@ amigadave

Nice post, thanks.

Quote:

I had no idea that Morphos had a hardware lock model. I was just shopping around for a G4 to run Morphos on and even planned on paying that huge price to buy Morphos, but after finding out it has to be locked to specific hardware, I am totally disgusted. Now I think I'll skip the whole thing. (thanks Acill for your post)

---

What is wrong with you Morphos developers? You don't increase a user base by treating what little users there are like criminals - even after they are willing to pay obscene prices to get the OS! Don't you understand? People want to switch OS to get away from the crap they're getting from Microsoft and Apple!

I understand that whole piracy thing, but don't you think the people willing to pay those prices for an obscure home-made OS are the type of people who are already honest and appreciate the work that went into it? As for the price - it's basic economics. Lower the price to increase the number of customers.

Maybe you don't care that you lost me as a customer. Consider that there are probably thousands of others who are equally disgusted.

@ME,

Unfortunately all it takes is ONE bad apple to leak the keyfile to a torrent site and it is all over within hours. I trust you (until you give me a reason not to trust you), but that doesn't work for this situation or the team would not have put into place the system they are using. I am sure that it was not decided randomly, or without being discussed and debated in great detail before MorphOS2.0 was released.

I get the frustration and really wish I were smart enough to suggest a different solution to the MorphOS Development Team. It saddens me to read about even one potential new user, or any amount of former users that no longer wish to pursue using MorphOS because of the license key being tied to the hardware.

So here is the best I can come up with at this point in time, starting today, I am going to form a group that will offer to buy back MorphOS license keys for the price of a current replacement license fee at the time of your request to obtain a new one for another supported MorphOS computer. This is not for people that just want to get away from MorphOS, it is only for people who are ready to order a new keyfile on a new MorphOS capable computer that they can run the registration tool on that will generate the email to complete the purchase of the new keyfile. A copy of that email would need to be sent to the group and then payment would be sent by the group to pay for it to the MorphOS Development Team to complete the registration process for you.

The catch is that you must also give up and send the hardware, your MorphOS computer the license is tied to in advance and the group will do it's best to sell it for you and return the money they get from selling it with the MorphOS license to you, minus the license fee that the group spent on your replacement license key, and also minus a $25 fee for the group's time to put up ads and cover auction fees, if any are used to sell your MorphOS computer and license key.

So, you want to transfer your MorphOS license key to a different computer, fine. Let me try to explain this clearer than I just did above. Send your current MorphOS computer and license key that belongs to it, to the group. As soon as it arrives and is confirmed to be working and has a valid license key for it, the group sends the MorphOS Development Team the money to pay for your new MorphOS license key. If your MorphOS computer is damaged in transit it is your responsibility to pay for shipping insurance and get the refund from the shipping company that did the damage. Then you can send the damaged computer to the MorphOS Development Team (contact them for exact details) to obtain your replacement MorphOS keyfile for another MorphOS capable computer, as the team has explained on these forums in the past (but please don't start trashing your MorphOS computers with hammers, or a blow torch just to get a replacement keyfile).

After the group gets your computer, confirms it works and confirms the keyfile is valid, it sells your computer plus the MorphOS license key that goes with it and sends you the difference between the amount of money made on the sale, minus the money they have already used to buy you a new license key for a different computer, and minus an additional $25 for the groups time and effort, what ever that might be, that they have expended to sell your system to a new MorphOS user or a returning MorphOS1.4 user.

You get the money to purchase a new MorphOS license key right away and you also don't have to expend any effort trying to find a new buyer for your old MorphOS system and the license attached to it.

This offer can of course only be made to a limited amount of people at any one time, depending on how much funding for this effort can be raised, but this idea has just popped into my head, so I am sure I may have some other ideas come to me, or may be suggested to me by others who will hopefully join me in this effort to solve one of the major complaints that are keeping a few people from becoming, or continuing to be MorphOS users.

You relinquish all rights to your old computer with the license key for it and you have no control on how much money it can be sold for. If you want that kind of control, sell it yourself and buy a new license key with the money you get back. You also have no control on how fast it sells, but the group will do it's best to get a good selling price for your old computer & license key, as the whole purpose of this group is to solve a perceived problem, not create a new one.

