Movable Type Licensing

Published 6 years ago in Moveable Type

A while ago I recommended to Scott the use of Movable Type. He said that he’d looked into it, but that he’d decided against it because the licensing was too odd. He wasn’t sure if he could use the ‘free’ license for individuals, or if he had to buy the corporate license (at $150). It also seems unclear if these licenses will ever change in the future.

Today, I read a post on Rasterweb mentioning the same thing, but this post brings out specific examples of seeming violations to the ‘free license.’

I’m sure that lots of people are technically violating the ‘free license’ that I downloaded MT under, but I did donate twice the normal amount, and the accepted it, so does that make us even?

I’d really like to see an individual license that cose $40 from the for people that want to put revenue generating links on their site… It’d be useful for little people like me.

[via nfo]

3 Responses to “Movable Type Licensing”

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1 Adam Kalsey Oct 24th, 2002 at 2:25 pm

Mena Trott has said in the past that you need to pay if your weblog generates “substantial revenue” and mentions that affiliate programs don’t count unless they bring in enough money to be considered a “source of income.”

The MT FAQ lists the following indicators that you need a commercial license.

(1) use at or for a commercial enterprise;

(2) use for financial gain, personal or otherwise;

(3) use by government agencies;

(4) use in connection with administering a commercial web site;

(5) use in connection with the provision of professional service for which you are compensated;

But the licenses themselves don’t mention commercial, personal, or non-profit usage at all, which I find odd. Technically a commercial site using the personal license isn’t violating the terms of that licesnse, provided no one was paid to install or support the software.