (Component functions in a car, protocols in software) go a long way in easing change. However, while many people aren't familiar with cars beyond filling the tank and checking the oil, most people aren't familiar with the workings of databases and HTTP.
Re:I got hit with it too (Score:5, Insightful)
In the general case, yes. In the case of MoveableType... well, you have the code... it is written in Perl... and all your data is safely stored away in a format that is easily retrievable.
At the end of the day, MT is just an interface into and out of a database. An open source database at that.
It has really cool features for puttting and getting the data... but, it doesn't "trap" the data.
Re:I got hit with it too (Score:4, Informative)
Not for distribution.
I believe that is sufficient for the case of switching vendors. (Which was my point... that switching from MT is easy because of your access to the code and data.)
Re:Good example of why open source != free (Score:5, Funny)
Re:MovableType != Open Source (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Good example of why open source != free (Score:3, Informative)
http://www.bblog.com/
Just use Drupal (Score:4, Informative)
I installed it on my server and dumbed it down so only the blog is active, and it's working great.
Can't agree more! Drupal is the best... (Score:3, Informative)
Of all the free CMS that I recently saw, Drupal is the best of the crop for sure.
It is not only a blog, forums, publishing system, but even have modules for things like syndication, weather, e-commerce and more.
You can see it as a product, or as a framework that you can customize to your own liking.
It runs on Windows or UNIX, either Apache or IIS, and MySQL, Postgresql, or even MS SQL.
Writing a module is not a hard task.
Unless you are anti-PHP or a Perl bigot or something, give Drupal
Re:Good example of why open source != free (Score:3, Informative)
Most Open Source software is released under the GPL and is also Free software (again, the biggest difference is how the two are presented to PHBs).
This is, though, a good and common example of how proprietary software will usually come back to bite you when you least expect it.
Please oh please oh please (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Please oh please oh please (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Please oh please oh please (Score:5, Funny)
But how will I be able to get through the day without Jerry B. Smith's Blog entries? Today he got up and found his cat had vomitted on the floor in the middle of the night. HILARIOUS! You can't pay for writing that good. A few days ago he described how he had to take his car in for an oil change and it took 15 minutes instead of the more industry standard 10 minute quick change because they were jerking him around. Damn quick change places.
Re:Please oh please oh please (Score:3, Insightful)
Seriously.
The internet is supposed to be many things to many people and one of those is a forum for expression of ideas and thought. Who appointed you the gatekeeper? Do you really have the gall to think that just because someone posts something of no interest to you, that it is somehow not worthy?
More elitist crap from the geek contingent is all I'm seeing.
Re:Please oh please oh please (Score:5, Insightful)
You know that Slashdot is a blog, right?
Re:Please oh please oh please (Score:3, Insightful)
Pass the crack (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Pass the crack (Score:5, Informative)
Not only do they still have a free version but also, no-one is forced to upgrade. It seems people aren't interested in whether it's free as in speech but when it's free as in beer, changes in the pricing structure bring bitter recriminations.
Re: Not just the cost (Score:5, Informative)
- Derek
Re: Not just the cost (Score:4, Interesting)
Yes, I understand that they're trying to run a company and keep a roof over their heads, but this new license is really not suitable for a LOT of the folks who use and love MT. I mean, c'mon, I'm running MT on a dual-CPU PII, a half-dozen blogs (only 2 public) and 20+ authors (my friends and a couple of accounts that are just for automated postings & such). Do they seriously think that I'm going to cough up $600+ out of brand loyalty?
I appreciate their effort, and I've donated to them in the past, but they're putting themselves in competition with several free (speech & beer) alternatives.
While I can see MT becoming the tool of choice for ISP/ASP markets who want to provide weblog services to their clients, I think that the 'hobby' and 'lightweight' marketshare will either freeze at MT 2.6x or go elsewhere and take their marketshare to other blogging tools.
