As the saying goes, there's no such thing as a free ride. Well, as dive into mark explains, Movable Type announced a new licensing scheme this week for MT 3.0 which will charge for multiple author sites or a single user with more than 3 sites:

And yesterday I learned, as most of you have probably also learned, that Movable Type 3.0 comes with a new licensing plan. 1 author and 3 sites is free. Up to 3 authors and 5 sites: $100. Up to 6 authors and 8 sites: $150. Up to 9 authors and 10 sites: $190.

I have 11 Movable Type sites. To upgrade to Movable Type 3.0 would cost me $700.

I remember when Blackboard was offering free sites to individual teachers. That is, until they also reached a dominant market share where they no longer needed to provide a free version. So MT users beware. Who's to say that 4.0 will have any free versions at all?

Best just to stick to GNU GPL'd software ;)