Now, who wants to help with this group? I'll do it by myself if I have to, but I am on a limited income, which will greatly limit the number of users that I can help each month with this offer.

Hopefully this will be a win-win solution for the few users that are unhappy with the current licensing model, though I know that it is not what they want to happen and is far from an ideal solution for anyone, including me, or the group that will be helping to fund this idea.

Happy New Year!

P.S. MorphOS Development Team, I leave it up to you to find a better solution to the license key tied to hardware complaint and also to any solution to the few complaints regarding the pricing of MorphOS. I of course realize that neither of these complaints may appear to be a problem that you feel the team needs to solve, or indeed to do anything at all about. I am just trying to do my small part to help support an OS that I see value in supporting and hope will continue to evolve and grow (contrary to what some may say about it shrinking and on it way toward dying already).

Sorry this is a continuation of an "Off Topic" comments and remarks.

[ Edited by amigadave on 2009/12/28 22:28 ]

I am willing to help, I can't donate much money every time, but perhaps $20-30 every few times we get someone interested. Once I land this job, I may be able to contribute a bit each time.

My suggestion to solve the license issue:
Offer two kinds of licenses
a) a MAC bound license just like it is now, but for 99 EUR.
b) a usb dongle bound key for (max) 199 EUR incl, the usb dongle.

I know at least Laire doesn't like (usb) dongles (need to check wether the dongle is present from time to time, best would be a check in random intervals and notification by Poseidon when removed), but this way could cater most ppl.
Those who accept the current model get a discount, those who want to operate diffrent maschines get that opportunity.
Would require a bit more organization and of course some rework of the key checking routine. But I guess that way would be a viable one.

At work we bought a single licence for Adobe Photoshop CS4, and we installed it on one machine. The licence code was verified online. After some time we decided to install the program on a better machine - all we had to do was 'deactivate' Photoshop on the PC it was originally installed on, and then we could install it on another machine.

Cant MOS Team implement a similar feature?

Quote:
My personal preference would be to keep the existing single-price structure, but allow the license to be tied to the hardware MAC of a USB>ethernet adapter (eg PegasusII-chipset-based (as supported by Poseidon)).
It's a cheaper approach than a custom ethernet dongle, and I assume (without any knowledge) that this would require minimal re-writing of the current licensing software, except to allow checking the keyfile against the MAC of a different device.

However, to maintain any revenue stream, MorphOS would simply have to have a sustainable increase the registered userbase and/or introduce more frequent "chargeable" upgrades. For example MOS 2.3>2.4 (introducing Mac-mini support) in this theoretical model would have been a chargeable update.

I think it's a reasonable compromise between single-machine license and transferable license, whilst maintaining only 1 machine in use per license sold.

It's a fine balance guys, and I would expect criticism either way. I don't envy you.

However, in the longer term I would expect that greater revenue will be generated from more-user-friendly licensing arrangements than will be lost from not selling multiple licenses to the same customer.


[ Edited by boot_wb on 2009/12/29 19:26 ]

Yeah, I also ask myself, if it is not possible to resolve the problem by adding some features to the register tool.
That would be the possibility to delete a key from an installed system and giving feedback online to the licence database (must be one or?). Of course, the key is deleted beyond recoverability.
Now, in the database exits the information that user x has safely deleted the key from his hardware with MAC adress y. The user can now sell his hardware and the purchaser can use (if not installing OS4) MorphOS only in demo mode.
User x can now install MorphOS demo version to his new hardware. Running the registering tool, the new MAC adress can be connected to his name in the licence database and a new licence key is generated. In this scheme, everything would run more or less automatically and releaving extra work for the developers, except for updating the registering tool.
Only problem could be backups of the key of user x. But this would be useless, when updating MorphOS and the installer also would have the ability to check online for a valid registered key. So there would be only "sniffing" when updating.

Well, just an idea...

I think there should be some discount for additional licences, ie 150 for the first and additional 100 for each new one.