I also imagine that all those folks writing MT 2.x plug-ins will quickly start duplicating the 'new' features that MT3 is hawking.
Remember what happened when Kazaa sold out and a raft of other free P2P clients turned up the heat and started giving them a real run for the corporate money?
I'm sure that this won't be the last we hear of it, and I wouldn't be suprised if MT rethinks it's licensing policy, but I'm almost positive that I'm going to move my MT blogs over to something else in the next 3-6 months.
Best of luck to Mena & Ben in the wild woolly world of corporate software, but I hope you've got your mittens; a lot of folks are going to start giving you the cold shoulder over this.
Re: Not just the cost (Score:3, Informative)
Not willing to pay for Movable Type yet? This fully-functional version of the application is available free of charge. Important limitations of this license include:
* No support from Six Apart
* No access to paid installation service
* No access to fee-based services
* No promotion of your weblogs through the Recently Updated list
* No commercial usage
* No more than one author and three weblogs
Download Movable Type Free.
Re:Pass the crack (Score:4, Interesting)
Anything else and they have a NPO, or a group of hobbyists.
Lest folks rag on hobbyists, they are the ones who brought you:
-Airplane
-Car
-Phone
-Electricity
It's a long list, you know.
How much do you want to bet that whoever came up with fire was a geek? How about the wheel? How about writing. Dang, I don't see a bunch of grunting jocks inventing writing, even today.
By the way, once people understand that about companies, it's not that hard to figure out why the world runs the way it does.
Well, that and religion.
On an aside: my solution for Iraq: flood the country with 100 billion in small bills. This will really get rid of the bad guys. They'll be too busy killing each other amassing their fortunes, and then whisking themselves off to a chalet in Lausanne. Then the rest of the people can have normal lives again. The only other thing thy need is a small and deadly military. Why are we trying to hire 200,000 of them for a pittance with AKs and old uniforms when what you really need is 20,000 of them with 1500/mo salaries, tanks, helicopters, and kick ass officers. Then you make them into a shock and rapid deployment force. Also, you need to make sure that they are NOT under US command, but have their own command. Like the Kurds. Kurds fight well in the Kurdish armies because they fight with Kurds, for Kurds.
Ah, I feel better now... Back to work.
Re:Pass the crack (Score:3, Insightful)
RMS talks about free speech........ (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:RMS talks about free speech........ (Score:2, Informative)
Re:RMS talks about free speech........ (Score:3, Informative)
Nonsense (Score:3, Insightful)
That just isn't true. I, like every other slashdotter, don't want to pay for my cool software tools. That's the plain truth of the matter.
But "people have to eat"
old version link (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:old version link (Score:2, Informative)
How dare they! (Score:5, Insightful)
Presumably you believe it's crippled because you have to pay for it, which I have to say I find a poor argument. Pay for the stuff if you think it's worth the money, use something else if you don't. It's not a hard choice.
maybe (Score:3)
I can certainly see people being upset by what looks like a classic bait-and-switch, exploiting the goodwill of the community for personal gain. Like so many other sites who have tried this (and failed), it requires its biggest fans, supporters, and users to pay the largest price,
Re:How dare they! (Score:3, Interesting)
# No promotion of your weblogs through the Recently Updated list
# No commercial usage
# No more than one author and three weblogs
AFAIK these were part of the old MT package before this pricing scheme was launched. Hence, crippled.
Re:How dare they! (Score:3, Insightful)
Not necessarily.
Product A (commercial) is non-crippled, and non-free.
Product B (shareware) is crippled, and free (gratis).
Product C (GPL) is non-crippled, and free (both ways).
Product C is hence a non-crippled, free alternative to A. Non-crippled is not redundant, as there are other free alternatives to product A which are crippled: C's advantage over them is that it is non-crippled and fr
Re:How dare they! (Score:3, Insightful)
It doesn't quite work like that. In practice, I find it's more like: "Find the product with the best feature set. Then look for second best, and so on down until features start lacking or you run out. Be mindful of ties. Consider crippled payware as two products, one with registration and one without. Then, check prices, and download/buy the one with the best features for the lowest price."
