> http://registrations.morphos-team.net:80/payment/1503

Interesting. Starting with #1485, the merchant changed from "Ralph Schmidt Software Entwicklung" to an email address containing the string "Mariak".
And trying out random numbers below 1500 reveals that there are many licenses which have not been paid for, thus not resulting in a keyfile issued.


Edit: changed the actual email address string to a non-spammable description as requested by the email address owner. Furthermore, the registration system has been altered so that now the merchant is not publicly viewable anymore and also the registration status for registration numbers can't be examined anymore.

[ Edited by Andreas_Wolf 08.07.2012 - 00:52 ]

Your statement "trying out random numbers below 1500 reveals that there are many licenses which have not been paid for, thus not resulting in a keyfile issued." is not correct.

Unless you have some other verification method, simply because the file you accessed, which showed several registrations which were not paid for, that does not mean that a keyfile was not issued for that registration number. The MorphOS Dev. Team has given several MorphOS keyfiles to people for free, such as certain developers, or other people like me, who have received one or two keyfiles for other reasons. I received a keyfile because I was showing MorphOS at the AmiWest Show. Another MorphOS keyfile was issued for free to the winner of the G4 eMac, which was a contest 1st prize for the winner of the Amiga Game Competition at the AmiWest Show two years ago.

I am sure that the MorphOS Dev. Team has donated many other free MorphOS keyfiles in the past, which may account for what you found with your searching (which no longer appears to work).

I guess there are probably some registration numbers which have been generated, which do not result in a MorphOS keyfile being issued to anyone, so that is skewing the numbers of actual MorphOS computers running MorphOS3.0 with registered keyfiles, but I don't believe that it is a high percentage.

Since no one on the MorphOS Dev. Team has come forward and stated that the actual number of registered keyfiles have been issued, or more interesting to most of us, how many unique MorphOS users there currently are, I guess we will not be able to determine either number, and it is just as big a mystery as how many OS4.x users and/or how many purchased OS4.x install CD's there are.

Oh well! Another disappointment due to lack of information. I know many MorphOS users who would rather this new information had not come to light and would prefer to think that the registration numbers for MorphOS users could actually mean something, instead of being mostly meaningless and inaccurate.

[ Edited by amigadave 07.07.2012 - 18:20 ]

Quote:

Unfortunately, a few people knew this already ( I suspected it as well) and never said anything. The good news is there are many morphos users who never post here and dont even have accounts!

@amigadave

Just for completeness and not because of caring much about the issue itself: at a couple of events MorphOS could be registered paying cash.

The funny thing is its a very tough thing to guestimate. Only the team knows. Would be nice if they could give a ballpark number. There are many users out there still with 1.4 probably as well. I remember when I was a peg dealer and trying to gauge global sales, later when i worked for Genesi you would be amazed how many more boards were sold/given away than I thought! Alot in France for sure, i forget the dealer.. and the usa dealer I gave my reseller biz too (since it was conflict of interest with genesi) sold quite a few units.

> Your statement "trying out random numbers below 1500 reveals that there are many
> licenses which have not been paid for, thus not resulting in a keyfile issued." is not correct.

I'm not so sure about that.

> simply because the file you accessed, which showed several registrations
> which were not paid for, that does not mean that a keyfile was not issued for
> that registration number. The MorphOS Dev. Team has given several MorphOS
> keyfiles to people for free, such as certain developers, or other people like me,
> who have received one or two keyfiles for other reasons.

Of course I'm aware of keyfiles given for free and also of keyfiles not paid via PayPal but in person at several events where MorphOS Team members were attending. What I'm not aware of however is that such keys are bound to registration numbers in the MorphOS registration system, which is directly linked to the PayPal system. So, can you say for sure that keyfiles received for free (such as the ones you got) get such numbers in the MorphOS registration system? If yes, this may be the case with keyfiles paid for in person as well, which in turn would show up as non-paid for in the PayPal system but represents a valid license issued.
Nonetheless, I'm quite sure there are registration numbers occupied by people who attempted to register and got their number in the email with the payment request, but then for whatever reason have not made the final step to perform the actual payment.

> I am sure that the MorphOS Dev. Team has donated many other free MorphOS
> keyfiles in the past, which may account for what you found with your searching

Even if keyfiles issued for free get their own registration number, this cannot account for *all* numbers shown as non-paid for in the registration system (see above).

> I guess there are probably some registration numbers which have been generated,
> which do not result in a MorphOS keyfile being issued to anyone, so that is skewing
> the numbers of actual MorphOS computers running MorphOS3.0 with registered keyfiles

Exactly.

> but I don't believe that it is a high percentage.

