I messed around with an unregistered (30 minute interval) installation of MorphOS. Have a Mac Mini G4 1.5Ghz that was just collecting dust essentially. I was intrigued with Amiga back in the day and thought it would be fun to try out this OS. (And yeah, I know this is basically Amiga-ish)

I decided to go ahead and take the 79 EUR plunge - sure, would like a lower price,but developers gotta eat! And not really all that much cost - when on holiday can easily spend that much for one night at even a modest hotel.

For bringing an old computer back to life and having some geeky fun with it ... a bargain!

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I dont really care what it looks like. LMAO.

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Exactly. I've already had fun with my Mac mini for over 6 years with just one payment. Compare that to one night at a hotel or anything else you pay elsewhere...

@Cego

https://github.com/mmuman/qemu/tree/sam460ex-WIP-rebasing

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Of course every consumer would want a price (of any product) as close to 0 (zero) as possible, that's a given. No need to discuss that. And honestly, these license fees aren't *feeding* (like: put food on the table) any developers of the OS. But they want *something*, and this is what they ask. If you want what they offer, put the money on the counter, it's as simple as that.

I live in a country where most things are expensive (mostly due to high taxes). To add to your price comparison, I spent more than 79 EUR the last time I filled the tank of one of my two cars.

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What if you live in a country whre prices are low and wages, too? 79 EUR in sweden is on average earned with much lesser hours of work than 79 EUR with average work in other countries. E.g. what if you are unemployed in Greece? The advice (not by you) "get a 2nd job" is a bit snobish I'd say. The thing is: It's more or less only for ppl in rich countries and with a job. No prob with that and IMHO no urgend need to change that (the world is not fair). But at least one should stay honest. For most ppl (worldwide) it is expensive. As you rightly said: it's a market offer. Get it or leave it. I took the offer three times alredy.

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I gave up work to take care of my wife as she is severely disabled so I have far less income than most. It didn't take me long to save up the <100 Pounds licence fee. It's not like people can't even use MorphOS for free, rebooting every half an hour is a small price to pay that everyone can afford.

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I think most people are very understanding of the situation in poorer regions of the world. That said, the licensing cost is most frequently criticized on MorphZone by people who happen to live in the richest countries of the world. It is a rather interesting phenomenon...

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Transparency is fine. That said, the license fee is only part of the story. I think it is worth pointing out again that, by investing a substantial amount of time to port MorphOS to numerous PowerPC-based Macs, the financial barrier of entry for becoming a MorphOS user has already been lowered substantially compared to, say, the Pegasos days or newer non-Apple alternatives.

Plus, as intuition wrote, you can use the OS entirely for free if you do not mind rebooting occasionally. If money is a severe obstacle, that is a nice option to have for casual users.

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First world problems. So important! Lol

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I find this remark pretty odd. It's not a human right to be able to spend money on a hobby. I would not tell a poor person in Greece to suck it up, get a second job and get that MorphOS licence. I would tell him/her to get Linux.

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I don't see the oddity in my comment. I said it's more or less for ppl of the rich countries and that the world is not fair. Actually I am pretty happy to be on the lucky side. But I understand if others complain about the price, the own POV may differ from others POV.
Of course I don't understand if ppl complain about the price while bathing in a tub filled with Veuve Clicquot (or something like that)....
And as said: I took the offer three times already - I am not complaining for myself.

@Zylesea

I do get what you mean there, but I still think it's odd that _this_ particular hobby should be accessable to everyone and not, let's say, collecting stamps. OK, I guess you mean that while we think 79 euro is not so bad but it's pretty bad for a poor person. Which is true. But it's funny that this line of thought often comes up mostly when we talk about software. Like it's a bad thing to want to get some money out of your coding. Some people who claim house builders should have a fair wage are quick to say that everything should be free and open source. Like programmers aren't good people for wanting a pay check. Why is that exactly?

I'm going OT here but I find this topic interesting.

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If someone is unemployed, the last thing they need to be buying is an operating system. Maybe their goal should be finding a job, putting food on the table, paying bills and maybe later registering MorphOS. So, people that cant afford it have it for FREE, its called rebooting. I dont want to take food off the tables of MorphOS developers so I registered MorphOS. I can only imagine the Devs right now..trying to find a slice of bread to eat, crumbs falling on the keyboard, then them suctioning it up and eating the crumbs. Just imagine what a few pennies a day can do for a MorphOS Dev...puts a smile on their face, 2 slices of bread next to their C programming book and then they continue writing MorphOS NG, the ass kicking OS that fucks them all.

111,11 euros for an ibook G4 800 MHz bought 100 euros is expensive...

