I used MT for my site, and now I see that they are CHARGING a couple hundred dollars for the software. I'm lucky I got it, but I'm confused. Why would a company go from completely free to a couple hundred dollars for that software? I know that I wouldn't buy it. It is great, but it is great FREE. I wouldn't spend a couple hundred for it.
// Lou
1. They were never completely free. They always had restrictions. They just weren't yelling at everyone that broke the rules.
2. MT is still somewhat free. They have a personal use license, which is something like one author and 3 blogs. This differs from the previous version that allowed multiple authors/blogs.
3. This is why FREE (as in freedom/open source) software is better; specifically software licensed under the GPL. The GPL states that you can not add any other resitrictions to already GPL'd software. So if MT had been free/gpl (such as a blogging alternative, wordpress), they can never "un free" (defreeify?) it. Keep in mind that open source does not mean no money. You can charge for open source software, you just can't add restrictions like number of users, etc.
Hence, I use Free Software.
Originally posted by contrasutra@May 19 2004, 07:45 PM[...]
3. This is why FREE (as in freedom/open source) software is better
[...]
Better is a very subjective term, Contra.
Just because it's open source/GPL'd/whatever doesn't make it a better product. Maybe it's better for your piece of mind (in that you know that the software will always be available in a certain form), but you can't say "better" further than that, unless you can quantify and prove in all cases that said software is advantageous.
In a closed frame of reference, such as "price of purchase", you'd be right... "Total Cost of Ownership", however, may be a different matter entirely, depending on what people need to buy to learn/implement the system you're talking about.
That's the perennial issue with OSS arguments - they rarely consider the real world scenaria - they only consider the "but I can afford the time/money/effort to get it set on my machine"...
There is a company out there that has un-GPL'd a product. It was a complex corporate file-sharing app which was 'mistakenly' released under that license. I forget the rest. End result: app no longer licensed under the GPL
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