The
Just Switched (Score:5, Interesting)
Oh, and it imports movable type files. Seriously, with the wide variety of free, quality, blogging software out there, Six Apart has their work cut out for them.
Re:Just Switched (Score:3, Interesting)
So my question for the Slashdot community is, do any of these free and open sou
Re:Just Switched (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Just Switched (Score:4, Informative)
Sounds like you've already got a solution, but others should really consider Blosxom [blosxom.com] - it's truly free [blosxom.com] (not just GPL), and in additoin to being really easy to use, has a bunch of advantages, the bidggest of which is that it understands the concept of using a heirarchical file system to organize posts. Blog entries are simply text files thrown into the appropriate directory. Blosxom can also generate pages dynamically, as most blogs do, or statically, allowing batch updates if you want.
It's written in Perl, and has a large and rapidly growing collection of "plug-ins" that extend its functionality, often in ways that is similar to (or sometimes better than Movable Type's. don't be fooled by its simplicity and small size - Blosxom does nearly everything the larger packages do, and is much, much, easier and more flexible than any other blog program I've run across.
Blosxom really is one of the most impressive programs I've seen in some time. It's worth checking out, and should be considered as an alternative to Movable Type, GreyMatter, Blogger, and the rest more often than it is. Fortunately, a growing number of hosting providers offer Blosxom support, since it's so easy and reliable.
Re:Just Switched (Score:4, Interesting)
I'll second or third that. Blosxom is a very powerful, very simple tool (the upcoming version 3.0, which has grown significant in size, is a scandalously large 15KiB in size!
Blosxom allows an extension of its features via Plugins [blosxom.com], which allows you to get the features you want without also getting loaded up on the ones you don't. I didn't care for MT's CMS with its various logins, complex scripts, etc.
The other feature that I really enjoy in Blosxom is the easy easy easy syndication; all you do is add
So yeah, ditch MT and go Blosxom. You won't regret it!
Charge for Software? Quel Horreur! (Score:2, Funny)
How dare this company charge money to recoup what they spent on developing this product. Why, if every company did that, it would be anarchy!
Er, no no... OLIGARCHY!
Um, no wait, PLUTOCRACY!
No, got it... it would be CAPITALISM, savior of the common man and the greatest force for freedom ever known.
Now, let the whining begin!
Re:Charge for Software? Quel Horreur! (Score:4, Interesting)
Perheaps you would care to explain it in more detail to the 90% of the planet's population, livng in places where dog-eat-dog capitalizm is the religion de jeur but it is curiously coupled with unspeakable misery and poverty of the "common man", freedom is unheard of and outright slavery common. What is your solution? More capitalism? More US-based pan-national megacorporations owning more of everything? Less governent restrictions on "investment"?
My imagination is too feable to understand how could one have less restrictions for the capitalists in some of the African and Latin American bannana republics then they have now. Most even come with a friendly dictator who would promptly kill/maim/torture anyone who would object to a capitalist investment. So, please, by all means, do enlighten me how does capitalizm further freedom. I for one was under this irrational impression that capitalizm is a religion of money and the only thing it is concerned with is multiplication of "wealth" with no regards as to its distribution and human costs. We in the west are just lucky that our history and culture resulted in other, completely unrelated ideas like "democracy", "representative governemt", "free press" etc to colaborate with some of the more palatable capitalist ideas to form our present, somewhat successful social systems.
Not Bait-n-Switch (Score:3, Insightful)
Given MobableType's popularity, this really shouldn't come as a surprise. The more people they have using their service, the more it costs to maintain a quality level of service. That's the price they pay to give blog space to anyone who wants it.
So as with any business in a capitalist society, if you don't want to go along with this pricing plan, do as the submitter suggests and go to another service.
