blog.noetech.com

MT 3.0

To tell you the truth, I feel lied to. When they said that Movable Type 3.0 would remain free and that there always would be a free version, I just assumed that I would be able to continue to use MT like I have been. I guess I did assume, but they really should have let everyone know that the free version would have major limits. Maybe I was naive, but I thought for sure they would keep the scheme where commercial pays, personal is free.

It's not like I'm cheap, I'll gladly pay a fair price for software I use, but this is too much. I can't even try out MT 3 on my machine without paying for it, or paying for a second database (well I guess I could use Berkley DB) because I'm over the limits in the free version.

To suddenly start charging this much with only adding one major feature? I just don't know what they were thinking. There is now way I'm going to pay $150 to keep using MT as I have been, with the only noticable improvements being comment management. And that's for my personal site.

For my company's site the cost just went from $150 to $600 minimum. In reality it probably would be more, as we have an internal blog with more than 20 users. You have to ask for a quote if you have more than 20 authors and 15 weblogs. Even though most people only have that many weblogs in order to work around missing features in MT, which version 3.0 didn't add.

The developer contest seems like a weak attempt to get real features in MT before the final release.

Of course Typepad is an option, but I hate using hosted services. I want complete control over my content. Not to mention my domain name and subdomains. I would also need an account for each of my friends and family that currently host on my domain. And I'm not so sure how much I trust Six Apart anymore.

Expression Engine is looking better everyday. At least they are adding features people are looking for. And if MT 3 is $150, what the hell are they going to charge for MT Pro if it ever makes it out?

UPDATE:

I read a comment on MT 3's new pricing structure somwhere, I can't remember where now, comparing it to when Blogger released Blogger Pro. It's not anywhere close to the same. When Blogger Pro came out, they added features to make it Pro, they didn't suddenly add limitations on to Blogger. Six Apart has taken their product and stripped off really important features to make the free version. They should have done what Blogger did, and add new features that are only available on the paid version... oh yeah, isn't that what MT Pro was supposed to be? What are they thinking?

And another thing, they say that they won't charge again until the next major upgrade. The problem is that they consider MT 3 a major upgrade even though it's missing almost every feature that I've heard people requesting for the last year, so who's to say what they'll charge for.