Open Letter to SixApart
Dear Bena,
Actually, you probably won’t read this so maybe I should address this to Anil because he seems to get around the web a bit more than you two. In any case I just wanted to say thank you for making Movable Type. Without it I’m not sure I would have gotten into blogging because it made my life easier. It brought me into this world and helped me make a name for myself. It gave me a voice that I didn’t know I had and allowed me to meet a lot of great people.
I was proud to be using the web’s most popular blogging software. I was happy that development seemed to occur at a constant pace. I was excited that a couple of people could work on their passions and be rewarded for doing so. I was pleased with the developer community producing useful plugins that allowed me to enhance my blog.
However, now I must say goodbye. Wisdump uses WordPress for many of the reasons that pushed me towards MT in the first place. Using WP, I am filled with the same excitement that I used to have with MT that I wish never left. I stuck around for as long as I could, endured two instances of losing data from my database and patiently waited a total of 90 days, 17 hours and 48 minutes for my templates and archives to rebuild. I’m not saying WP is any better than MT, I just feel better using it and to me, I am what is most important.
Even though I never met you, I always felt like I knew you through your blogging. Now I’m not even sure if you blog anymore at all. If Anil wasn’t around I wouldn’t even be sure if you guys still existed. I’m not even sure Anil still exists since there wasn’t any kickball this year at SXSW.
I know it’s not really your fault. You went corporate and had loftier ambitions. You had money to make and investors to please. I can’t say I blame you, but I wish it didn’t have to come to this. I wish you the best of luck in the future and maybe one day you will open source MT and it can return to its former glory.
Yours truly,
Scrivs
ps - Don’t worry because Business Logs still uses MT, but I can’t guarantee how long that will last.
Related reading:
MT got me into blogging, too. If only they had kept up. I feel that if I want to open my site to new designs, features and possiblities–and open myself to them as well–WP is going to help me do that while MT would perhaps hold me back.
By Jeff Werner on May 23, 2006 2:42 am
I see chinese adsense!haha
By Female community on May 23, 2006 4:24 am
lol reads like a dear john MT letter. It is a sad fact when those devoted turn away as the company has it’s sight on the bucks. I know it business but you can have balance in business, just it’s the harder route so many choose to ignore.
By karmatosed on May 23, 2006 5:59 am
ahhh… that is the reason I chose Wordpress for my blog - it is free and open source.
You have a typo in your first sentence. Hope you don’t mind me pointing it out ;) You two should read you do.
And 90 days, 17 hours and 48 minutes - that is a huge amount of time - whoah!
By Jessica Doyle on May 23, 2006 6:23 am
MT could be so much better than WP. Obviously there are a lot of issues, and a lot of features, that would need to be created in such a way to make them more apparent (because some of them can be hacked into MT), but really MT could be far better than WP if they really really wanted it to.
Open sourcing MT would be one way to allow the developers out there to hack away at getting the features in that they want, but you’d see a much smaller development group (or at least less active and less willing to release their work) than with WP, since the WP crowd is made up of PHP programmers.
I think if SixApart created a team to actively develop on MT as if it was an open source project (perhaps 5 developers, 2 designers, and 1 project lead), we’d see a vastly superior MT emerge from the ooze within a few months.
Oh, and those 8 people should be plucked from the community of people that use MT, not from their current brood of in-house people.
By Colin D. Devroe on May 23, 2006 8:43 am
I started on MT as well, then switched to WP about a year later. The ease of theme switching, php, open source and my habit of completely redesigning my site every month or so were my main reasons for switching ;-).
By Brett on May 23, 2006 9:34 am
A couple of questions -
1. Why are you deciding to leave BL on MT for now?
2. You seem to dog MT a bit in your last paragraph for getting funded and going “corporate” — but didn’t Matt’s company, Automattic (which I assume created Wordpress since it’s listed as one of their projects), just get funded recently as well?
Do you think Auttomatic will have a different experience than SixApart in their quest to make money and keep investors happy?
By Mark on May 23, 2006 9:52 am
[...] Web - Open Letter to SixApart Tags [...]