Re:Not Bait-n-Switch (Score:3, Informative)
Harsh! (Score:5, Interesting)
While I use Wordpress for both my blogs, I think that everyone is being rather harsh on these people who are just trying to make a living.
No big deal -- stick with version 2 (Score:5, Informative)
By the way, shameless plug:
Polstate.com is the Political State Report [polstate.com], a web site held together by contributors from each state (US) who report on grassroots and statewide political news, especially when relevant to local and state elections. We offer a different flavor of political news, distinct from most other blogs and news sites that focus on the Presidency, war on terror, and national economy.
Not surprise (Score:2, Informative)
Blogging sucks anyway. (Score:2, Flamebait)
"i'm poor and can't afford it, if you read the past entries of my blog, which are all bitching about how i'm poor and can't afford anything"
"i'm going to bitch about MT changing to a non-free system on my blog."
Really, who cares? There's some blogs out there that are worth reading (pervscan, MSDN Blogs), but 99% of the users of Movable Type are retards. Charging for MT is keeping the shit off of the web.
Re:Blogging sucks anyway. (Score:3, Insightful)
The development of a meta tag that stopped Google from index
Oh really now (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Oh really now (Score:5, Informative)
That said, it's obvious to anyone with a pair of brain celss that this pricing structure is to make their Typepad service [typepad.com] more attractive for casual bloggers and non-techies. If you you're willing to get your elbows dirty you can run a blog on your own machine from home with the free version.
"Mena's Corner" Flooded With Complaints (Score:4, Informative)
I use Coranto (Score:3, Informative)
From their website (Score:5, Insightful)
Not willing to pay for Movable Type yet? This fully-functional version of the application is available free of charge. Important limitations of this license include:
* No support from Six Apart
* No access to paid installation service
* No access to fee-based services
* No promotion of your weblogs through the Recently Updated list
* No commercial usage
* No more than one author and three weblogs
So let me interpret these points...
* No mooching.
* No mooching.
* No mooching.
* No commercial use.
* Limited (yet otherwise fully functional) personal use.
Why is this so bad? I've paid a lot more than $70 for software that I've really liked. This is pretty cheap.
Corinna
Re:From their website (Score:3, Interesting)
There's nothing I hate more than overpriced software, especially from vendors who make things which are handy, but not critical.
Re:From their website (Score:4, Insightful)
It's still free, it's not crippled (Score:4, Informative)
There's no bait or switch going on here at all. There is still a free version available [sixapart.com], it's not crippled [metafilter.com] in any way:
The only thing this does is a) allow SixApart to eat, and b) allow large corporations to buy MT. I know plenty of organisations that want to use it, but couldn't even look at it until it cost more than nothing. Many procurement processes can't deal with Free.
From backroom hobby to multinational company in three years: Good for them, frankly.
Re:It's still free, it's not crippled (Score:4, Informative)
I don't have anything against SA trying to make a living, but they priced me out of the market. I run 3 or 4 blogs with around 10 - 15 users, I earn $0.00 on them and am expected to pay $600 to upgrade to a new version that only offers one new feature (comment management).
Like I said on my site, if they had offered me something that would meet my needs for $40 - $50 I would probably pay up. Instead I'm going to stick with 2.6.
gentler learning curve (Score:3, Informative)
Yeah, Income Sucks (Score:5, Insightful)
I especially don't ever want to continue to give away a free version, but charge people who are using it in a business environment. That would suck even more if people who are using my software to make money themselves.
PEOPLE! You can still use MT for free with one or two authors, personal blog, etc. If you're using it for more industrial stuff, then don't expect it to be free forever, especially since you GET SUPPORT FROM THE DEVELOPER.
I'm not talking about the typical "RTFM, l0s3r" support you get from certain GPL apps, I'm talking about actually ask-a-question-get-a-polite-and-helpful-answer kind of support.
Just because they need to make money (who doesn't?), doesn't mean you should dump them completely.
