Many of you, I'm sure, don't follow this kind of thing, but this here site runs on Movable Type, a piece of software that was free when I picked it up and has just started charging for its most recent bleeding-edge version -- which I have no need for, but upgraded to anyway, primarily because they were selling it and I was happy to give them money.

The only catch was that there were some limits, even on the paid license I bought, including a limitation to five weblogs. Now you wouldn't think that would be a particularly big deal, except that if you look around this place, you'll see that I actually have several, and I'm working on a couple more, potentially. So the limits were kind of a drag.

Furthermore, people were up in arms about them, because apparently, once you start giving your work away for free, you have to continue giving it away for free in unlimited quantities, or people get angry at you. Well, the folks at Six Apart (the company that makes MT) sent me an email last night to inform me that as an "early adopter" of the new version, I was getting an upgrade to their improved license, which has unlimited weblogs and unlimited authors (I don't have other authors, of course). Essentially, the version I have now would cost an extra thirty bucks if I bought it new, but because I had already bought the old one, they gave me a free bump to the new one.

It's a long way of saying that when you're a business, it makes a lot of sense to listen to the people who use your product, because if you're willing to do that, they're going to be a lot happier in the long run. Yay, Trotts!