@ vulture

And how to verify you're getting it for yourself and not someone else ?

A lot of time I don't post.
From ann.lu times, water falls under briges and I stopped supporting at all MOS from 2.0 roumors about licensing model & prices.

Someone compared MorphOS to MacOS X ... it's a shame, like comparing AOS4 to Microsoft Windows 7: not only OSX is another planet OS compared to MOS, but support & Company behind is so big that a comparison with 3 amateur programmers is pathetic.

MorphOS 2.0 had to be much cheaper: 50$ is & was the highest possible price from an amateur, spare time job.

Thank to the price and MOS license rules ... I know minimum 4-5 ppl in Italy that didn't buy 2.0 release: ppl that supported actively MOS team in Italy since 2005.

It's a shame.

PS
My eng is always the same :D

Oh please...

I do remember that in the past many of us were whining: "Please make MorphOS 1.5 public, we will gladly pay!". Now, when it comes to shut up and do what we promised to do, instead the whining starts again: "Oh my, it's so extremely pricey, make a discount, change that outrageous licensing scheme, or else!"

And now, when the team gives you a present, allowing to run MorphOS on a cheap and easily available hardware instead of "another overpriced and underpowered board" some still can't be satisfied.

And you know what? I know minimum 4-5 ppl in Poland that did buy 2.x release (there are in fact many more, something about 40 perhaps). Those who didn't at least aren't posting crap on forums trying to figure out another lame excuse for not buying it or taking their chance to offend the developers that they used to "actively support since 2005".

@Jacad Most OS vendors offer some sort of 'family discount'-such as the five seat license OS X bundle that Apple sells. Why couldn't the hardware tied key scheme be retained, but you have to buy all five keys at once? Or at least you have to pay for them all at once, then you have five keys in your name to reg the next five MorphOS boxes you set up, be they boxes for the kids, wife, or maybe a couple you haven't gotten yet.

That way, I could just cough up (say) $500 and all my MOS licensing needs would be taken care of-the next five MOS boxes I install with my name get their own hardware encrypted key, just like now. In fact, you'd be getting money from people BEFORE they even install the OS on some of the machines-pay now, play later I've got several broken Pegs, plus several not broken G4 towers I'd like to register. Doing over $200 US for each one-fugeddaboutit. I'm not made of money. $500 for the next five-I could even get that by my wife, sort of

I can't imagine that a feature couldn't be added to the keyfile registration system that you currently have, which keeps track of each user and how many files they have left.

So you get money in advance, less bitterness about the locked key scheme, ease of use for users, and probably.. more users!!

Win-win, no?

> comparison with 3 amateur programmers is pathetic.

"About MorphOS" in 2.4 lists 19 actual developers.

@eva

And while it's done on spare time, labelling it as "amateur" is offending too.

19 developers is admirable, but compared to a commercial OS is a drop in the bucket. However this isn't quite the weakness it could be made out to be, because those 19 are way more on the same page than the vast and disparate groups or 'teams' that big developers like Microsoft have for their OS development.

MorphOS is pretty professional for its small scale, and its interface is actually more consistent than Linux-one of the biggest criticisms leveled at Linux. It's a valid one too-ever tried to learn several softwares of similar type on a Linux distro? Every developer has their own bright ideas about how it should work-and they're all different from everyone else's. MorphOS, like Amiga before it, has the advantage of consistency provided by being closed-source.

This is one big reason they can sell it as an OS you pay for. But back on topic, my scheme is good because a) All boxes are keyed by the MOS team individually, just like now. No MOS can run registered without the real, purchased key. b) No key leaves the MOS server without being paid for in advance-possibly well in advance. Finally, c) it becomes an actual practicality to have several MorphOS boxes in one house, all running the latest version so outside devs don't have to keep back-porting everything to 1.4x so most users can run it.

Because right now, I'd have to spend a thousand dollars to get all my boxes running MOS. That's a lot of money, guys. Most of your target market doesn't have that kind of money $500 is way more do-able. Some of quite a lot is better than all of almost none. You'd end up with no piracy and lots more users/money doing it my way. Just sayin'..

