funkyhelix
2004-05-15 02:40 am UTC (link)

Adding another wankapalooza over the MT announcement. Posted of course by a blogsp*t user.

	snarl 2004-05-15 03:34 am UTC (link)
	The Anonymous Cowards and Portmanites on slashdot are having a field day, too, complete with requisite Open Source wanking. (Reply to this)(Parent)

moonjaguar
2004-05-15 04:00 am UTC (link)

Those prices are eye-bleeding. Then again I found MT to be eye-bleeding and full of stuff I had no use for (I've tried it a few times and generally went straight back to Greymatter).
There's so many blogging scripts out there, a bunch of free ones even, why not use one of those if MT's too high or if one feels all asea without support using the free version? Just like there's VB and UBB (I think they're each at $180 now?) and then there's freebs like phpBB.

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meril
2004-05-15 06:29 am UTC (link)

The thing is that support for MT has *never* been free. You could always find support in the general user community, but direct support from Six Apart was only available if you donated at least $45.

I just used MT because when I moved my blog in December 2001, it had all the features I needed, like multiple authors; I ran a Harry Potter RPG using MT. Greymatter wasn't being supported with bugfixes and b2 just sucked.

I've been thinking a long, long time about switching to WordPress and I think now is the time (especially since all the disgusted MT power users will be going over, and that will really contribute to an active user community. ^_-)

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funkyhelix
2004-05-15 03:10 pm UTC (link)

WordPress doesn't support multiple users...yet.

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	meril 2004-05-15 09:32 pm UTC (link)
	Oh, I know. The RP blog died 2 years ago. It's just me. (Reply to this)(Parent)

moonjaguar
2004-05-15 05:51 pm UTC (link)

The thing is that support for MT has *never* been free. You could always find support in the general user community, but direct support from Six Apart was only available if you donated at least $45.

Just like if your computer is acting up and you can't find the answer in the help files or via a community, then one pays a professional to figure it out. Not illogical.

Isn't the freeware version still a full version? Since I haven't used MT except for a couple brief tries and "eh, not for me"s, I'm not real sure.

GM supports multiple users. Last time I looked, however, it had a hole that happened if one used it as a php-include (I'm not sure if foshdawg and other post-Noah developers/coders have plugged this up. I forgot when it was I pulled GM permanently off one of my sites). b2 looked like a promising little program when it first came out but the last time I tried to use it, I couldn't customize it, couldn't get rid of a few features I didn't want or need, so away it went.

I think pMachine supports multiple authors but I don't know if this feature is enabled in the free version or just in the paid version.

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meril
2004-05-15 06:23 am UTC (link)

Practically everyone I know with an MT blog got so disgusted by the comment spam problem that they went over to LJ.

I got disgusted by the giant size of the files, so I'm going to be switching to WordPress over the weekend. I had been waiting for MT 3.0 to be released because I had thought it was going to be a bug-fix release, but I don't feel like paying that much for a fix release. $45 would have been fine, but...um, no.

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How DARE they?! I am OWED free software!

elkins
2004-05-15 11:39 am UTC (link)

Heh.

Whatever. I use Movable Type 2.64, and I'm perfectly happy with it. It works just fine for my purposes, and it didn't cost me a red cent. It sure was nice of those software designers to code for me for free! I hardly think, though, that the fact that they did so once means that they're now beholden to continue to do it until the end of their days.

When free things that serve your needs happen to come your way, that certainly is serindipitous.

To expect the world to keep on providing yet more and better free things for your personal enjoyment, however, strikes me as indicative of a truly grotesque sense of entitlement.

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Re: How DARE they?! I am OWED free software!

wolfsamurai
2004-05-15 06:17 pm UTC (link)

When digging around there though, I don't think that the majority of people are begrudging them the right to charge for their software. From the ones that I read, it seems like a lot of people are begrudging them charging as much as they are for the functionality that they're offering at each price point, which means that they shell out money and not still necessarily be able to do the same things that they can do right now. Oh, I'm sure some of them are bemoaning the crippleware free version now, but that's going to happen regardless.

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	Re: How DARE they?! I am OWED free software! lurker32 2004-05-15 06:46 pm UTC (link)
	That's the impression I got. And really, charging a minimum of $70 for what you were handing out free is within your rights, but not what you'd call user-friendly. (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

Re: How DARE they?! I am OWED free software!

elkins
2004-05-16 12:33 am UTC (link)

Nope, I agree. It's not user-friendly, and it was a stupid tactical error as well.

