Don’t delete your old MT installation files. You might want to keep the archives for a while.

Today, the Movable Type team released MT 3.0, and sneakily introduced a tier-based licensing scheme. There’s still free version, but for a lot of people (me excluded) it just won’t do: three free blogs for only one author. To get a better idea of how people are reacting, read the MT creators’ blog — scroll down to the trackbacks.

The old download page still exists (although it’s harder to find), so you might want to grab MT 2.661 (the last donateware version) while it lasts. If you’re running a version older than that, read the features/changes made for 2.661.

The new pricing is sad news, because it really alienates a lot of people. I’m sure many will not be upgrading to MT 3.0; on the other hand, it’s probable that the MT folks won’t be releasing any more patches or upgrades for the 2.x line.

I first played with blogging software in Fall 2002: first Blogger; but I disliked having my posts stored on a free, third-party Blogger database that could decide to give out or be lost at any time. Blogger comments were also not native, so if I wanted them I had to figure out which script would be best. So I decided to try something else, and researched a bunch of other free blogging software that I could install on the server. I went through a bunch of different titles, but one day, I happened across a site using MT, with its space hosted by the Web host I was using. Hence, my introduction to MT. I installed the software and decided to stick with it.

A few weeks ago, I was setting up a site that would eventually be a "commercial" one, according to MT’s policies. Since commercial blogs had a licensing fee, I looked into other blogging software with no such restrictions, and decided on WordPress. The documentation leaves a lot to be desired (there really isn’t a single, thorough, well-organized resource on installation; I had to flip through a number of pages to find what I needed), but so far it looks good. Definitely more streamlined than MT, and I do miss some features, but for the most part it’s working out (and it’s free). My favorite aspect of it is the instant updating of posts, with no tedious rebuilding. The most difficulty I had was, really, wrestling with the CSS to get the site to look right.

Certainly, the new Blogger, which made its appearance last week, looks more useful than its older version. The new release has a less clunky interface, a comments feature, and an allowance for permanent links to individual posts.

As for this musings blog, I currently have no plans to switch from MT to WordPress or something else. I suppose I could upgrade to MT 3.0, since I only run one blog, but I really don’t feel like doing it anytime soon. We’ll have to see what happens as blogging software evolves and things like MT 3.0 being for-pay happen.