As many have probably read, Moveable Type has released the much anticipated version 3.0, to a whole hell of a lot of not-so-much-anticipated rage in the blog world.
The first version of their new pricing scheme was met with such immediate and widespread acrimony that they changed major aspects of it in less than 2 days.
I don't have much to say about the whole thing, except that I'm disappointed, but not enraged. I have no problem with them charging money for their software, which I have happily used for almost 2 years. I've voluntarily donated money to them, motivated not quite entirely by their carrot of a "Recently Updated" key which drives a fair bit of traffic.
They still offer a free version for personal use, which is good, but their definition of what constitutes this personal use is the big problem. The free version is limited to 1 author and 3 weblogs. The 3 blog limit is okay, sort of, but the 1 author thing is ridiculous. If you want to set up a family blog, you have to pay. Not only do you have to pay, but if you want to add your Aunt Gladys to the blog, you have to pay more.
Anyway, I'm not going to go on and on about this, because, you know, who cares. I basically agree with what Jason Kottke has to say about it: Charging for MT is fine, but the tiered pricing structure they've come up with is terrible.
This site will probably stay on MT 2.661 for now, though this means my visitors will have to suffer that insufferable server error on my comments for a while longer. I have looked into switching to WordPress, and given my tendency to jump into upgrades and redesigns without much thought of the work and time involved for little benefit, that might just happen soon. WordPress is public, open, and looks pretty damn cool.
That is all.