I would like to offer this licence to a friend want to try to develop on MorphOS but i can't buy it this price :(

all MorphOS licences to 79 euros will be better

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Exactly. I paid 111,- for my Efika, 150,- for my mini and 111,- for my Powerbook and don't feel to be ripped off for it (albeit I am not wealthy in a western perspective). The price was okay for me. But for others these sums are quite some money amd may be a deal breaker. And look to the registration numbers, they _are_ low. If it's due to the price or just to the fact that the majority doesn't see the beauty of MorphOS (ignorants!) is not that simple to decide.
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I guess this is due to the fact that software is virtually free of cost to _reproduce_ and hence many ppl don't see the real worth of it and - even worse.- don't see themassive work behind it. It's a difficult story. I am not advocating to make all things free, but I like to broaden the view and try to take perspectives of other people's view to get a bigger picture, to understand _and_ eventually learn from it.
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Like said I am not for free beer for all but the brewers... It's a market thing: If the brewers don't get paid the free beer will soon be all drunk and the only thing that will follow is an ugly headache. But no more "party on!".

I never said to make MorphOS free. But it may also be true that the current market model is not the best of all possible ones. Which I honestly don't know.
I once studied a bit of economics (I am a biologist and thought of doing some additional thing, was kind of "funny", but dropped it after two terms for various reasons (one was that lectures started at 07:30 in the morning!)), but the first lesson that was taught (with a great overhead and waaay too theoretic) is the pure fact that if you offer a product you'll need to find the price optimum that maxes out the total profit which is somewhere between max profit per item and max items sold. As economics is no real science (at least IMHO) there's no valid and general model to determine this ideal price. It's rather trial and error and a thing every vegetable seller on a saturdays marked implicitly knows (you don't need to study economics for that simple fact).

@Zylesea

I didn't mean that you hold these views (I understand that you don't). I was thinking in general terms. Pretty often you read here and elsewhere that "software X should be free (and open sourced)!" and suggest that programmers who wants to be paid for their work are greedy bastards. But you never read on a car forum that "car X should be built for free because wanting money for your car is greed!".

Yet another funny thing is that you almost never ever heard this suggested up until the mid 90's. Never. No one thought it was odd that a word processor cost 300$. Or even 1500$. People just said "oh, that is too expensive" and just didn't buy it or or used a pirated copy.

And even yet another funny thing is that when the "code should be open sourced" sort of mentality got stuck people argued mostly from a general standpoint ("with open source we can democratize computing") or even economical ("with open source you can get feedback on bugs and help to fix them") but now it's mostly an almost fanatical tone when it comes up. "Open source is the only correct moral viewpoint" or something like that. It's like the ugly side of the "Social Justice Warrior" mentality is creeping into the computer world too.

From a historical point of view I find this development fashinating. And troublesome.

[ Edited by Yasu 03.03.2016 - 13:54 ]

Was wondering about this and found this thread. IMO MorphOS it is way over price. These programmers have done a great job and I understand that they have to eat but they are programmers not business people. Their price model is way off, so I don't think they are eating much. All version should be in the same price.

MorphOS 3.9
USD $126 (€ 111) PowerBook G4 system, iBook G4 or Power Mac G5
USD $90 (€ 79) eMac, Mac mini G4, Pegasos I, Pegasos II or PowerMac G4
USD $56 (€ 49) EfikaPPC or Sam460

AmigaOS 4.1 Final Ed.
USD $34 (€ 30)

Reason? I have seen used G4 PowerBook on Craig's List for USD $50. Now lets exaggerate and say it's $100. How does this justify the USD $126 for the OS?

IMO this OS should not cost more the USD $56 (€ 49) which I still consider high but would put out but $ USD $34 is even more attractive and seems so much better priced. I can get a PPC version of Linux for free, not sure how fast it will work but it's available or use OS X Leopard at the most.

The programmers should consider this OS more as a religion and not business (M$ Windows). Their is an Amiga following..., still after all these years. They also should consider expanding to another platform like ARM (eg: Raspberry Pi). New PPC hardware doesn't seem to be readily available for a few years now... 2012?

This is just my 2 cent.

-Live on Amiga! :)

[ Edited by FerociousAmiga 06.06.2016 - 11:28 ]

> All version should be in the same price.

I think it's only fair that MorphOS for systems with limited use (e.g. Efika 5200B) is available for a lower price.

> I have seen used G4 PowerBook on Craig's List for USD $50. Now lets exaggerate
> and say it's $100. How does this justify the USD $126 for the OS?

I have seen used MorphOS-compatible systems go for free. How does this justify paying any money for the OS?

Detailed answer to this by ASiegel:
http://morph.zone/modules/newbb_plus/viewtopic.php?topic_id=11659&forum=3&start=21

> I can get a PPC version of Linux for free [...] or use OS X Leopard at the most.

OSX for PPC has not seen an update in almost 7 years. And comparing with Linux, even Windows and OSX are exorbitantly overpriced.

> They also should consider expanding to another platform like ARM (eg: Raspberry Pi).

The announced long-range objective is to port MorphOS to x86-64 / x64 / AMD64 / Intel 64.

> New PPC hardware doesn't seem to be readily available for a few years now... 2012?