Preaching to the choir. (Score:4, Informative)
Personally, I've been spoiled by
Moveable Type is so cliche (Score:2, Insightful)
Another alternative (Score:3, Informative)
iBlog (Score:3, Informative)
Pity. (Score:2)
Good Place To Search For Alternatives (Score:4, Informative)
http://www.opensourcecms.com/ is a good site to search for alternative weblogs. The nice thing is that they have working demos up that you can access to try out stuff.
The reviews are pretty generic and not much help.
Does anyone know of a good source for reviews on CMS systems?
I also have to question the stats on the link stating moveable type is the most popular weblog. Some prominent blogging software is not counted, such as geeklog, scoop, and (ahem) slashdot.
It's not entirely fair to lambaste moveabletype, they are still offering a non-commercial version of limited capability.
A few weeks ago, when I was evaluating CMS systems, I came across moveable-type, and their lack of a free license is what turned me off. The system that most impressed me was PHPNuke.
My biggest complaint about most of these CMS's are the big holes in documentation.
</rant>
PHPNuke? -- beware of security (Score:3, Informative)
That's not to say that the other CMS systems don't have their own security problems, and I know the couple that I've written probably had their own issues, but I didn't pull a Matt Wright [of FormMail [securityfocus.com] fame] and go distributing crappy software all over the place, either.
Nuke Security [nukesecurity.com] seems to have some information
My favorite alternative (Score:3, Informative)
Geeklog (Score:3, Informative)
Why your Movable Type blog must die (Score:4, Informative)
http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2004/2/2/171117/8
To toot my own horn a bit.. (Score:2)
No ill intention (Score:3, Insightful)
Standard Practice (Score:3, Interesting)
hack it! (Score:5, Informative)
Re:hack it! (Score:3, Informative)
Hack this [wordpress.org], instead.
Re:hack it! (Score:3, Insightful)
You don't have a license to modify and distribute it.
Re:hack it! (Score:4, Informative)
There are no limitations coded in. The license works on the honor system.
Multiple CPU clause? (Score:3, Interesting)
"You may install the Software on only one (1) computer or server having a single CPU."
Who came up with that one?? I'd wager that the vast vast majority of hosting clients have no clue how many CPU's the server their website is running on has, while a very large number of hosting providers use multi-CPU servers.
That clause is basically setting up thousands and thousands of people to break the license agreement they agreed to without even knowing it.
The only reason I can see for that clause, other than pure oversight on the behalf of Six Apart, is they want to push people using MT to their own hosting service(TypePad).
The software should be free... (Score:3, Funny)
And yes,
Free _is_ better (Score:5, Interesting)
But I won't pay for Movable Type. Here's why.
On SixApart's behalf, they made several big mistakes in launching their pricing structure. Since they announced MT3 and that they were going to charge for it, they also promised a free non-crippled version of MT3. Blogging is generally a communual experience. I blog casually, and I have a couple of friends who write posts on my blog from time to time, and a wife who keeps her own blog. The free version of MT3 is crippled, because it limits the users and number of blogs. Limiting user base is bad thing to do when blogging is still relatively new.
Secondly, the pricing structure is much higher than what people anticipated. Those in the beta test for MT3 had absolutely no idea that it was going to cost this much, and many who did participate have publically stated they wouldn't have if they did know. Why the hostility?
Two reasons. It's the community that made MT what it is now. There's not really that much new functionality in MT3 that makes it worth paying $100 for (the $70 is a temporary discount remember?). Many of the features that made MT2x worth using were coded by non-SixApart people. Users - with no profit motive whatsoever - coded hundreds of MT plugins that exceeded the coding ability of SixApart. Others wrote far more detailed tutorials and instructions than SixApart provided for their own software. So, SixApart is compensating them by running a contest for the best plugin? That's insulting, honestly.
