Seems like Six Apart’s sorta in damage control mode now. In the wee hours of this beautiful Saturday morning, Six Apart posted a \/revision\/ and \/clarification\/ of the new licensing terms. This time, it’s an [entry on SixLog,]:http:\/\/www.sixapart.com\/log\/2004\/05\/movable_type_30.shtml the main SixApart blog, instead of the personal-ish blog of Mena the co-founder. As I write, another hubbub is ensuing, yet, I think this one will be smaller than the 612 trackbacks that hit the previous one. It’s only at 125 (and ticking higher) as I cook up this entry.<\/p>\n
I guess I was wrong about Six Apart. They \/did\/ rethink their licensing terms. The fury of the the current MT users, plus some other interested parties in the blogosphere probably tested a bit of their “commitment to a free version.” For posterity’s sake I’ll note here that [Mena’s blog entry]:http:\/\/www.sixapart.com\/corner\/archives\/2004\/05\/its_about_time.shtml and [SixApart’s download page]:http:\/\/secure.sixapart.com\/ have been hanging at or near the top of blogdex, with links for [WordPress]:http:\/\/wordpress.org and [migrating from MT to WordPress]:http:\/\/blog.carthik.net\/vault\/2004\/05\/14\/movabletype-to-wordpress\/ showing up as well. Hey, looks like [textpattern,]:http:\/\/www.textpattern.com [pMachine,]:http:\/\/www.pmachine.com and [drupal]:http:\/\/www.drupal.org are showing up in blogdex as other alternatives to MT. It looks like diveintomark has [already converted]:http:\/\/diveintomark.org\/archives\/2004\/05\/14\/freedom-0 to WordPress (along with several others I’ve seen) in these couple days, and stupidevilbastard [notes that he’ll still probably ditch MT anyway,]:http:\/\/stupidevilbastard.com\/archives\/2004\/05\/15\/should_i_stay_or_should_i_go_sa_speaks_up_on_mt_licensing_issues.php as the slightly better free licensing and personal licensing terms are just a little [too little,]:http:\/\/prwdot.org\/?p=archives\/001786 and [too late.]:http:\/\/www.stardel.com\/fiveacres\/index.php?p=741 But to be fair, SA has addressed many concerns, and a lot of people are pleased. Some were even [happy with the first version]:http:\/\/www.jayallen.org\/comment_spam\/2004\/05\/the_collective_deep_breath of the new licensing scheme. And others think [it’s just one step in the right direction.]:http:\/\/www.paulmusgrave.com\/blog\/archives\/000076.html Still, what do I think? Because, really, if you’re reading my blog for general news, there are better sites.<\/p>\n
I feel a little better with this revision. The free license is now good enough for me, though still it’s no-good for families, and other small groups of familiars. Is that okay? It feels odd that if I were to get married, then she would need her own installation of MT3. I wonder how things get counted if a single mom wants to have another blog for her toddler, from the kid’s perspective. Does that count as two authors? Okay, I’m being a little facetious. \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n
The single CPU restriction in the license has been removed as well, which is cool, because I honestly don’t know how many CPUs my host machine has. Heck, maybe my host has a cluster of machines that serve my site. I just don’t know, and, really, as long as the performance is there, I don’t think I should care.<\/p>\n
It still bothers me that with MT3, it would cost me money to give a spot to a friend to blog. Or if I wanted to host my brother’s blog, it would cost me money. I suppose if I could make a shell account so he could install MT himself, then it would be fine. I feel like I’m being really cheap, but honestly, it has more to do with the fact that the extra stuff that MT has over the competition isn’t worth the even the introductory price to me. If I add a blog for my brother, and he uses it for a couple months and forgets about it, I’ll still have paid $69.95 (or $99.95 it I don’t act fast) just so he could try it. I don’t know… is it worth it? No, not really… but I feel a little persuaded to hold off migration until the general 3.0 release, where MT will be better from the efforts of the community, all of whom (except the contest winner) won’t see a dime from their efforts. Which isn’t that bad a thing, considering that code is usually higher quality when it’s personally, not financially motivated.<\/p>\n
Man, I’ve been blogging a lot these couple days…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Seems like Six Apart’s sorta in damage control mode now. In the wee hours of this beautiful Saturday morning, Six Apart posted a \/revision\/ and \/clarification\/ of the new licensing terms. This time, it’s an [entry on SixLog,]:http:\/\/www.sixapart.com\/log\/2004\/05\/movable_type_30.shtml the main …<\/p>\n