Yes, the portion of those is up to anyone's guess.

> no one on the MorphOS Dev. Team has come forward and stated
> that the actual number of registered keyfiles have been issued

True. In case the free keyfiles and the keyfiles paid for in person are indeed included in what we treat as the MorphOS license counter here, we just know for sure that the actual number of keyfiles issued must be lower than that.

> or [...] how many unique MorphOS users there currently are

As has been explained a number of times in this thread, even the MorphOS Team can't know this number.

> I guess we will not be able to determine either number

Agreed.

> many MorphOS users who would rather this new information had not come to light

This is not new information in any way. It has been clear since MorphOS 2.0 and also discussed in this thread that registration numbers can be generated without keyfile subsequently being issued, simply by not following through the payment.

> a few people knew this already ( I suspected it as well) and never said anything.

No need to suspect anything as it has been officially known and discussed right from the start. It's inherent to how the registration system works, i.e. (1) apply for a keyfile -> (2) get the number -> (3) don't make the payment -> (4) result: number occupied without keyfile being issued.

> The good news is there are many morphos users who never post here and dont even
> have accounts!

What has that to do with the amount of registration numbers? It doesn't matter one bit that there are people not posting their number here as long as any member with a later number posts here afterwards. You make it sound like the registration system would only assign numbers to keyfiles given to MorphZone members.

> Would be nice if they could give a ballpark number.

For the number of MorphOS 2+ keyfiles issued, the counter this thread is about is rather good as a ballpark number. Why do you think the actual number is so far off the counter number?

@Andreas_Wolf,
Quote:

Yes, I can confirm that the delivery of my free keyfile(s) did generate a registration number, just like the registration numbers that are generated through the automated process when buyers of MorphOS use the RegTool and pay through PayPal. I can't answer for MorphOS users who paid cash for their MorphOS registration in person to a MorphOS Dev. Team member, at some event.

Just like the fact that we will probably never know exactly how many unique MorphOS users there are, we might never know how many actual registrations have also generated a keyfile and resulted in a registered MorphOS computer. Although interesting to those of us who are curious about such statistics, it is not really critical information that we really need to know. As you, or other members here have stated, the MorphOS Dev. Team members probably don't even know these answers.

Just like the one or two people who claim that there probably haven't been more than 50 X1000's sold to date, I think that the same one or two people, or one or two different people, who think that there are only 100 to 250 MorphOS users, are delusional, or just making statements like that because they like stirring up angry responses from the more passionate members of the greater Amiga and MorphOS communities. There are always a few people who try to stir up trouble, or emotional responses, just for their own sick enjoyment (not that I am accusing anyone here of doing that).

All I know for sure is that most members here have stated that they believe that there were more MorphOS users and developers before the switch to a paid OS with the beginning of MorphOS2.0 and that their estimates were close to, or over 2,000 users and developers at the peak of MorphOS. So, I have no problem believing that there are now between 500 to 650+ MorphOS users and I have no idea how many OS4.x, AROS and remaining Classic Amiga users there are.

Everyone else is free to believe in what ever numbers of users of each Amiga related system. We should be happy that there are any of us left, and that there are any new users, or developers, after all this time and all of the setbacks this community has suffered through over the past 20+ years.

Your guesses are just as valid as the guesses of me, or anyone else.

Quote:

I agree with you. I think that the number of registrations reported in this thread is not too far off from the actual number of MorphOS registered computers with keyfiles.

[ Edited by amigadave 08.07.2012 - 20:33 ]

Dave

In consideration of your number of x1000s sold that is an easier number to guess than possible morph registrations. There are a couple of people who know the actual numbers of amigakit the sole distributor and can reasonable guess the number.

My thing is nobody talks of x1000 anymore? Why arent there pre configured systems available? how lame after all the "what is X" hype. You should thank your lucky stars you have one! You are lucky!


@ Andreas

I read about 5 sentences of your post and couldnt decipher wtf you were talking about.

> number of x1000s sold that is an easier number to guess than possible
> morph registrations.

I think the actual number of MorphOS registrations at any point in time is slightly lower than the most recent number reported in this thread at that same point in time. That's rather specific I'd say.
Regarding the number of X1000 machines sold, it's not easy to guess for me, let alone easier to guess than the number of MorphOS registrations.

> There are a couple of people who know the actual numbers of amigakit
> the sole distributor and can reasonable guess the number.

Why should people who "know the actual numbers of amigakit the sole distributor" need to "reasonable guess" anything?

> I read about 5 sentences of your post

That's nice to hear and more than I had hoped for. After all, my two postings directed at you consist of 7 sentences in total, which means you read the larger part of them :-)

> and couldnt decipher wtf you were talking about.