You can still get as crazy as you want with MUI though

@ koszer

Yes of course we like to pay for that great OS, there has never been any doubt.
But after some time it must be allowed to scrutinize scheme and prices introduced when commercialising MorphOS and see if it worked well or if there is room for improvement.

It has come out, that the licencing scheme and the price is highly discussed not only in this forum. Furthermore, we see a lot of potential not activated because of the points named regarding the MorphOS policy.

I don?t have the impression it?s all about whining, it?s abou ppl caring about their beloved system and its propagation. So a discussion is needed and the fora are the place to do it.

I think it is a good thing as a feedback for the developers to improve things. Not negative at all.

Quote:

That's certainly how my comments are intended.

The OS is worth the price to me for a single license, but the current licensing model will undoubtedly need an overhaul at some point.
If things ever did go wrong for the MorphOS team (and I sincerely hope they do not), such that the license server was no longer available, I'd like to know that I could replace my dead Mac-mini and still be able to run the operating system I had paid E150 for.

@ eva:

Why should it be a shame?! What?
You cannot be agree with price or whatelse, but where do you find that shame!?
I guess everyone want to work for a wage...
I hope those "amateurs" could keep on working professionally and seriously as they are doing and shouldn't surrender and stop developing.
The reason to buy or not an OS is personal and maybe I'm wrong but the team work deserve respect at least.
I know minimum two persons (absolutely windows users) that like MorphOS so much. And both would buy it indipendently from price.
Not so much, but.....

People are not used to pay for the operation system.

If they want a new windows - they get it from the torrent site or it's already with their computer.

If they want linux - it's free.

If they want osx - it's with the mac they bought.

Actually, Mac OS X charges for each upgrade-about a hundred bucks every year and a half or so. Yes, you get a copy with a new Mac or recent used one, but it's off to Craigslist for those of us with older Macs. 10.4 is kinda the place to stop with a G4 anyway-10.5 is pretty hardware intensive and 10.6 doesn't support PPC at all. I've got real Apple factory DVDs of every Mac OS from 10.0 to 10.4 but until I do a hackintosh, I'm not going any farther.

FWIW, I can pick up G4 towers here for less than a hundred bucks all day long, Quicksilvers are cheap and plentiful.

To use my example again, four hundred US dollars for two OS copies on two boxes is painful. Five hundred bucks for five of them is much more doable, at that point I could give boxes to my friends to propagate. Keys already paid for, problem solved, savvy?

I agree and I really enjoy reading this thread tbh.

I think MorphOS will do great if it keeps finding hardware to use.

wouldnt it help if we all had a new SoC based board that were exactly the same as eachother? even like the new EFIKA ARM or something.

Regards.

@Eva

Well yeah, pathetic or not, if you're not willing to spend small amount of money to support your hobby, then I guess you need new, cheaper hobbies.

I don't find it a shame in any way.

PS. I don't consider myself amateur programmer even though I don't program for a living.

[ Edited by Piru on 2009/12/31 3:59 ]

@Eva

I totally disagree.
First of all the ppl who are behind MorphOS aren't some kind of rookies. Writing an operating system is not something that can be done by anyone.
I think you are being too harsh.
Comparing MorphOS to any other mainstream OS is also pointless. We know that it lacks certain features. Nevertheless, in time it'll change.
If you cannot support MorphOS team with your money then do something else, like writing some useful apps or organizing a party etc.
But please stop writing that it's overpriced and whining that it could be better 'cause it's not helping anyone and can do a lot of damage instead!

@jacadaps

The point is, it makes more sense to give your customer a discount for more than 1 licenses (maybe a pack of 3 or 5 if not 2) than treating him as a possible cheater. We are a small community after all and the cheaters among us are (I'd like to believe) few if any at all. And the hardware lock would remain of course to keep it tied to specific machines. That said, there should be some clear plan of what happens with the key if a peg mobbo drops dead. There should be a cleanly defined way to transfer it to another machine. Of course, there might already be one I'm unaware of, but I haven't read anything definite about it in the forum so far.


[ Edited by vulture on 2009/12/31 11:34 ]