In terms of mobile/desktop/workstation PPC hardware, there're at least 4 projects in the works (in descending order by degree of completion):

1. AmigaOne X5000 (Cyrus Plus) by A-Eon (to be supported by next MorphOS release)
2. AmigaOne A1222 (Tabor) by A-Eon
3. Talos Secure Workstation (and mainboard) by Raptor
4. GNU/Linux PowerPC notebook

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By this "logic" the team should charge 1000€ for the X5000 version ;)

Or maybe you should be happy that you can now buy a powerfull Amiga-Laptop for just $226......

@ FerociousAmiga

A cheaper MorphOS would of course be nicer but as you throw in the 30 EUR for OS4.1 FE, I cann tell that MorphOS is very much worth four times the price. Even more as I got free updates for almost 8 years now which is not the case for OS4.1 (quite the contrary). Even more as you have to pay around 80 EUR for an additional "AmigaOS Enhancer" pack with updated drivers and yet another Multiview(er) and about two new ReAction classes. Earlier we called that "BoingBag" which was for free. Nowadays we call that update. An update with that effort is either for free as it has been for many updates since MorphOS 2.0 (pick any of the release notes here: http://morphos.de/releasenotes/3.9 by clicking any of the version buttons) or it costs 70 EUR as for OS4.1 "Final Edition". Your choice.

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Not sure why you think that AmiStore (and apparently A-Eon paying programmers for their work), is a bad thing for the AmigaOS4.x users. If the AmigaOS4.x community does not have enough talented programmers, who are willing to donate their spare time writing code for free, then the only logical solution is for the community to pay programmers who are willing to do the work needed for a price.

It is unusual, and lucky for us, that the MorphOS Dev. Team does as much as they do without compensation, and that they are as talented and prolific at completing code, as they have been these last 10+ years. If I understand the license model correctly, the money goes to either Ralph Schmidt or to maintain the official MorphOS website, or both, and none of it goes to the Dev. Team members. (I'm sure someone will correct me on this)

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If you take a look bit further at the past, the price was the same for all (first 150e, then 111e), so I think this has been a fair move to reduce the price at least for the older hardware.

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Take a look in the past with this too. It hasn't been long in that price. It was much higher (over 100e IIRC), and users who bougth it then, had to pay AGAIN for that 30e to keep the system up to date. And even after that, you still have to pay extra for new drivers and other system components.

It isn't that black and white like you see with just a quick look at the latest major release.

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This has been answered several times already in this thread, but I'll add that how could the team be changing the pricing all the time when some used computers market prices changes somewhere in the world? It isn't too long since Powerbooks were over 200e as used here, and there still is great variation in the prices. Some lucky find can be cheap, but it doesn't mean they're all cheap everywhere in the world. And as said, why the heck should software price be tightly tied to it anyway? Can you see anything like that in any platform that used prices would affect to the retail products? Users should be happy if the total price comes down if one part of the price reduces... can't understand this way of thinking.

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Of course cheaper would always be better for user point of view, but those two OS examples aren't good to compare. It's useless to compare to totally free systems like Linux. If you want to compare to something, show an example of currently sold and updated marginal system. Or some other software bundle which is sold and updated.

> If I understand the license model correctly, the money goes to either
> Ralph Schmidt or to maintain the official MorphOS website, or both

...and to purchase hardware to complete MorphOS support for. Apple has made subtle and undocumented revisions of their boards where they switched to a slightly different chip or chip revision for a certain functionality, which usually requires driver adaptation. So completely supporting one specific model of PPC Mac may require purchasing a good number of machines.

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Actually, it's not really free. The kernel is nowadays 75% coded by paid programmers at huge corporations who need a good kernel for their server and server service needs. Ubuntu makes their money out of server services, and a lot of popular distros are made out of that codebase, by paid developers. Sure, there are several community based non profit distros too but they still benefit from this paid work.

If Linux was, just like MorphOS, coded by free time programmers for nothing or peanuts it would be in a lot worse state today. It's because it found a market that corporations are prepared to invest millions in it despite the code being open source. Just because the end user can get it for free doesn't mean there is no profit motive nor developers with generous paychecks involved.

People should stop forgetting this. Especially those who nags about the price of MorphOS. Nothing is free. It's paid either in money or in less free time, or a combination of both.

[ Edited by Yasu 07.06.2016 - 13:15 ]

> The kernel is nowadays 75% coded by paid programmers at huge corporations

It's even more than 80% contributed by paid programmers, according to the latest report from 1½ years ago:

http://www.linuxfoundation.org/news-media/announcements/2015/02/linux-foundation-releases-linux-development-report

> who need a good kernel for their server and server service needs.

...or their non-server needs (Linaro, Samsung, Texas Instruments, Vision Engraving Systems, Renesas etc.) :-)

> Ubuntu [...], and a lot of popular distros are made out of that codebase,
> by paid developers.

Are you sure that the official Ubuntu-based distributions are done by paid people? I only found that Kubuntu is contributed to also by corporate programmers, but not for the other distros.