Freedom 0

This blog entry on the recently announced new licensing terms of the Moveable Type blog software package discusses the importance of freedoms given by opensource licenses.

I’m very glad that I chose WordPress over Moveable Type weeks before these announcements. I didn’t like Moveable Type’s license at the time and I was afraid a future version would change the terms and pricing (surprise!). WordPress has met all my needs.

When I pick a software package I consider the following criteria: How much freedom do I have?, Is it a suitable choice? (does it get the job done and is it flexible enough?), and How much time and money would it cost?

Games are something I’m willing to buy under proprietary terms. They are a consumable that I can’t produce myself and what is available for free or is open have been historically unsuitable. As long as the games are licensed with decent fair use terms, entertain me, and are not too expensive, I’ll buy them. Games are a disposable consumable form of entertainment in software form. I’ve decided I’m willing to pay $X dollars for Y hours of enjoyable entertainment.

Blog software on the other hand is different. My website is something I’d like to tweak and be able to customize any way I want. I may wish to distribute any modifications in the future. I don’t really feel like spending money for something that I have the knowledge level to write myself. Purchasing a license for Moveable Type would mean giving up quite a few freedoms for something I could do myself. The terms could be changed in future revisions leaving me with an old abandoned version with no way to fork or easy way to collaborate with other people to maintain. With Moveable Type the cost of the loss of freedom and the monetary cost of the package did not justify paying for the functionality I would get.

I find myself valuing the freedom part of the equation more and more these days. But I still think proprietary software has its place… It just has to offer more value for the costs than many software companies and packages have done in the past.