May 16, 2004

But what about meeeeee?

1. I am trying to wrap my head around the idea that Anil Dash is not just reading every single one of the thousand-plus trackbacks to the MT3D release-related posts on 6A, but doing it on the weekend.

2. "And you can create as many posts/documents as you want on any blog, which might be a better analogy to documents in Photoshop. However, you can have 5 people use the lowest-end license of Movable Type, and there's no version of Photoshop that lets 5 people use it, to extend the analogy."

Photoshop doesn't offer a free license at all ;P but if you pay for five Photoshop licenses, five people can use it.

MT3's lowest-end personal license is one user, not five, and doesn't cost anything; in effect, when you move up to a paid license, you are paying for additional user licenses, as well as technical support and additional blogs.

I'm still arguing that that my analogy's better as is: the MT3 cost structure is out of line with software standards in that it levies aditional fees based on usage on a per-user level even after the application is paid for.

Commercial products more similar than Photoshop to MT in their purpose and scope -- the WYSIWYGs and CMSs that streamline web publishing -- don't do this (I'm sure you can find exceptions somewhere, but wading through the MS, Adobe, Oracle, and Macromedia licenses has worn me out); once you've paid for your license, that's it. You can create as many documents, posts, blogs, sites, or whatever you want to call them, as you like, and don't incur additional fees unless you're extending those capabilities to additional users.

Even MT's sister, TypePad, offers the unfettered Pro account, where you're limited on the hosting side -- the disk space and bandwidth -- but not by what you may do with it, the number of blogs you can create. (I realize it's an imperfect comparison since they're somewhat different products, TP Pro also gives you unlimited authors, and you pay monthly for TP, but I think it holds nonetheless; once you've made your payment, you are unrestricted in what you can do with the application.)

I'd really like to know the reasoning behind this deviation.

If the idea is that having cost-based blog restrictions will prevent people from cheating the system and making a buck without giving back, the license states perfectly clearly that that's a no-no. The people going that route are the same scurrilous rapscallions who are breaking their 2.x licenses by offering paid hosting, installations, etc., without paying for a commercial license, and still won't pay, no matter how strongly you word your terms, as long as the only thing stopping them is an honor code.

Personally, I would love the option of paying a flat fee for a one-user, non-commercial, completely unsupported account with no limit on the number of blogs. An option for the multi-user, non-commercial single blog would be a nice touch. I'm guessing several members of the elite other-15% crew might agree.

3. "We have substantial non-profit discounts available, just contact us."
Why isn't this anywhere besides buried in the FAQs? Why not slightly alter the wording on the Get MT page to something like, "Accredited educational and 501c3 institutions that make use of Movable Type are eligible for our discounted licensing program"?

(4. I'd like to take a final, brief moment to point out that Adobe and many offer software companies offer licensing structures geared toward both small businesses and big, bad corporations. Thank you. The end.)

Posted by gwen at May 16, 2004 03:56 PM | TrackBack
Comments

I am trying to wrap my head around the idea that Anil Dash is not just reading every single one of the thousand-plus trackbacks to the MT3D release-related posts on 6A, but doing it on the weekend.

Yeah, I've read almost every single comment since the moment we made the announcement. I've been trying not to comment too much because people are upset and I don't want to sound defensive or whiny, especially since a lot of people have made really thoughtful comments with helpful feedback.

But also some of my reticence is because I've seen some really hurtful things being said (usually by people posting them into their free copy of MT) about how we're evil or stupid and it's hard not to take that to heart when I and everyone else have been working hard on this stuff for a long time.

The non-profit info should definitely be more visible, but we're just struggling to get all the information updated as the situation changes and we find out what's unclear. Ironically, the store stuff is hard to update because it's not in MT. :)

And believe me, I'm quite aware of Adobe and other companies' licensing plans. I still do think it's a cool thing that Six Apart has a free version of their software, and Adobe or whomever else doesn't. Funny how that makes us *worse* than them to some people. But I'm sure by the time we're the third largest software company in the world and we've had a decade or so to refine it, our pricing will be even better than theirs. :)

I do think it's good to know that you think $15 a month for unlimited weblogs is a fair price. That's about $270 over 18 months, assuming that major upgrades happen every 18 months. That would, under our personal use license, allow 25 authors and 25 blogs. Isn't that large enough to be considered unlimited?

What I find is, most people want "unlimited" in the same way they want more storage/banwidth on their web host. I read an article a while back that said the average web hosting user makes use of 1% of the storage space they're allotted. Yet I'm sure web hosts would get as much pushback as we did if they said "you only get 10 megs storage, instead of a gig", even if nobody uses it.

That tells me that many of the reactions are emotionally driven, not necessarily purely logical.

Anyway, I've rambled on enough. Hope that answers your questions. And no, I don't answer every post that people put up about MT3, though I read almost all of them. I just try to respond to people whom I know have good intentions and seem to appreciate what we're trying to do and what we've tried to give to the web community both in the past and now.

Posted by: Anil at May 16, 2004 05:09 PM

I still do think it's a cool thing that Six Apart has a free version of their software

Really, Anil?

Please tell me... where on your site can I download a copy of MT 2.661? The links are all gone! Hell, even the links to the default styles and templates aren't there any more.

I really don't have a choice, do I?

Posted by: Joe Cynic at May 17, 2004 11:29 AM
Post a comment









Remember personal info?