If you try one more time I'm sure you will finally be able to understand it. It's not that hard, really. But maybe it's just my poor English again and someone (like amigadave who apparantly understood what I wrote) can translate it for you?

> Yes, I can confirm that the delivery of my free keyfile(s) did
> generate a registration number

Thank you very much for this information. So I guess it's the same for keyfiles paid for in person at events directly with MorphOS Team members. This in turn means that of the amount of all the licenses which showed up as unpaid for in the registration system, a certain proportion are keyfiles issued to users, while the complementary proportion are just generated numbers without any keyfile issued.
And it's also true that we just don't know what the proportions are like.

> Just like the fact that we will probably never know exactly how many
> unique MorphOS users there are, we might never know how many actual
> registrations have also generated a keyfile and resulted in a
> registered MorphOS computer. [...] the MorphOS Dev. Team members
> probably don't even know these answers.

They can't know the first number, but they do know the second one for sure.

> I agree with you. I think that the number of registrations reported
> in this thread is not too far off from the actual number of MorphOS
> registered computers with keyfiles.

I wonder why some people seem to think that this is not the case. Maybe they know something we don't?

Here are my numbers so far:

20080712 310 Efika
20100604 837 MacMini G4
20120723 1541 Powerbook G4

amigadave,
Quote:

Handling is the same as for paying via paypal. People register at the meeting using the RegTool, they confirm first registration mail and when they get the payment mail, they pay at the event and the registration gets marked as payed. After a while the keyfiles comes by mail.

However this value says nothing about the number of licences, because you need to subtract beta and other keys made for free. Also keys get purged and reregistered. The number of users makes this value even lower, as many people own more than one registered MorphOS system., especially since the recent price drop.

Geit

>> I can't answer for MorphOS users who paid cash for their MorphOS
>> registration in person to a MorphOS Dev. Team member, at some event.

> Handling is the same as for paying via paypal.

Thanks for confirming what I've been suspecting.

> this value says nothing about the number of licences

I think it determines an upper limit for the current value, as the latter must be below the value that is discussed in this thread.

> because you need to subtract beta and other keys made for free.

Keyfiles issued for free (for whatever reason) are valid keyfiles nonetheless, so I don't think they should be subtracted when talking about the amount of existing licenses (i.e. existing licensed machines).

> Also keys get purged and reregistered.

By that, I guess you mean the process of "transferring" a keyfile from a broken machine to another machine, correct?
So we now know for sure that the value getting reported in this thread incorporates any of the following groups:

1. users paying via PayPal
2. users paying cash at events
3. users having their paid keyfile transferred from a broken machine to another machine for free
4. developers/betatesters receiving free keyfiles
5. people attempting to register but then for whatever reason not making the final step to perform the actual payment

> The number of users makes this value even lower

Errm, the number of users cannot in any way make the number of licenses any lower. What's true though is that the number of users is lower than the number of valid licenses, which in turn is again lower than the value getting reported in this thread (due to above-mentioned groups #3 and #5).

I have a ODW that I never registered MOS on, and I just registered my 17" Powerbook.

Number 1541! That is good news, we need the date of your email so the graph can be updated.

> Number 1541! [...] we need the date of your email so the graph
> can be updated.

I'm quite confident that in "20120723 1541 Powerbook G4", the first part is the date in ISO 8601 basic format.

Quote:

Exactly
Same rule apply for every key.

I sold the Efika to get the Mini, so there are from this point of view three activly used maschines and at least two users out there.

I really should read things more thoroughly before I post replies on forums. Maybe it was another post which did not include the date of the registration I was thinking of?

I don't care enough to look it up.

Thanks for your numbers. Both .png and .pdf versions have just been updated.

Thanks a lot Kosner for this new update.

Is it not possible to do a graph updated automaticaly ?

Every weeks or every months for exemple ?

[ Edité par Papiosaur 26.07.2012 - 13:43 ]

> Is it not possible to do a graph updated automaticaly ?

I don't think it is.

It is possible, just not probable

Someone should automatically give their new license number every week or every month. It... hmm... could be done, why not? And then someone should write a smart web-based script to process all the given data and make a nice graph out of it. I... hmm... can imagine that... I just fail to imagine anyone willing to do all that :)

>>> Is it not possible to do a graph updated automaticaly ?

>> I don't think it is.

> It is possible

I was referring to the present situation where whoever can be bothered to do so posts his registration number with date into this thread in whatever format he feels like posting. In this situation, automatic updating of the graph would require periodically parsing this thread and the postings within, which I think is not likely to work given the known problems of having natural language processed algorithmically.