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Mark Pilgrim covers the MT imbroglio pretty well - but draws the wrong conclusion, to my mind:

It's not about who has a right to make a living (everyone does); it's not about how nice Ben and Mena are (I've met them, they are very nice); and it's certainly not about eating. I've taken the $535 that Movable Type would have cost me, and I've donated it to the WordPress developers.

It's not about money; it's about freedom.

I don't think "freedom" is the operative issue here, exactly. This is a much older problem with respect to a product - appropriate price points. After reading the many, many takes on this (including comments to yesterday's post), I've come to the conclusion that Six Apart probably (it's early yet; I could be wrong) misunderstand the market they are in. Their pricing indicates that they want to play at the low end of the Enterprise market - but that doesn't seem to be who's using their product right now. The problem is, by putting out their product at a low (free) price, they made it very, very difficult to move up the price chain as rapidly as they are trying to.

I have a lot of sympathy for this problem - as a Product Manager, I am involved in discussions over the pricing of our product all the time - and believe you me, it's not simple. You have to pick a price that allows you to pay your ongoing costs, or you don't stay in business. You may have costs that are too high, or prices that are too high - or the reverse. Screw this up and you limit your ability to grow, or grow too quickly without bringing in sufficient revenue. It's not an easy balance, and I think Six Apart is only just walking into this particular buzzsaw.