Andy Chase

Movable Type 3.0 is out, and the MT faithful are pissed at Six Apart for having the temerity to try to make money on their product.

I haven't familiarized myself with the pricing structure, but it does sound expensive compared to Movable Type 2, which was... free. You know, everybody's much loved, versatile, powerful Movable Type 2 which they can continue to use with all of its features, which was... free.

Yes, MT has benefitted tremendously from a community of developers who have created dozens of plugins that make MT far more useful than its core engine, and yes, I'm sure a lot of people have donated what they could to Six Apart in the past, and both of those groups of people are probably a little bit stung.

But you have to consider the alternative... if Six Apart gives the full-blown, unrestricted version of Movable Type 3 away on the same honors system basis, they're not going to be able to sustain themselves as a company and continue development.

A good many of the angry TrackBacks to Mena Trott's announcement mention that alternatives X, Y, and Z are free/cheaper, and threaten to abandon Movable Type forever.

My speculatation that all those free alternatives are part of the reason Six Apart is pursuing a new, aggressive pricing structure. If MT 3.0 had been priced at pretty much anything but free, people would still go storming off to the other free tools out there. The grass-roots fan base is nothing if not devoted, but it's not where the money is^*. Six Apart may have a good many more corporate clients than we lay users suspect, and people who make informed purchasing decisions for companies generally don't mind paying a premium for software that works well. Is it a bummer for single, non-commercial users? Sure. Are Ben and Mena evil? No, they run Six Apart, whose flagship product is Movable Type. Is Six Apart evil? No, they're a business whose primary objective is to sustain itself, which means making money. I don't think the new pricing is a money grab, I think it's an anticipation of a shift in customer base.

Bottom line, MT 2 is a nice tool for running a weblog, it's still free, and nobody is forcing anybody to upgrade. I'm glad I'm not the only one who doesn't feel particularly betrayed/dismayed:

• The end of free (kottke.org)
• Scripting News: 5/14/2004

^*Yes, there are plenty of hobby users who did make donations... but I expect there are a lot more who didn't. (I didn't, and I have more than 300 entries in my MT site.)