Movable Type
Movable Type | |
Author: | Ben Trott |
---|---|
Developer: | Six Apart |
Initial release: | 2001 October 8 |
Latest release: | 4.0 / 2007 August 15 |
Preview release: | MT 4.01 Beta 2 / 2007 August 31 |
Platform: | Perl |
Available language(s): | Dutch English French German Japanese Spanish |
Status: | Active |
Genre: | Blog publishing system |
License: | proprietary (GPL version promised)[1] |
Website: | movabletype.com |
Movable Type is a weblog publishing system developed by California-based Six Apart. It was publicly announced on 3 September 2001,[2] and version 1.0 was publicly released on 8 October 2001.[3]
Its TrackBack feature was introduced in version 2.2, and has since been adopted by a number of other blog systems. Movable Type also supports most popular weblogging features, including user accounts, comments, categories, and themes, and is extensible through a large library of third-party plug-ins. Movable Type is free for personal use and offers unlimited users and blogs.[4] Users can purchase support or buy commercial, education, or nonprofit licenses which come with support contracts and author limits and unlimited blogs.[5] The current version is 4.0.[6]
Movable Type is written in Perl, and supports storage of the weblog's content and associated data within MySQL, Berkeley DB, PostgreSQL, and SQLite; dynamic page generation is handled by Smarty. Movable Type Enterprise also supports the Oracle database and Microsoft SQL Server. The application supports static page generation (in which files for each page are updated 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,[7] most notably placing greater restrictions on its use without paying a licensing fee.[8] This sparked criticism from some users of the software. With the release of Movable Type 3.2, the ability to create an unlimited number of weblogs at all licensing levels was restored. In Movable Type 3.3, it is completely free for personal users.
Six Apart released Movable Type 4 beta on June 5, 2007 and re-launched movabletype.org as a community site for purposes of developing an open-source version (MTOS) to be released under GPL in Q3 2007.[9][10]
Movable Type Enterprise version has become a standard corporate and enterprise blogging software because of advanced features such as LDAP management, enterprise database integration such as Oracle, MySQL, user roles, blog cloning and automated blog provisioning. It is also available as part of Intel's SuiteTwo professional software offering of Web 2.0 tools.
Six Apart also maintains three other weblog publishing systems, TypePad, LiveJournal and Vox. While Movable Type is a system which needs to be installed on a user's own web server, TypePad is a hosted weblog service. LiveJournal is an entirely separate blogging system, acquired after Six Apart's buyout of Danga Interactive in January 2005.
Movable Type was originally named Serge after musician Serge Gainsbourg.
References
- ^ Dash, Anil (2007-06-05). Movable Type 4 Beta: We're On A Mission. Movable Type News. Six Apart. Retrieved on 2007-06-05, 2007.
- ^ "Original announcement", Six Apart, 3 September 2001.
- ^ "Announcement of first public release", Six Apart, 8 October 2001.
- ^ Movable Type: Personal Use
- ^ Movable Type pricing and licenses information
- ^ "Presenting Movable Type 4.0", Six Apart, 15 August 2007.
- ^ "Mena's Corner: It's About Time", Six Apart, 13 May 2004.
- ^ "Six Apart's Movable Type arguably puts blogs on the map.", Mike Heck, InfoWorld, PC World, March 28, 2005
- ^ The Movable Type Open Source Project
- ^ "Six Apart's Movable Type is widely recognized as the powerhouse of blogging tools", Movable Type 4.0 Beta review, Don Reisinger, PC World, July 19, 2007