Hi all,
it's time to seriously face this iussue. Genesi finally publically admitted that they have no money to pay MorphOS developers and now everyone can understand why MOS development has always been not 'really fast'. We have 1.5 example in front of our eyes: after a long, interminable, frustrateing year of waiting and waiting it seems to be still not "out the door".. and this has been admitted also buy developers.

This is comprehensible, we all understand it. If you're not payed for something it's obvious that you can not dedicate all your time to this job. MorphOS development has always been only fruit of the passion, volounty and genius of our great developers. We should thank them all again and I really think it's now time to seriously do something concrete for them.
In these days we have spoken a lot about this, so let's try to actually arrange something that could help: Genesi has no money to pay them? Ok, it's sad, but it's also stupid and useless to continue to cry about it. Let's we all paLET'S WE ALL PAY FOR THEM!! I will be 100% happy to pay for MorphOS updates and to see it finally developed in a serious and continuous way. I'm also sure that the other people out here thing the same.
I know, also a 50Eur tax for a MOS1.5 copy will not change the life of these developers, but surelly it could be a point to start from! Why we have to continue on Genesi politics like "everything or nothing"!? Someone spoke about a 1000 users base, so 50Eur * 1000 = 50.000Eur. This is not a terrific number, but it would be surelly an incentive. A way to tell these developers: "we appreciate your work and we want you to continue in this".
Moreover it's silly to say "the user base is too little to concretely pay for them": user base will never increase if also MOS don't become an attractive product. Everything is consequential.

So, let's try to actually arrange something and most of all: soon!! We could start creating a poll to check how many people would pay for it and how much (20-30-40-50-more Eur?) everyone would be ready to pay. Targhan now it's your turn, it's poll time!

In the mean time why don't MorphOS core developers tell us what they think about this?

[ Edited by Miky060 on 2004/7/23 15:08 ]

[ Edited by Miky060 on 2004/7/23 15:09 ]

[ Edited by Miky060 on 2004/7/23 15:16 ]

IMHO it is really o.k. to pay for MOS 1.5, and more important, for further developement. There ist no platform, which gives away free OS updates for all times. There are companies, who sell beta-versions for a lot of money (not only H*perion, remember Windows before 3.1 and the first Win95, MacOS 7.5, MacOS X 10.0...›).

I don't mind paying for development if...

1) It really does speed up development
2) There is more information released about a roadmap and features of new releases, and regular status reports.

I'd also pay some sort of "subscription" where I get access to regular updates and information, perhaps behind a special website. That subscription could be paid monthly, for example, giving Genesi a predictable flow of money coming in.

HammerD

If not a payment or subscription, even donations would be better than nothing or bountys like with AROS.

Sure, if paying for MorphOS guaranteed development.

For what it's worth this would require a significant change of heart my MOS guys - the reason MOS is not sold today is because of the implications of support. [edit - that's not meant to belittle the excelent support received in the #morphos IRC channel]

Today you get MorphOS free with your Pegasos and no guarantees of support, even if you use the hardware specified in the compatability list.

If I has to put a $ value on it, it's worth up to $50 to me (USD)...but that's meaningless kind of

Steve

[ Edited by JKD on 2004/7/23 8:16 ]

Hey MOS team ,sell the classic 0.9 version incl. JIT for a couple of EURs w/o support. It would give a taste of MOS for some more ppl. Bad thing of that story: Some recent MOS apps wouldn't work on classic 0.9.
But I thinkt it's worth to consider it. You will not become rich out of it (definitely not!), but some money might be risen.
But again: it would be very neccessary to emphasize that it would be w/o support and not suited for recent MOS apps.

Personally I wouldn't have a problem with MorphOS 1.5 being delayed further.

But in that case, we would need something like "MorphOS 1.45" with updates to most critical parts (Working overlay on more GFX cards, Radeon 3D drivers...)

Personally I don't mind paying for an OS upgrade, but 100 x 50e = nothing.

@Jupp3

I do agree with you, altho if we go on with the "let's pay MOS team", we could have access to those updates thru some special paid access.



@All

Just out of my mind:

- Major Updates 1.X -> 30 USD
- Minor Updates 1.X.X -> 10 USD
- Trimestrial Access* -> 25 USD (includes any updates within that period)
- Annual Access* -> 80 USD (includes any updates within that period)

* = Access: Any means (FTP, HTTP, special update client, etc) that would allow a paying members to access beta & critical updates.