By RetortaBlog » Web - Open Letter to SixApart on May 23, 2006 9:57 am
Nicely written Scrivs.
After the week I’ve just had trying to upgrade to MT3.2 on my largest blogs and finding massive problems with rebuilding issues I’m strongly considering ending my affair with MT also.
The basics are there and in theory it’s a great platform but both on a technical level and a ’spirit’ level I’m finding it’s just not quite there.
By Darren on May 23, 2006 10:08 am
Mark: We need to transfer servers first before we do anything with Business Logs. As for going corporate, I think you can definitely be corporate and chase the money without forgetting about the people. Hell, you should’ve seen more interactivity now that they didn’t have to worry about how to pay for their next meal.
Automattic could easily fall under the same trap so they must be just as careful. Same goes with 9rules and any other company that depends on a strong community to keep them growing. I do think Automattic will be different though simply because their core product is already Open Source so if Mullenweg goes off the deepend we are still left with something and a strong community to work on it.
By Scrivs on May 23, 2006 10:13 am
Jessica: It’s not a typo because “Bena” is actually a combination of Ben and Mena Trott, the original creators of MT. It’s my own little nickname for them :)
By Scrivs on May 23, 2006 10:15 am
Olá Mário, pensava que só eu é que tinha problemas com o MT até verificar que o Paulo Querido não só vendeu o weblog.com.pt à aeiou como também trocou a plataforma do blog dele (de MT para WP). :D
By yggdrasil on May 23, 2006 10:18 am
Personally, I could care less if a product is free, open source or costs me a yearly license to use.
As you have alluded to, if a company doesn’t continually improve its flagship products, stay in touch with their customer base (be it blogging, social marketing or otherwise) or go out of their way to retain the boatloads of users who are or are considering switching to a competing platform, then they deserve to go down in flames.
A product that was great doesn’t stay great forever. Innovate or die, as the saying goes.
By Geof Harries on May 23, 2006 10:31 am
Does anyone feel MT was ever worth that much money? I look at that and think… “well shit, if I could make that much money from the blog it might be worth it.”
By Devin on May 23, 2006 10:55 am
Devin, you bring up a good point. Is paying for a MT license worth it? I say no, given the product’s current status.
Conversely, I pay a yearly license for Feedlounge because I feel it’s worth it.
Feedlounge does all of what I mention above and more, so paying less than $50/yr is something I wouldn’t think twice about.
By Geof Harries on May 23, 2006 11:55 am
It all comes down to a matter of taste and preference. Some of the things you seem to find a deficiency in MT are exactly why I prefer it over WP - the ability to built the site as static pages and PERL rather than PHP for two. I actually found WP more difficult to customise (perhaps, I admit, because I am more familiar with PERL than PHP).
As for the commercial aspect there is plenty of open source software that charges a fee for commercial versions (consider RedHat and SuSE as prime examples) and commercial software that provide a free version for personal use (such as MovableType and ExpressionEngine). As a user I have access to the source code and can modify it to suit me so long as I don’t redistribute it. This provides 90% of the benefits of open source.
Innovation can be a good thing so long as it provides greater utility to the user and isn’t done just to add one more feature because it can be done. That way lies bloat and bugs. Bug fixing however is a necessary processes to keep on top of.
I have used both MT and WP and am currently redoing my personal sites in TextPattern. I have downloaded the ExpressionEngine core but haven’t had a chance to play with it yet but I hear good things. Any software is a tool to an end. One must use the one that does the job you want to do in the most efficient and acceptable manner for the user.
All else is fodder for discussion over cold beer and hot espresso. *grin*
By WD Milner on May 24, 2006 3:44 am
Ah… Ben + Mena = Bena = two
An inside nickname - I did not know ;)
By Jessica on May 24, 2006 3:45 am
Oic… I used MT & WP… but I love MT…
By Viking KARWUR on May 24, 2006 6:09 am
Reminds me of the reasons I switched from MT to WP back in March of 2004. Wordpress has come a long way since then though, back then it didn’t even have plugins, just a “my-hacks.php” file. I still love it and use it for 2 of my own sites, and 3 relatives’ sites that I run for them.
By Ted on July 7, 2006 3:50 pm