Movable Type running scared?
Published June 10th, 2007 in Blogging News.Recently, Movable Type (corporate blogging platform of choice for ’sensible people’) announced that it would be moving it to Open Source.
So, why move a successful commercial platform to Open Source? As they say:
Why now?
We felt the perfect time was with the introduction of Movable Type 4, which is the culmination of more person years of development than any other release of Movable Type as well as the future of the Movable Type platform.
So, that’s all right then. I thought it might be because the truly Open Source blog platform Wordpress was and is so phenomenally successful, SixApart were losing business. Desperate tactics? Apparently not.
I’ve always wanted to try moveable type but I’ve been using b2 and wordpress for so long I’m kind of attached.
I guess I can always use it for a different site just to play with it though…
but I always love opensource so yay for them!
Hi, Melissa
Although my post was a little tongue in cheek, I no doubt will try it out. It is supposed to be the ‘professional blogger’s software’, but I know they’ve been losing ground to Wordpress. Why should anyone pay for blog software when you can get something at least as good for free.
And I kind of like the Wordpress guys. They seem like Blogger used to be before they got bought out by Google. I just hope no one buys them out and changes them.
And, of course, Wordpress is damned good software
Gerald
Hi, I work with the MT team at Six Apart, and I’m just curious about some of our assertions. You say you “know [we]‘ve been losing ground” — given that we’ve got the largest open source blogging community (LiveJournal), and millions more bloggers than any other platform, what measure are you using for “losing ground”?
I know the Blogger team quite well, and have been a tremendous fan of theirs since the tool launched — I feel pretty comfortable with asserting that what we’re doing at Six Apart is the closest thing to a continuation of that tradition. As to “Why should anyone pay for blog software when you can get something at least as good for free.” — plenty of people who take their blogs seriously as part of their careers or work want to do so; It might not be an audience that’s “cool” to the Web 2.0 trendy crowd, but it’s one that we’ve done a good deal of work to reach out to, and that’s been quite a success. Hope that answers the question.
Hi, Anil
Thanks for your comments.
I was writing a reply, which got longer and more wide-ranging than was really pertinent as a comment. I’ve decided to make it a blog post, due to be uploaded later today. I think I have some interesting thoughts.
Gerald
I use WP. I tried Movable Type and after 2 days I removed it LOL I am just too addicted to WP, I don’t feel comfortable with others…