I was excited about Movable Type 3.0.
Until I discovered that it would cost me $70 to use it. This killed 100% of my enthusiasm. The idea of published pages has been nice, but if I ever needed a reason to switch blogging software, it just showed up. Courtesy of guest blog entries, I have more than three authors, and thanks to the "mini-weblogs" I keep, I meet exactly five blogs. The author requirement locks me in to a situation where I am unable to upgrade because to do so would mean deleting authors, and that would mess up content.
And so now begins my research into alternatives. I am giving b2 a solid look because of its php based nature, and possibly drupal since it is a powerful cms. Based on previous experience though, I do think I will be looking into b2evolution. Chalk one up to Movable Type though, my favorite term from today's trackbacks was labeling them a "blogging disaster". It wouldn't be too far from the truth either. It was #1 on my recommended list for blogs my work was going to use. But an open registration system would mean we would be shelling out a stupid amount of money. I'm quietly glad that the old Technical Specialist opted for Drupal.
It seems everyone and their mother is talking about Movable Mistake. One Trackback says what I could not in even three paragraphs: "My wife and I have an MT family blog for friends and family. Two authors equals $100!!! We're moving to WordPress."
(Update: From Metafilter: on a weblogging tool that's going to have hard-coded limits There's nothing hard coded. I just downloaded the new version and my install with half a dozen authors and a couple dozen blogs works fine just as it did. The licenses are all on the honor system.
I don't know how true this is, but for someone who deeply believes in paying for software, I don't know where I stand on this one. It is a horrible moral dilemma. In preparation for the worst, I signed myself up for the b2 forums and asked about migration scripts.
I was always much more of a PHP hack over PERL anyway.)
In response to "Goodbye Movable Type":
Take a look at wordpress, which is b2’s official successor. WordPress has come a long way from where b2 was and will remain.