Secondly, there are blogging apps that do as good a job as MT3, if not better. And, they're [textpattern.com] free [wordpress.org]. Others have similar pricing structures as MT3 but do more. So, why MT3? And let's get this straight: using something for free isn't necessarily being a cheapass. If maintaining my blogs as they are will cost me upwards $150, why shouldn't I migrate to a free solution? Imagine if Windows had the same stability and security as Linux, but cost the same as it does now for a company to run. Why wouldn't a company move to Linux? Are companies being the durgatory form of cheapskates by moving to a lower priced product? No. It's common market sense, and because of its love for linux and open source, slashdot should be aware of this better than anyone. Some MT users probably are cheapass, and will warez the MT software if they can or do whatever they can to avoid paying.
But a larger portion are paying for accounts on livejournal and blogger. They are paying for internet access and webhosting. They're not cheapskates. Instead, like me, they just don't want to pay $150-200 for what is basically a hobby, and a hobby that can continue for free if we switch software. Why should we support a company that doesn't announce its pricing structure beforehand, and keeps it as close to their chest as possible? Why did SixApart do that? Why didn't they announce it before time? Because they knew people would be pissed. This reaction is no surprise to anyone.
Serendipity (Score:3, Informative)
Written in PHP. Uses MySQL. Lean. Mean. Flexible. Extremely nice plugin API. GPL.
Free Software Blog Alternatives (Score:5, Informative)
BBlog [bblog.com] (requires PHP version 4.1 or greater & MySQL version 3.23 or greater)
Bit 5 Blog [sourceforge.net]
blosxom [blosxom.com] (only need ability to run CGI scripts)
drupal.org [drupal.org] (mySQL or similar required)
LiveJournal.org [livejournal.org]
MyPHPblog/Simplog [myphpblog.org] (seems to require MySQL would have to download to be sure.)
Nucleus [nucleuscms.org] (requires PHP version 4.0.6 or higher and access to a MySQL database version 3.23.38 or higher)
Pivot [pivotlog.net] (only php required)
pLog [plogworld.org] (requires PHP 4.1.x or higher and MySQL 3.1.x or higher)
Scoop [kuro5hin.org] (requires Apache with mod_perl and mySQL)
TikiWiki [tikiwiki.org] (requires PHP 4.1+ and MySQL. Very powerful software.)
WordPress [wordpress.org] (requires PHP version 4.1 or greater and MySQL version 3.23.23 or greater.)
Re:Free Software Blog Alternatives (Score:3, Informative)
Bad development ... (Score:4, Interesting)
TypePad has many features many MT users have been waiting for a long time - especially since many MT users paid some money to use their tool. Some of that money kept SixApart alife and financed the developement of TypePad.
MT3 hardly offers ANY new features - none of those we can see in TypePad, like list management, gallery etc.
MT was for many people the only real alternative to Blogger, but MT2.x or even MT3.x now lags behind in terms of features and most of all performance.
There has been a long time announcement for a MT3 Pro version - which never surfaced.
MT3 is still based on static pages, so if you change your layout (CSS or templates) you have to rebuild all pages - which can take down many shared servers. There have been reports that some ISPs won't allow MT installs on their severs, because those rebuilds eat all cpu power. MT is also very slow when it comes to comments.
Many long time MT bloggers with hundreds or thousands of postings and comments are sick and tired about the rebuild issue. Many of the other weblog systems are dynamic since they are based on PHP.
One of the main points for MT2.x have been it's active plugin developer scene - which was mostly born out of the lack of features. Many people hoped that MT3 would include many of these plugins as regular features
SixApart has a bad reputation in terms of licenses and communication. They behave a bit like Apple: we are sooo cool therefore you have to pay more. This may work if you have a product like the iPod, which is really outstanding - but MT3 is not really far ahead of the competition.
Many MT users will switch, because they are disappointed, because they are sick and tired of waiting for better features and constantly putting up with bad communcation.
The pricing schemes is confusing and not very useful for neither private nor business users. A good CMS/blog is worth some money, but not several hundred dollars/euro.