But the program that they were handing out for free still works every bit as well as it used to. It's not as if SA is a hosting network like livejournal, say, or like Blogspot, where everyone who uses the system is forced into using the latest version of the code whether they like the changes that have been made or not.

Really, I'm not surprised that people are upset, and I'm not surprised that they're disappointed. The tone of some of the outrage blows my mind, though. It's very Y2K.

"OMG, MT 3 came out, and now OVERNIGHT, the entire blogosphere is going to EXPLODE, because all of those 2.6x versions of Movable Type will SELF-DESTRUCT!"

Errr, no. Nothing's been done to the older versions. The code that you downloaded for free onto your hard-drive and then installed onto your web space still works in exactly the same way as it did before. It's just no longer the Newest and Latest (tm).

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	Re: How DARE they?! I am OWED free software! lurker32 2004-05-16 02:09 am UTC (link)
	nods True that. (Says someone who was still using Windows 3.1 in '98. :) (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	Ludedites of the Intranet, Unite! elkins 2004-05-16 02:18 am UTC (link)
	Heh. I hear that. Then, I resisted getting a CD player until well into the 90s, and I was very grumpy about Windows, too, when it first started replacing good ole DOS. So maybe I'm just a total crank, and thus ill-equipped to understand the feelings of those who like to be even marginally up to date on their technology. (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	Re: Ludedites of the Intranet, Unite! crickets 2004-05-16 06:28 am UTC (link)
	I'm so glad I'm not the only one who was cranky about CDs and Windows. I've gotten used to CDs, and even grown to like them. As for Windows, I've gotten used to it. snerk (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

Re: Ludedites of the Intranet, Unite!

elkins
2004-05-16 07:00 am UTC (link)

Heh. Yeah, I'm really much lazier than I am cranky. In response to some of my early whinging about Windows, a friend suggested to me that I should learn Linux. I reacted with horror. "What? You mean learn something NEW? But...but...but... but that might be *work!* Don't you see? It's all that pesky 'having things change and so having to learn to use something new' business that was the problem in the first place!"

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Re: Ludedites of the Intranet, Unite!

moonjaguar
2004-05-17 02:47 am UTC (link)

Jeeebus. I refused to buy cassette tapes until the '90s. I sneered at 8-tracks as well. I was a die-hard record collector. Tapes got eaten. I think the only reason I managed to deal with CDs was because they look like little tiny records. Kind of like the ones that were on cereal boxes in the '70s. I think that's how I ended up with David Cassidy's "I Think I Love You" as well as any Bobby Sherman promo when I was a kid.

Hey, how about those weird floppy records that were tucked in MAD and Dynamite? Those were beezaro. Hold one by the corner and it behaved like a tortilla but it made a "fwup fwup fwup" noise if you shook it. They didn't last for many plays, the needle kind of started boring into them. I guess the idea was "you listened to the promo track, now go out and buy the album."

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	Re: Ludedites of the Intranet, Unite! lurker32 2004-05-16 01:29 pm UTC (link)
	Hee! cherishes her cassette collection (Reply to this)(Parent)

	bitca 2004-05-15 07:58 pm UTC (link)
	Heh. Never thought that this would show up here, but it makes total sense. Their licensing structure sucks donkey balls now. Though they're modifying it, I doubt it will mollify a lot of the folk who use MT. I've been a loyal MT user since pre-2.0. I'm just not sure if I'll stay one, or if I'll just stay at 2.661. (Reply to this)

	wednesday 2004-05-15 08:27 pm UTC (link)
	It's been suggested that, since 3.0D is a developer's edition, the licensing structure is designed to temporarily put the casual user off until it gets out of that state. Dumb way to do it, IMO. (Reply to this)

dunc
2004-05-16 02:20 am UTC (link)

I'm in the process of setting up a multi-user blog, and we just switched servers, so as you can imagine...

I was major pissed about this at first, mainly because they released it the VERY DAY I needed to download an install file... Luckily the old download page is still up (ahh, Google!) and I got 2.661. I've got everything set up for MT, and a bunch of newbies on my hands, so I'm going to stay with it for now on both my sites. Just gotta be sure to download the MT-Blacklist plug-in for the spam...

The good thing about this is that now all the other blog clients are going to be rushing to fill in the gaps. I'd never heard of half of them before this! I'm quite impressed with the new Blogger, though. If only it could do catagories... Textpattern looks neat, too, but doesn't allow multiple blogs. I'm a suck for programs built by designers.

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