Dear all:

I have just inherited a mac mini G4 and I would like to use MorphOS as my hobby/spare OS.

Being said that, I cannot afford nor justify a 80 eur price tag. In my case, I am willing to pay 20 eur for a license.

I understand all the effort required to implement such a complex piece such an OS, but the market price of a product is not necessary determined by the cost of producing it.

How much a MorphOS license should cost? Well, we can say that the price that the customers (market) are willing to pay. If you start to auction MorphOS licenses on ebay (at least as an experiment), we will know for sure what is the market fair price of a license. I would say at some point the price will converge to something significantly smaller than 80 eur. After all, we are in the age of Linux, and I would say that even Microsoft or Mac struggles (in comparison to old times) to charge large prices for OS licenses.

I think at this point is beneficial for everyone to expand the user base (this probably implies to expand available software, for example), even by decreasing significantly the license price (and thus direct financial income). Otherwise you risk to keep up with a possibly shrinking market.

Everyone will benefit, because most of the effort of coding the OS is already done, and I don't think the users that paid 80 eur will complain, because they found that was a fair price at the time they got the license. Also, you can provide extra benefits (like support) for those who paid a larger license price.

Please let me know your thoughts.

Best regards.

[ Edited by supremo 25.11.2019 - 17:15 ]

For a price of zero you could use MorphOS forever, just reboot the machine every 30 minutes.

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I know that. Time limitations does not allow you to use the OS, just evaluate. Your reply does not bring anything new to the table.

[ Edited by supremo 25.11.2019 - 17:14 ]

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Your original inquiry does indicate you did not use the forums search function. The same old boring "The licence for [enter hardware here] is waaay to expensive. But being a really nice guy I would pay [enter ammount here] nevertheless." thread has been discussed quite a few times...

If you don't want to pay for an OS your choice is between Linux/FreeBSD/NetBSD which the G4 is perfectly able to run. Though they are not as efficient as MorphOS and hardware support is not as good as on MorphOS. Really depends on your needs.

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What is the rationale for not decreasing the license price? Instead of posting an empty reply like yours, just state why not.

I am proposing the following experiment: Auction on ebay (or other site) 100 licenses and let's see what is the price the license converges. I bet is much lower than 80 eur. Pricing a product by only taking into account the amount of work required to produce is deprecated economic theory.


[ Edited by supremo 25.11.2019 - 18:30 ]

Dear Ms Klatten, dear Mr Quandt

I just had a testdrive in a nice M4 and would like to make it my daily driver, but 100000€ is just way too much.

Considering that Dacia and Fiat can barely sell more practical cars at 10000€ it is quite obvious that you are loosing marketshare and I therefore insist that you sell me that M4 at 7000€




Just saying......

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Nosense comparison. What is the cost of the materials needed to create a license? Answer: Zero.


[ Edited by supremo 25.11.2019 - 19:37 ]

Edit: Fell for a troll attempt. My bad.

You all do realize that you are replying to a pathetic trolling attempt, right?

> Mac struggles (in comparison to old times) to charge large prices for OS licenses.

While macOS updates have been free for some years, how do you know which amount of the complete price Apple charges for the OS if you buy a new Mac?

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If we support yet another lenghty price discussion thread it may give us a higher google rating for this issue. Which in turn could theoretically reduce such questions.

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First of all, if I take the time to write this post is because I do value MorphOS.

Regarding the economics 101 mention, I think you should discuss the idea and not about me. Here we are discussing the price of an intangible asset, so there is no leftovers. There is hardly any analogy between manufacturing. Even if you still want to compare it with manufacturing, have you ever hear about toll manufacturing?

I repeat the concept about already registered users: 1) you can provide differential support. 2) they got the license thinking that it was a fair price at the time they got it. But yes, some of them may feel that they overpaid something. The same happens when you buy any product in a store and then you find the next week that the price was cut because of a sale. With your reasoning, there were no sales ever on any product. But again I don't want to compare this with manufacturing or traditional goods.

"Also, have you considere that this type of scheme incentivizes users to delay purchasing the OS and enjoying it in favor of waiting for the best bargain to be had?"
Not at all, because you will never say how many licenses you will auction on ebay, so if you delay for a while the traditional way of selling licenses perhaps you may even sell licenses for more than 80eur. Up to now, I am talking about an experiment to know what is the real price the market (customers) is willing to pay for a MorphOS license. I am not talking about completely changing the way you sell licenses. Just call it Black Friday license auction. The market will tell how much is worth. It seems you feel attacked by my idea.

"Either you value the alternative experience offered by MorphOS enough to buy it or you do not. There are plenty of other hobby related goods and services that cost far more than MorphOS. "

I am not evaluating other alternatives, so that does not apply.

