Views of Freedom

The recent release of MT3.0 has provoked a whole lot of smart commentary around the net over the past few days: for example see Simon Phipps (here and here) and Alan Burlison. But the one that hit me hardest is Mark Pilgrim’s Freedom 0. This piece has been criticized (correctly) as disconnected from the way consumer software works (summary: users pay for features). And indeed, Mark doesn’t think about this the way a consumer would: how many of them run eleven sites? Instead, he thinks about this like a CIO does . “Freedom 0” is all about predictability and risk reduction; CIO territory, big-time. Mark carries the argument to extremes because that’s the kind of writer he is, but it’s an argument everyone in the software business should be thinking about.