Ok, those won't make any rich MOS developers, but IMHO (let's say for a Major Update), if you charge 50 USD, you'll get almost as much people as for 30 USD, but going from free to 50 USD in a shot, is a bit too much. 30 USD is a good price for the actual state of MOS (at least, the one normal users actually know), and only talking about MOS releases for Pegasos.

NEVERTHELESS, I'd prefer (and hope) MOS to always be free. Alternative solutions can surely be found to finance development.


*** IMPORTANT NOTE ***
Don't forget we don't all live in Europe or USA, and the currency sometimes hurts, even if we (including me) really want to help & encourage development.

Just a few exemples (and, I know, I didn't compare life cost):

30 USD
=======
= 40 CAD (Canada)
= 42 AUD (Australia)
= 110 PLN (Poland)
= 343 MXN (Mexico)
= 873 RUR (Russia)
= 44,077,200 TRL (Turkey)


[ Edited by ChatDEau on 2004/7/23 11:30 ]

[ Edited by ChatDEau on 2004/7/23 11:32 ]

[ Edited by ChatDEau on 2004/7/23 14:15 ]

I would pay for MOS1.45 something between 30-50 Euro, but only if there would be 3D and Overlay working with Radeon 7xxx, fixed Printer.device, and Native TCP/IP, oh and Altivec would be great also.

@ ChatDEau: Yes if you are from Poland or Russia 30-50 Euro is much money.

Perhaps I can pay...but Genesi must leave us....I've heard a lot of
time about his bad work...and this is the confirm!
I will pay for a stack-tcp,a browser and AHI.

Ok here is my idea. I think we ALL should pay right now for 1.4.2 and help out the dev team now. One of them can give an address for sending money to them and open a paypal account for those that like that sort of system as well. I am willing to send $40 for it now.

Also $50 (US funds) for 1.5 is also fine and I would even say lets prepay for it to get the ball rolling. A subscription service is an awsome idea too. say $10 a month for real info on the progress in a private forum. We could just add one here with the help of Targ. I'm sure he can make a password protected user forum when payment is sent in. We can also make a "kitty" account here to allow random donations to the dev team. I dont want to see MOS die and this is a great way to help save it. If all of us give $10 a month and get info from the core dev team about progress I think it will help to get them back on track full time. Also with us giving $40 for the work they did with 1.4.2 and another $50 each for the future release of 1.5 it would get them wanting to do more.

Actually, you are right. This is a silly thread. If we look at the # of MZ members and the # of people contributing to MOS dnetc as an example of the userbase any amount of money comes to an insignificant total.

We should just be hopeful that MorphOS development continues....

..none of this changes my opinion on the availability (or lack thereof) of incremental MOS updates.

Steve

@Acill

Don't mind paying for MOS, but the moment someone starts a pre-pay-scheme for it, is the
moment that I will leave for good .....

MOS should (and IMO must) be included for free (in it's latest incarnation) with every new Peg sold.

@Elektro

You forget yourself. Without the hard work, enthusiasm and dedication of Genesi (which includes) bPlan then you would not have an OS to use nor hardware to run it on. With the contining support of Genesi and the dedication of the MOS dev team then there is a future for MorphOS.

Apologize if you dare

Steve

I've never loved Genesi and his strategy.
That's all.

Since MorphOS is supposed to be a free system shipped with
every Pegasos sold I really think we should make it affordable
to everyone. Americans can say that 50 USD is nothing for
them for a major release, however 50 USD in Eastern Europe
or Asia can be ALOT. The best way would be for each User Group
in each country, or some trusted individual* who can calculate
what the people of his/her country can afford.

We in PUGS would be happy to discuss the costs for Swedes.


* With "trusted" I mean someone who has a pretty normal wage,
the experience of, or have a clear vision of it. Some millionaires
do not. :)

Quote:

I think it seems like a good idea charging for it, but even 50 euros is ridiculously low! You might as well just throw the developers your spare food....

How much is Windows XP? It's over 100UKP (160 euros?). And MOS is a small and specialist market, so we should be looking at 100-120UKP (160-190 euros) for an initial MOS purchase, and perhaps half that for upgrades.

If you are serious about paying, then it's no good suggesting a token amount that won't be any use!

