Bewitched, Bothered, Bewildered

I have just gone to the effort of tracking down the archives of TripleB that I made prior to the reset. Thank the lord I deleted them, I managed two lines of the first entry I ever wrote and my brain started to literally drip from my ears…yep, there’s grey matter all over the seat (see what I did that…oh you’ll get it eventually).

Needless to say it told me one thing.

I have to admit that a combination of Six Apart altering and clarifying their licences and also a lovely morning where some trouble makers on my Counter-Strike server got dealt with (easily pleased, me) has softened my view of the new free edition of Movable Type.

Only softened…I’m still not entirely pleased.

I am pleased they altered their definition of ‘blog’ to mean that you can use other blogs, such as making a photoblog, to create one site, and it’ll only count as one blog. They made similar alterations to a lot of other controversial portions of their licence.

Author restrictions are still a problem for me, however
That said, I will still not be upgrading to MT3. I would like to, however the use of quite a few plugins on the site mean that I won’t be until they fully support version 3.0. I will upgrade, however, as there is a more sensible reason for upgrading than “because I want the new stuff”. Upgrading will make it a lot easier to follow the continuing development and get the benefit of the bug fixes that come with that development, and will also give you a much greater support base (even though that support will be unofficial).

As for the clan website, that won’t be converted from MT 2.661. I just use MT on that page to automate things a lot more, and I don’t even use the entries as our forums supply the news for it.

So, if I did feel like adding another author to TripleB (though it’s had mixed success in the past) then I could, if I so desired, merely sneak one in there with the knowledge that unless I were to smuggle in an entire party’s worth of illegal authors, Six Apart would turn a blind eye.

Why do I feel like I suddenly slipped a 50 to the local law while rushing my moonshine out?

It is a conundrum I feel stuck in. You are all aware of my desire to try out the new stuff, to have the new gadgets…the allure of something new (Guys, Mozilla Firefox is worth checking out) but right now that is impacting rather drastically on this feeling I have that the entire thing is just wrong. I’d much rather pay the £40 for all that support, and having as many authors as I pleased on my weblog. When they start charging a bundle per person, or turning a blind eye, Bewitched, Bothered, Bewildered is no longer mine, but theirs. Melodramatic, but basically correct.

The brand spanking new version of Movable Type is out, version 3.0…and as you can see by looking to your right…

I have not upgraded. I believe it will be a long time before I do upgrade. Why is this, I hear you mutter? Because for the first time in the history of Movable Type we are being asked to pay, and pay with restrictions (This is not entirely the case, granted, but I will come to that).

Now I understand Six Apart have a company to run, and put their entire time and energy into the development of MT, as it is now a professional and fully featured company.

That said, Movable Type was always like many other content management systems out there for us bloggers, and that was free. Bloggers like myself don’t always have money to be spending on our blogs…after all, some of us have to pay for the domain as well, and not everybody is even that committed, some run their installations on free webhosting.

Now hidden amongst all the payment options is one free option. Now I do mean hidden, which is something else I don’t approve of. The free option is a small option on the sidebar…it isn’t included amongst the many personal and business packages but put as a lesser detailed ‘afterthought’, as if wanting the free option is a bad thing.

So let’s go into a bit more detail on this. I have to admit to the fact that I seriously would not mind paying for a copy of Movable Type. However there’s paying and there’s the payment plans they are asking for, which are astronomical when it comes to even the personal options. For instance, take the base level personal option. You are allowed only 5 authors, and only 5 weblogs. Currently this works out at $69.95 (£40). However this is merely introductory, the price they will be making standard is $99.95 (£60).

Now, just in case you think I am flying off the handle, this sixty quids worth will include full support and I don’t believe the packages are actually time limitted in any way. Also, if Six Apart’s other operations are anything to go by, this full support will in fact be a very full support. They are good at what they do
So what of the free version, more importantly. Once you can stomach reading

Yes I am, but sixty quid! I pay out a lot of money, both into hobbies and more importantly into supporting my gaming clan (not to make them feel bad, I’m glad to pay so this isn’t the issue), so a little bit more to add yet more support for Bewitched, Bothered, Bewildered wouldn’t be too bad…would it? This is why the above sentence bugs me after my years of support in one way or another. I feel like I’m some sort of traitor. :angry:

Now that that is out of my system, let’s cover the limitations.
Now granted most of them are just the lack of support, which I am fine with. I only used the forums as support a few months ago when trying to get my winamp playlist running. However there is one which I find annoying;

I currently run 2 weblogs, not including the fairly defunct MG’s Hangar which counts to them as ‘inactive’. It also means I cannot expand my author base while using this version, something which I would like to have the option of doing.

Unfortunately this does smack of a more modern trend found in other online companies, and that is making you pay through the nose to try and remove restrictions that they put in place. I have software on here I paid £15 for and then recieved unlimited upgrades and could do with as I pleased. My forum software has the depth of functionality that Movable Type has, and that is freeware and can be altered and restructured to my heart’s content.

Even if I had the money, I can’t see myself buying Movable Type simply because of this sudden (it happened in the space of one week, following rumours of a fairly basic paying system for commercial use) about-turn on the subject of Movable Type licences. I’m not going to announce that MT or any part of Six Apart are evil, as Kristine has read recently. After all, for the paying customer, MT and Six Apart will be a sound investment and lifelong friend. I just feel like some sort of traitorous friend, and as if they’ve told us they now want to play with their new friends (who have money) instead.