Another point certainly are those many more dynamic weblog systems based on PHP - they are easier to hack for most people and less bitchy about server performance. They should have released a home (around $30) and a business version (around $75) - PLUS different kind of support contracts - like so many other companies do. Let's say a MT3 Gold service contract will cost you $500 a year, but you will hava a three hour response time etc.
MT/SixApart once hat the lead and they had the buzz. The negative wave has been building up for at least six months now. I am sure SixApart won't disppear over night, but it will take them a long time or a very bold business move to get rid of that bad vibe and earn the trust of their users again.
Meanwhile I personally will go for WordPress some day (my weblog [orangeguru.net]).
Why most users are bitching... (Score:5, Insightful)
No business ethics problems? How about this.
You ready a beta release of a piece of software, and ask people to beta test it. Mention nothing about paying, or even that you are considering changing the license. Being the loyal folks they are, lots say "OK" and you give them the software. They upgrade to it, and there's no way to downgrade.
Then, about 5 weeks later, you say, "Oh, by the way, most of you will have to pay to upgrade out of beta". Keeping in mind that most of the people who are the most loyal to MT, and therefore the most likely to have signed up for the beta program, are the ones who take MT to its' limits by using multiple blogs for things like link sidebars, book reviews, photoblogs, etc., and a lot of them no longer qualify for the free version because of the three blog limit.
You've just stranded a whole bunch of people on a beta version of your software, and you're basically extorting them to allow them to upgrade to a non-beta release.
It does look like SixApart [sixapart.com] have shot themselves in the foot and alienated themselves from their fanbase. They have violated the golden role of starting to charge for something that was previously free. In the world of tech where everyone wants the latest and greatest (and MT users are particularly tech-savvy given the requirements to install and maintain the software), this was always going to be an unpopular decision. How could they not have foreseen this?
The launch of their TypePad [typepad.com] service last year (which is basically a fully commercial, hosted MT package with bells and whistles like photo gallery management) was a smart business move; make a service out of your product, and keep the original product free. This latest move, though, is beyond comprehension and will only hurt them. It will sure be interesting to see how they backpedal from this.
YAWN (Score:3, Insightful)
My software procurement policy is "no source, no sale" and I have never had cause to complain. I don't get spyware. I don't get adware. I don't get browser hijacks. I don't get banner adverts {they are blocked at the proxy}. I don't get viruses. I don't have to reboot my computer for unexplained reasons {I have had to do so for explained reasons
Purveyors of closed-source software are really just after something they can get from you -- whether it be money, or information about you that they can sell to other people for money. You get what you deserve for using it.
Re:YAWN (Score:4, Funny)
MovableType is written in Perl, so you do get all the sources. Ironically, since it's written in Perl, MovableType can be considered a closed-source package, since who the hell wants to parse someone else's Perl code.
I love you but hope ya don't mind if I shop around (Score:3, Insightful)
I think the problem with MovableTYpe isn't that they're charging $$, but rather their pricing architecture is too restrictive to the 3rd party programmers that made it happen
More on this at:
What we can learn from MovableType's new pricing schedule
MT 3.0 only usable on single CPU system (Score:3, Informative)
Besides, it isn't about the money. It is about the community. MT has quite the devoted community around the and Six Apart pissed on a lot of shoes.
Time will tell if it is worth it, but perhaps Six Apart now wants to get into the commercial CMS business dominated by other, just as crappy, outfits providing 'solutions' that include invalid markup, bad Information Architecture, and outrageous fees.
Count me a very happy WordPress [wordpress.org] user; the install is simple, no restrictions on use, and it validates. Most importantly though, no more using stupidto fake paragraphs.