There's no point in starting an argument about the amount of money needed.
First of all we must be united to support Morphos developers.
We might even think about a volountary pre-payment, as it has been done for Mozilla.
As to me, even 100 euro are worth paying to get a solid update.

MOS 1.5, please!!!!

Hello,

I know I might sound a bit unfair now but I'm not sharing the opinion of Miky here. I certainly do like the work the developers spent on MorphOS and they certainly should get honoured and an obolus for what they do. But I am against having others like Miky speak for me - like coming up with the facts that we all must pay here. It's not the point whether they deserve being payed for their work or not, it's just the matter of not having one speak for everyone and have participants to MorphOS and Pegasos community show up here and wonder in what ideas people come.

I think we should leave it up to the MorphOS developers to decide whether they charge or not. MorphOS for my own life isn't that important. I for my own came back to this community to be of help and to keep the name and spirit of the Amiga alife. So you can understand that I am not interested to pay 50-100 euros for an update of MorphOS because it's not that important for me and most likely not as advanced as say MacOSX or Linux (Tools, features etc.). It would be different if they open some sort of donation page where I can donate an ammount of money that I think that I can be willing to pay as some sign of honouring their work (which also depends on my life situation e.g. employment etc.).

This is not meant as critics to the MorphOS team, they certainly do a great job, more than I expected or was expecting for the Amiga community. This is just directed to Miky here as a critic to him.

Please Miky, do not speak for me or others as in facts - we certainly might think differently or have a different opinion. Charging for MorphOS now will certainly scare more people away than winning new people.

I have an unused donation system if it is desired or needed. There is a reason, however, that it is not being used.

My opinion is:

- Minor MOS updates (bugfixes) should be free.
- Its okay to charge money for major MOS updates.

Regarding the prices, lets compare some examples:
- Xandros standard costs $39
- Suse personal costs Euro 29
- Mac OS Panther costs $129

Maybe a price between 30 - 70 Euro for MOS 1.5 would be reasonable.
How about offering MOS 1.5 as download version without support?


To be honest I don't like the idea to donate money per paypal to much.
I would prefer to pay for product and to get a bill.
(As the bill can be used to reduce my tax.)


The most wanted features of MOS 1.5 on my opinion are
- DefIcons
- the ambient improvements (like text view)



Cheers
Gunnar

I would say that MOS with new Peg boards is a given, but paying for major updates is just a natural progression. £50 (~$70) is a reasonable Western Europe/US price to pay for the features that people are assuming will come with 1.5, and the number of MOS users/potential MOS users who want them are not reflected here.

ATM the only thing missing for my needs is Papyrus office, but then I'm not the typical person out there looking for 'an alternative' which is where any more domestic sales will come from!

I think a 'donation' or pre-payment scheme is a bad idea, given whats happenned elsewhere. Trying to promote the Peg and get more sold is a more productive use of efforts (without ramming it down people's throats that is ) and alot of exposure can be created for very little money if we get creative ...

I have to agree with GALAXY.
Actually a complete Morphos 1.x, with all working features and an high level of stability IS the minimum for the people that payed Pegasos.
As Genesi told us, Mos developers was payed with Pegasos sales ... and Pegasos sales was FIRST of ALL created publicizing Morphos in bundle!
I can understand a 50E for a 2.0 version with NEW features and addons, but actually a final 1.x version should be the minimum for Mos community, at least to meet the features that Mos (bundled with Pegasos) should have (they are well described on morphos pages).

> Please Miky, do not speak for me or others as in facts - we certainly might think differently or have a different opinion.

Hi oGALAXYo,
it's obvious that we can have different opinions! There's no problem, my thread was to know what people around here think about my proposal. You disagree and it's OK.


Returning to the argument, I would like to officially ask Targan to open a poll. A good idea to start from would be:

"Would you like to pay for MorphOS 1.5 and newer versions? If yes, how much?"

1 - between 20-50 Eur.
2 - 50 Eur or more.
3 - half price to get a intermediate version (1.4.5) now and the remaining money when 1.5 will be out.
4 - I prefer to do a personal donation to MOS team trought paypla system or similar.
5 - I absolutely don't want to pay for MOS, it must be free.
6 - ...you all here feel free to add other suggestions..



[ Edited by Miky060 on 2004/7/24 2:36 ]