For a few years, I used free software called Movable Type to add my thoughts and images to the clutter known as the World Wide Web. Sadly, that time has passed. Movable Type has changed, taking a more commercial slant on what was an enormously popular, grass-roots web publishing product.
Movable Type, or "MT" is still available for free, but the vibe has definitely changed. Version 3.0 introduced a restrictive license that only was free if you used MT for no more than three web logs and were the only author (or something like that... who gives a damn about reading licenses when the software was free?) If you surpassed these limits (or whatever they actually are), you were obligated to buy a commercial license.
I used MT for any and every whim that crossed my mind: a personal blog, a blog for my cat's illness, a journal for one season of snowboarding (2003) and to house my rants. Had I gone on with MT, I'd have had to pay money to keep using their product because I had too many separate blogs. Obviously, since I wasn't making any money off of these blogs, I didn't feel it was right to charge me money for this, so I found a new product, which remains free: Word Press. Needless to say, it's great and I don't miss Movable Type (the product) at all. I'm just sad that they've changed so much. But, I guess with success comes change and not always for the good of the group. More power to them. I'm also bummed because now I have to delete MT: there are too many security holes which they waited too long to address. Now I would have to register to get a support account, then download and upgrade my MT software. All I had was one simple question about the security hole, which hinged my decision to upgrade or not. Before, I could just search the support forum and find what I needed. Now I have to go through a whole process, which is just sad and frustrating.
So, rather than go through all that, I'm writing this page (not the best use of my time, mind you, but its cathartic).
If you were looking for one of my blogs -- either FirstBlog or Georgia's CRF Diary please...