Pricing 101: what not to do (Score:4, Insightful)
It seems that they've screwed up one of the most basic rules in pricing: never take away features and charge for them. You can charge for new features - but taking away features that were included for free before always pisses off your most loyal customers. They feel suckered. They feel like you've pulled a bait and switch on them. In this case, many MT users set up multiple blogs with multiple authors. That's what the software encouraged them to do. Now, they're looking at the pricing and realizing to continue doing so on the new platform would cost them around $600. "Costs more for doing less" isn't a way to make users happy.
blosxom (Score:3, Informative)
It's not the end of the world (Score:3, Informative)
Basically, anyone running MovableType right now has several options:
I've developed and ran sites based on MT, pMachine and WordPress, the site in signature is completely WordPress-based and you can read my impressions in WordPress Testimonials [wordpress.org] section. I find pMachine the easiest to use, MT the most powerful and WordPress the most attractive with licensing terms and least likely to pull shit like that.
Hopefully this decision by SixApart will move more bloggers and developers into WordPress, which would accelerate improvement. I mean, realistically, MT is not that much better, and even though Wordpress can be rough if you don't know PHP or not willing to play with the code, they seem to be progressing at good speed right now.
Shareware, Freeware, Extortion (Score:5, Insightful)
I can see both sides of the issue. On one side you have people and companies whoring themselves out, giving away free software and services in order to compensate for not having resources to advertise, but at some point they need to see some return or else they can't sustain the development of their products.
On the other hand, you have have users who have become spoiled and selfish and expect everything to be free, and eveything to be super-cheap.
On yet another front, you have both commercial and shareware companies flooding the market with buggy and inferior products with little or no tech support. And then you have mafia like Quicken, forcing users to pay more and more each year to simply maintain the functionality of their software once they hoodwink users into converting over.
The whole industry is a mess. The one shining star in all of this is Open Source. There is a clear delineation between the for-profit and for-development arms of most of these projects and that's a refreshing change.
It used to be a gamble relying on shareware. You never knew if the company was going to be around or there'd ever be an update, or whether things would just suddenly stop working or break. Now you have the same thing with most of the commercial companies. I don't blame the users for being cautious about which products to support, but the bottom line is that people work hard to create these systems and if they don't get compensated one way or another, they can't keep up the work.
In the end, you get what you pay for, literally and figuratively. If you've never given a dime to the developers of systems you use on a regular basis, then shut your trap when they close up shop or are forced to adopt the new industry-standard of strong arming users into paying.
The Other Restriction (Score:4, Insightful)
"You may install the Software on only one (1) computer or server having a single CPU."
This presents a problem for many people who purchase webhosting; if their webhost using servers with more than one CPU (very likely), they legally cannot install/use Movable Type.
Oh, and to address the people who say to stay with version 2.6: holding back on the upgrade is only a temporary solution. The next time a Movable Type bug or security hole is discovered, I'm willing to bet that Six Apart is only going to patch the 3.0 tree.
I have a much longer rant about the license change here [evilcoder.com].
pMachine (Score:3, Informative)
Moving from MT to WP - A guide. (Score:5, Informative)
Some people never stop bitching... (Score:4, Insightful)
What I liked... (Score:3, Interesting)
Didn't Oracle try something like this and it blew up in their face?
Why not price it in the realm of sanity, More then one author and/or three blogs you owe us $50.00US.
If you only use it for yourself, one author and/or 3 blogs then it's still free.
Simple, fair, and a lot more people would be willing to pay. As it is you're chasing your customer base away.
My grandfather asways said it's easier selling 100 items for a buck than 1 item for 100 bucks.
-Goran
Locked into MT's template feature? (Score:3, Interesting)
phpBB Blog (Score:3, Informative)
I'll probably be modded down for plugging my own work, but I wrote a very simple blogging tool that uses phpBB to manage blog entries and replies. It's phpBB Blog [outshine.com], and it's available under the new BSD license (no advertising clause). So it's free beer and free speech. I'll have a new version release in early June. Maybe some of the MT defectors here could consider it (although really, it's quite simple, probably not useful to many MT fans).