Movable Type
|
|
- This article is about the weblog software. For information on the printing term, see Printing press.
Movable Type is a proprietary weblog publishing system developed by California-based Six Apart. It is very widely used, and supports most popular weblogging features, including user accounts, comments, trackbacks, categories, and themes, and is extensible through a large library of third-party plug-ins. It is free for use by a single author with no more than three distinct blogs, with paid licenses required for more extensive personal, commercial, educational, and non-profit users [1] (http://www.sixapart.com/movabletype/pricing). Development is supported by a combination of license fees and voluntary donations. The current version is 3.17 (http://www.sixapart.com/movabletype/news/2005/06/movable_type_317_release.html).
Movable Type is written in Perl, and uses MySQL, Berkeley DB, PostgreSQL, or SQLite to store the weblog's content and other data. The application supports static page generation (in which files for each page are updated whenever whenever the content of the site is changed), dynamic page generation (in which pages are composited from the underlying data as the browser requests them), or a combination of the two technologies.
With the release of version 3.0, there were marked changes in Movable Type's licensing[2] (http://www.sixapart.com/corner/archives/2004/05/its_about_time.shtml), most notably placing greater restrictions on its use without paying a licensing fee. This sparked substantial criticism from some users of the software, particularly those whose use of the earlier free versions (e.g. number of authors, number of blogs run by a given installation) exceeded what was permitted by the free license to version 3, requiring them to either A) upgrade and pay for the new license, B) upgrade and reduce their usage to comply with the free license, C) continue using the earlier version, or D) convert their blog to another package.
TypePad, a hosted weblog service operated by Six Apart, is powered by Movable Type. LiveJournal, a similar service which was acquired by the company in January 2005, is not.
History
Movable Type was originally named Serge after musician Serge Gainsbourg.
Mtb1.png
- October 8, 2001
- Version 1.0 released.
- October 22, 2001
- Version 1.1 released.
- November 5, 2001
- Version 1.2 released. Supports pings.
- December 13, 2001
- 45 donations received. Donations of $20 and above receive a recently updated key. Donations of $45 and above receive personal support.
- December 12, 2001
- Version 1.3 released. Supports Blogger API.
- January 7, 2002
- Version 1.4 released.
- January 11, 2002
- Paid installation available for personal sites at a cost of $20 for the first hour and $5 for each additional hour.
- March 20, 2002
- Version 2.0 released. Supports IP banning for comments. Commercial license of $150 introduced.
- May 2, 2002
- Version 2.1 released. Supports MetaWeblog API.
- June 26, 2002
- Version 2.2 released. Supports MySQL databases and TrackBack. Plugin architecture introduced.
- September 6, 2002
- Version 2.5 released. Open pinging interface and integrated search.
- February 13, 2003
- Version 2.6 released. Support for Creative Commons licenses, RSD, and PostgreSQL and SQLite databases.
- December 22, 2003
- Version 2.65 released. Atom sydication template introduced as a default template.
- May 13, 2004
- Version 3.0 released. Supports TypeKey, a centralized authentication system for commenting.
- August 31, 2004
- Version 3.1 released. Supports dynamic PHP publishing.
- June 2, 2005
- Version 3.17 released. Various small bugfixes.
External links
- Movable Type product website (http://www.sixapart.com/movabletype/)
- Movable Type Support Forum (http://www.sixapart.com/movabletype/support)
- MT-Blacklist Plugin (http://www.jayallen.org/projects/mt-blacklist/)
- MT Wiki (http://wiki.virtualvenus.org/) (now non-searchable and locked)
- Planet Movable Type (http://planet.movalog.com/)