This email is about why the Movable Type 3.0 licensing structure doesn't
work for me:

I use Movable Type for a conventional photolog/journal, a photo project
that's formatted as a calendar (still updated, but only occasionally), a
spare weblog for links, and for my brother's political weblog.  The
political weblog has an MT-powered link list in the sidebar - if he were
using TypePad, he might be able to replicate that part of the site with a
Typelist.

So we're running five blogs with two users.  If I upgraded to Movable Type
3, I'd be able to run this setup with a $120-150 license.  That seems a
little high, but not so high that I wouldn't consider it.

I used to maintain a blogroll using a seperate Movable Type blog (again, in
TypePad, a TypeList would work), it's not live on the site anymore, but that
MT blog is still in the database -- that makes six weblogs.  I've also set
up a couple of experiments using Movable Type blogs that I later deleted.
All told, my brother and I have had nine different MT blogs on that setup,
though never more than six at a time.

I'm working on another project.  It has a pretty limited scope - something
that will run its course over a period of a year and a half and could be
produced in Movable Type using two "blogs".  After starting this project,
there will be seven MT Blogs running on my system, not counting the
abandoned blogroll.

If I were to upgrade to Movable Type 3.0, I could run this setup with a
$120-150 license.  That seems a little high, but not so high that I wouldn't
consider it.  But I'd be approaching the limits of the license.  Sooner or
later, I'd outgrow it.  I could get a $150-$190 license, but it's
conceivable that I'd outgrow that.

I'm also starting a commercial site for a small business.  I'd planned to
use Movable Type for parts of it, but can't be sure that I wouldn't use more
blogs than are allowed by the $200/$300 license.  The $600/$700 license
would definitely be out of my price range.

My Movable Type setup is a little more ambitious than many webbloggers'.  A
different licensing fee might be appropriate.  But I don't think that the
user count/blog count structure is a good basis for licensing Movable Type.
Anyway, it's not a good licensing structure for me.

Whatever new functionality is built into MT 3.x, the restrictions of a paid
license would make it less usable to me than my free 2.6 installation.

I won't be able to upgrade under the current licensing terms, and I'll
likely use another CMS for my new projects.  But I'd like to thank you -
Ben, Mena, and Six Apart - for building such a powerful and flexible piece
of software, for making personal web publishing as easy or as hard as I've
wanted to make it.  I made a $20 donation in after installing Movable Type
in November 2001, and I've probably gotten more mileage out of it than is
warranted for such a small price.

Good luck,

Jeff Sharman

Beans for Breakfast
http://www.struat.com/here/
Movable Type Powered from 2001-