Moveable Type goes open source

While this is good, is it too little too late? With the massive install base for Wordpress, moveable type has a long upward struggle in the blogging platform business. With Wordpress looking at becoming more socially active, Moveable Type might be too far behind the installation base to meet up with where Wordpress is already.

For more on the social networking ability of Wordpress go here (full disclosure, every blog we own is Wordpress). In the Moveable type press release/blog entry today they state:

Like many of us on the team, some of you have been waiting for this moment for years. For a business, an open source license affects boring things like how a product is created, updated, and distributed. But the open source movement has always been about something more important: Freedom. With a name like “Movable Type”, we’ve always been keenly aware of the importance of freedom, as that name echoes both the birth of the printing press and the creation of independent media that an individual can control. Source: Moveabletype.org

While there always has been a version of Moveable type that has been free, it has always lagged behind in features and functions of its cost brothers in the hierarchy. With the sale of Live Journal, there is a larger pile of money to support an open source project, while still charging for services, premium plugins, and other side added benefits that comes with making MT completely open source.

Overall, this should prove to be interesting, between the sale of live journal, and now the opening of MT in terms of downloading versions, what happens with Six Apart next will probably be of interest as well.