Six Apart's announcement of the new MT licensing schemes has been greeted with a chorus of enraged disapproval (see, eg, the comments here, at Mena's Corner). Timothy Appnel has a sane review and reaction:
Six Apart also announced new licensing which has been quickly panned by the push button publishing community. While there still will be a free version of MT, it is limited to 3 weblogs and 1 author. The reaction has been swift as many decry the new terms (specifically the fees) that run many weblogs with many authors that using MT will cost them. Many of these posts gripe that alternate server-based tools such as WordPress do not support multiple blogs and/or authors yet. What's a bit silly about these posts is that not one so far notes that the hosted version of MT (TypePad) allows for unlimited authors and weblogs (plus many other features not available in MT) at a price that rivals basic hosting packages.The delineation between TypePad and MT have become clear with this release – TypePad is for general users wanting to blog and Movable Type is for developers and professional organizations wanting to do more then just weblogging.
Of the reactions I've read this morning I think Brian Stearns had the most poignant observation of this furor. Noting many of the initial Trackback pings to Mena's post he writes ...
For me this outlines that a large part of the weblog world was in it because it was free to do for the most part and an easy way to do something innovative (at least when they started). I think a large part of the internet world is cheap and not willing to pay for things so I will not be surprised to see people dump MovableType to start using a free weblog tool or discontinuing their weblogs altogether.Agreed, Brian. Rumor around the MT community is that Six Apart was collecting less then 50 cents (US) for each copy of MT downloaded. That is absurd for a piece of commercial software!
This outcry raises a bigger more important point which is the reason for my post. As a developer and one who makes a living writing code, this reaction to Six Apart's new licensing is really disheartening and on a certain level frustrating to see. I am a firm believer and backer of open source. I've personally released quite a bit of open source code myself and will continue to do so. However this apparent expectation of the vocal part of community that it is their right to have all great works of software at no cost is bothersome. If users don't have the funds or won't pay on principle for my time, effort or talent – how do I eat?
