MT3 and a Balanced Diet.

So I've spent the better part of yesterday and this morning reading email and response to my earlier O'Reilly post. I still stand by what I said and think it generally holds up. There are some good counterpoints being made too in addition to some real rubbish and loony ranting. Let me recap what mostly worthwhile views I've been reading.

• A significant number of users said they don't expect MT to be free and have no qualms about paying for it however the current fees and restrictions are out of line especially in regards to past requests for donations. Most complaints were about the personal licensing. I saw little noise about the commercial licenses. In fact, the commercial users that spoke up expressed support of those licenses as is, noting that their companies pay significantly more for software that does less.

• Many MT users are operating multiple MT weblogs to do things like remainder links, photoblogs, book reviews that essentially for one weblog in appearance. Others are operating multiple weblogs for friends, family and so on.

• Despite the fact MT3 does not have any nagware or crippling code, many people care about not stealing Six Apart by running illegal or improperly licensed copies of MT. (That was a bit encouraging.)

• The damaging effects of the radio silence I mentioned in a past post still continue. Many did not expect the fees. Even testers were not made aware of them. Others pointed to an earlier SixApart post announcing MT3 as a significant and free upgrade. There was no retraction or explanation that things had changed. To a lessor extent some were annoyed about this release being a developer edition instead of a general use version without notice.

• The new terms are unclear in a few places. For instance many hosting with ISPs point out the server they are on have multiple CPUs, however the new license restricts use to 1 CPU. The aforementioned hack of multiple MT blogs to create one physical blog is yet another.

• Conspiracy theorist who equate TypeKey with big brother were miffed that you have to have a TypeKey account to download the free version of MT.

• Some users a don't understand or are accustom to software licensing practices, costs and economics particularly when it comes to servers. Should I users who has one low-traffic weblog pay the same as someone who hosts a dozen and get lots of traffic?

I was once interviewing a musician about his avid fan base and their sometimes negative reaction to his bands work. He said something profound that has always stuck with me. To paraphrase, he said being hated is better then indifference because when your hated at least they care enough to have an opinion. If there is a silver lining in all of this, its that a lot of people still care about Movable Type and Six Apart's products.

That said, there is work to be done and it will be interesting to see how this will play out. I thought a comment Jay Allen made summed the situation up.

To all of this, I can only say, they are a young company and are bound to make mistakes. I know that they are also razor sharp and have the good of this community at heart, so it won't take them long to make these things clear.

Agreed, which is why I think all of this outcry is a bit over the top. It's not like this license came out and the user community said Hey, I have problem with because X or I don't understand Y because of this situation to which Six Apart said piss off, pay up or go away. These licensing terms have barely been available for 24 hours – no time for any company to react and respond coherently. Let us not overlook that version 2.661 is still available and is free without limitations. Also, none of their software has some poison pill or nagware built in either for those who do not acquire a proper license. I'm also really astounded by the evil empire mentality that many has adopted towards a company that in the past has a proven track record of trying to do the right thing. But, I digress.

There are things to learn from this situation as michaelashby commented to my earlier post, Eating Should Include A Balanced Diet. Here are my thoughts to potentially finding a better balance:

• Six Apart needs to start communicating – a lot and soon. Start by explain how this happened in straight forward terms. Also acknowledge that you are listening and are to address the feedback to the new licensing. While the situation seems urgent, the worst thing they could do is rush to a decision and it be out of line for them or for users. I think we'll see that they are not some greedy evil empire as some has accused them of being.

• The prices and limitations need to be tweaked especially when it comes to personal licenses in response to the uproar. To not do something in response to the extraordinary outcry would add more fuel to the fire.

• Offer credits and discounts to donors to move to TypePad. From what I can tell looking at a lot of these sites, many would be better off on TypePad were they get hosting and lot of other features with no limitation on weblogs or authors. One post noted that TypePad cost $180 a year. True, but how much do many of us pay for hosting MT? Dreamhost would be about $120. Pair Networks would cost about $216 – more then TyepPad. (This is a really rough comparison and is to a degree over simplified, but I think it gets my point across.) As part of the program make it extremely easy to transfer a weblog running in MT to TypePad Pro. (The current MT export does not handle templates which I suspect would be a big deterrent to many users migration.)

• Clarify licensing terms such as the single CPU/shared hosting snag many have noted.

• Clarify the term blog particularly in regards to those who using multiple MT blogs to hack together advanced features such as remaindered links, photoblogs etc. If the terms are to remain MT blog, declare a grace period in the licensing for these users while the company addresses this situation with tools/services or a few new license friendly how-to's that remove the need for multiple weblogs.

Timothy Appnel has 13 years of corporate IT and Internet systems development experience and is the Principal of Appnel Internet Solutions, a technology consultancy specializing in Movable Type and TypePad systems.

oreillynet.com Copyright © 2006 O'Reilly Media, Inc.