The GNU Project is most famous for it’s versions of UNIX utilities and the GPL family of licenses. But whatever you think of Richard Stallman and the Free Software Foundation‘s hard-line approaches and politics, everyone has benefited from their work. Every computerized device, if it doesn’t run GNU software, likely contains software that was influenced by the GNU project or software released under a GPL license. And the GNU Project’s influence extends beyond software to most areas where technology meets freedom.

Thanks again GNU!

Yes, Movable Type Open Source should be celebrated! It is awesome that it already includes everything that was released as Movable Type 4.0 and more. As I understand it there should soon be a stable release. But I am confused by the conversations I read and concerned by the phrases used to describe this “version”.

People ask all the time what is the difference between WordPress.org and WordPress.com. Or they are confused for good reason why they can’t do something they heard about on one or other. But this is a confusion that is easily cleared:

• WordPress.org is open source blogging software that is freely available to download. The software must be downloaded and installed.
• WordPress.com is a web site that hosts blogs free of charge.

After explaining that, people nod their head in understanding, “OK, I get it now”.

I suspect there is little head nodding when it comes to Movable Type branding and open source, although you might think otherwise based on the phrases in these quotes (emphasis mine):

• Six Apart Vice President of Evangelism Anil Dash, “As of today, and forever forward, Movable Type is open source.“
• Tom Keating, “Movable Type has gone 100% open source“
• Jeremy Zawodny, “As a long-time user of Movable Type, I’m glad to see it going fully Open Source now.“
• Mark Jaquith, Movable Type is now Free for any purpose, under the same license used for WordPress“

Based on those quotes, I would think that Movable Type is as open source as [insert funny though vulgar comparison].

Unfortunately, that isn’t the case. There is a Movable Type that isn’t open source. The product Movable Type by itself is reserved for their commercial product , and it sounds like there will be lots of effort to redifferentiate the proprietary product.

Will proprietary Movable Type complete with Movable Type open source? Assuming MT is re-embraced by open source participants, on Six Aparts current path, I think it is inevitable.

No, Cory I think the jury is still out on whether Six Apart is “adopted a [open source] license: because they want to promote freedom”, and that it is ok with me and should be with most everyone else. Movable Type Product Manager Byrne Reese suggests they did it for distribution. Freedom is a spectrum and different freedoms are important to different people, and Six Apart has always demonstrated being awesome in supporting many freedoms!

Saturday, Jan 26th Update: a surprisingly timely release of a stable version of MTOS after my post and this discussion, and updates to the web site, it seems that Byrne and the Six Apart team agree with me at least on some level. Though I don’t like my open source in flavors, I feel comfortable declairing Movable Type only 120% open source now.

Sat, Feb 9th Update: see comment 29 below with some quotes from Six Apart professionals expressing their confusion about Movable Type open source flavor.