No more MorphOS for Pegasos? :-(

[KennyR]

What this seems to be is that a small group of unpaid MorphOS developers have decided to hit out at Genesi on their own. Fine, certainly their right, I'd probably do the same. However, in trying to do so, they've poked MorphOS right in the eye. They haven't hurt Genesi though, just shattered MorphOS's user confidence, smeared its reputation, and made it a bad day for everyone who supports MorphOS. Pretty unfair, actually.

MorphOS development will continue, that much is certain. MOS doesn't belong to Genesi and the Pegasos is owned by bPlan, Genesi are just a reseller. Nothing much will change.

Anyway, I'm guessing that there will be an official statement in the next few days, some kind of damage control. Certainly user confidence needs some kind of salve.

[KennyR]

TheMagicM wrote:
Unfair? Unfair is not getting your freakin money!! $10k - $33k I could care less of owners of either side, but developers deserve their money after the time they spent programming on their system. When talking in private didnt work, I would have done exactly the same. This isnt some cheap $88 A1200 ebay scam.. we're talking $10,000+ US$. Oh and there is another guy we ALL know that is owed money to! For shame BBRV!

That has nothing to do with MorphOS or the people who use it. I don't why we should suffer because of it.

[KennyR]

TheMagicM wrote:
It has everything to do with MorphOS. You're talking about MOS DEVELOPERS who HAVE NOT been paid. What, you think they should continue working for free???

Who said anything about working for free? They certainly shouldn't work for Genesi unless it pays them, but I don't demand anyone works for free. But do you really think they're going to give up the last eight years of hard work because a couple of developers want a fight with Genesi? They were working on MOS before Genesi, they'll work on it after them.

[KennyR]

Wayne wrote:
The naivety level of you trying to defend (or at least "ok") the non-payment of employees who worked in good faith is insulting.

I am NOT trying to defend the non-payment of employees. They'd be totally justified in never adding another line of code to the MorphOS code tree, and demanding their work be removed. They'd be justified if they called out Genesi in public and told everyone what kind of people they were. But are they justified in destroying other people's hard work to do it? Not all of the MorphOS developers actually ever got paid you know. There's no point in destroying the whole MorphOS project, it doesn't hurt Genesi and it does hurt people who have done no harm to anyone.

[KennyR]

wtf...are people deliberately trying not to see what I mean? For the last time, I DO NOT SUPPORT GENESI NOT PAYING ITS EMPLOYEES, FOR ANY REASON. Wait, better repeat that:

I DO NOT SUPPORT GENESI NOT PAYING ITS EMPLOYEES, FOR ANY REASON. There, I think that's clear.

What I am concerned about is the impact that this has on MorphOS development in general, regardless of Genesi. I am concerned because:

1) Genesi does not own MorphOS. They funded it a while, possibly because of its interest in embedded apps, possibly because it sold some Pegasos. They paid MorphOS developers to advance the platform. Then they ran out of money, or so they said.

2) MorphOS development continues without funding from Genesi, and started without funding from Genesi. Genesi are not linked to MorphOS at all, except through the Pegasos.

3) Genesi having unpaid money to some MorphOS developers has got little to do with MorphOS itself. Genesi still don't own MorphOS, whether they've paid to it or not. The decision of developers to attack Genesi in this way for not paying them negatively affects MorphOS and unfairly hurts the people who have contributed to MorphOS without being connected to Genesi, and there are many.

The issue is complex. It's not really a matter of Genesi not paying people for doing stuff, it's the fact that they misled people into thinking they'd get paid more. Genesi don't own the code these people wrote anyway, at least to my knowledge!

What kind of allegory can I use? Perhaps a developer holding the whole AROS project to ransom because he didn't get the donation he was promised for a component? Hmm, not very fitting but close enough.

[KennyR]

Wayne wrote:
Completely wrong, but a good try.. People work for money. If there is no money, it's a hobby, and as stated it doesn't operate as a business.

But as I already told you, there are MorphOS core developers who didn't work for money and do see it as a hobby. This action has certainly not been unanimous among all of them. Genesi deserves all it gets with this, it's not as if we didn't warn them, about a thousand f**king times. But this is taking someone's hard personal work - not their business - and ripping it up in front of their faces. That someone is the hobbyists, particularly Ralph Schmidt, who has worked hardest of all to see MorphOS become what it is.

If people treated like crap take on Genesi, good luck to them. But they've also made it sound like the whole development team are with them and that MorphOS is dead, which really isn't the case. I wish them the best of luck wheedling their money out of Genesi's tight grasp, but I really wish they wouldn't use MorphOS as a weapon. It's not theirs to use.