This morning Six Apart updated their info on pricing and licensing for Movable Type 3.0. I think it's a step in the right direction. I'm glad they are adapting and I hope they keep listening to what people are saying. And I hope they keep doing this. I'm still not sure that the users part of it is that great. I think that most likely a lot of people are still going to be getting stuck on that. I almost think they need to have the free version be 3 blogs/3 users, the personal use one gives you 5/5, and then at the high end an unlimited use one. Maybe even one between 5/5 and unlimited. So the pricing could be free, $60, $120 (for a 15/15), $200. And they can still have special pricing for ISP/hosted situations if they want.
I'm used to seeing software priced by user from being a SysAdmin. But I think most users aren't. They expect to be able to go out, buy a piece of software, and use it however they want (regardless of what the intended purpose of the software is). That's one of the reasons people are so up in arms. The more I think about it the more I think it's okay for them to have limits on the personal use license, but I think the limits have to be high enough that at least 80-85% of their users can get by with that first tier.
I will still stick with Movable Type for the time being. But I'm definitely watching the developments in other systems as well (notably WordPress). Btw, for people out there familiar with WordPress, I saw on one chart that it doesn't support multiple blogs. True? False? Anyone?