" The OS is not "done" by any means but is continously improved, extended and updated. "
I said MOST of the programming effort, not ALL. Of course a lively OS should evolve.

"Right now, every update is provided free of cost to users,"
Perhaps you can have a non-updateable license and in those case if you want to update a non-critical or buggy issue, you need to pay again. There are many possibilities to reduce licensing costs for certain users and increase the userbase.

[ Edited by supremo 25.11.2019 - 19:30 ]

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You have no idea of what trolling is.

Edit: Fell for a troll attempt. My bad.

[ Edited by ASiegel 25.11.2019 - 20:02 ]

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I don't but mac and I think they are just selling overpriced hardware. Also I think their OS is an abortion between a cross between linux and windows.

[ Edited by supremo 25.11.2019 - 18:55 ]

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What is the cost of materials needed to build one more M4?

Hint: It‘s much closer to 7000€ than to 100000€.

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"What are the added material costs to move economy passengers who paid substantially less for tickets and have them fill up every single empty first-class and business-class seat in an airplane?"
Zero. That's why I have been moved *SEVERAL* times to business class when paid tourist class. Do your research.

"What are the added material costs to have people fill up empty courtside seats at a basketball game or empty seats in the first row at a high-profile concern? "
Zero. But I don't know that kind of business because I've never been there.

"there are empty premium seats in airplanes,"
Honestly, hardly ever seen one. Perhaps I took the wrong airlines.

"how much money you could have earned if you had used the same amount of time to do productive paid work."
Another central europe misconception. You don't need to work to get money. Again, do your research. The answer might surprise you.

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Here a
2020 BMW M4 is $69,150

Perhaps is because we DO price things according to the market, not only the effort used to produce it.

And you can get a 2015 with low mileage for $35,000.

Fortunately, BMW allows the customers to sell their used cars at a MARKET price. I can imagine the feeling of a 2015 M4 buyer that paid 69,000 2015 dollars to buy something that later is valued 35,000 2019 dollars. Never seen in human history.

Let me repeat here that you missed a critical point. I am not demanding they should sell me the license at 20 eur. I am asking to the company to let the market say how much should be the license price. I am not even asking them to sell the license to the price the market says. Just to know how much it should be.

[ Edited by supremo 25.11.2019 - 22:56 ]

@supremo,

MorphOS, and all of its free updates over the last 10+ years is well worth the price of the license. In fact, I would say it is far under priced when you consider the hours of hard work put into it by multiple programmers when it was first created, and the probably thousands of hours of programming that have been put into updates to the original code.

As others have stated, you either value MorphOS and buy the license because you want to use it, or you don't value it enough to spend the license fee, and you move on to some other alternative OS that fits your needs and budget.

None of us are trying to be mean or belittle your situation and your feelings, and I personally hope that you will re-evaluate what MorphOS can provide for yourself, and you will decide to join us and buy a license for your Mac Mini, but if not, I hope there are no bad feelings, and you find another alternative that suits you better.

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I do appreciate a more friendly answer to a perfectly reasonable idea I've posted. All in all, I still think is beneficial for EVERYONE (developers and users) to expand the user base. The benefit of expanding the user base will greatly surpass the economic "loss" (which is not a loss because the userbase at 80 eur I think it is pretty stable and will hardly increase).

In any case I am surprised by the general reaction to my simple and perfectly natural idea. It seems that I came here asking for a crack or trying to steal something.

[ Edited by supremo 25.11.2019 - 19:32 ]

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Lies. Just read my reply with quotes.

@supremo:

BTW, the licence price has already been reduced a few times (klick). So you could just sit back, relax and wait until the price meets your expectations.

Or you could do it the old Amiga way - If you like it, but don't want to pay for it just crack it. And if you do so, I guess you will swap it free of charge as the coding is already done?

>>> Mac struggles (in comparison to old times) to charge large prices for OS licenses.

>> While macOS updates have been free for some years, how do you know which
>> amount of the complete price Apple charges for the OS if you buy a new Mac?

> I don't but mac

I wasn't referring to you personally but to "you" as in the indefinite personal pronoun.

> I think they are just selling overpriced hardware.

Maybe they are also selling an overpriced OS with it?

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Lies. Read the quotes of my reply. Censoring is bad for any community.

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I am totally relaxed. I am just proposing an idea that I think will benefit all (and nobody showed me any strong argument why not, except perhaps a small short-term cash flow for the company).

My idea is not based on stealing, is based on free market. That's all.

[ Edited by supremo 25.11.2019 - 19:19 ]