"Michael", the biggest drawback to MFG for most folks is the price tag - that much is consistent. So every time Fotland asks this question, the answers get ignored. The price was $89.95 in 2008 and it's $89.95 today. The mystery is why he keeps asking this question - what do you think would be a reasonable price - when he has no intention of lowering the price.

_________________
"This is a game that rewards patience and balance. You must think like a man of action and act like a man of thought."
-Jonas Skarssen

_________________
FusekiLibrary, an opening library.
SGF converter tools: Wbaduk NGF to SGF | 440 go problems | Fuseki made easy | Tesuji made easy | Elementary training & Dan level testing | Dan Tutor Shortcut To Dan

I also didn't like his attitude (albeit a common one) that being able to emulate an environment (VMware, wine, etc.) is good enough justification to not actually porting the software to a different platform. Trust me. It is _not_ good enough.

It's almost akin to clothes manufacturers making only one size. After all, if you need a different size, you can just re-sew it to fit, right?

In his defense he did outline the effort involved to port it. It's a giant task and I believe him.

_________________
FusekiLibrary, an opening library.
SGF converter tools: Wbaduk NGF to SGF | 440 go problems | Fuseki made easy | Tesuji made easy | Elementary training & Dan level testing | Dan Tutor Shortcut To Dan

Depending on how a program is written (and especially how involved its GUI is), it can practically be a complete re-write to port it. Doing 90% more work for 10% more customers is just not worth it. That's one reason why web apps are the way of the future.

_________________
That which can be destroyed by the truth should be.
--
My (sadly neglected, but not forgotten) project: http://dailyjoseki.com

There's no webapp that could match Cgoban3.

Well, probably not. For something like MFG, there's the database of games that couldn't easily be replicated on the web. If you want to add your own games, then it wouldn't work well, and the processor power needed if several people are using the app at the main time would prevent such a thing from working. Google can do it, but small developers can't afford server farms.

_________________
My blog about Macs and more: Kirkville

1. Make web front end.
2. bundle light weight webserver with local install.
3. Open page using default browser (possibly in full screen to get rid of all the irrelevant web toolbars).

I believe it's technically possible. But if it's suitable for rich UI programs is another thing. Perhaps flash would be the easiest way forward. That way you don't have to pay attention to how different browsers choose to implement the web standards and what different quirks they require. I assume flash works more or less the same on every platform since the plugin comes from one single company. That said, perhaps java is an easier way forward if you want a cross platform application with minimal effort.

_________________
FusekiLibrary, an opening library.
SGF converter tools: Wbaduk NGF to SGF | 440 go problems | Fuseki made easy | Tesuji made easy | Elementary training & Dan level testing | Dan Tutor Shortcut To Dan

Did he state that he has no intention of lowering the price? Or is this your conclusion? I didn't read all of the RGG posts. The first two or three pages were enough to remind me clearly why I had stopped following the group a few years ago.

I don't feel there is anything wrong with asking a question and "not listening". I often ask my customers questions and consider their input, but that doesn't mean that I always make adjustments based on their feedback. It's good to know what customers think, and what their perspective is like, and I (we, the company I work for) take the responses into account, but it's rare that there are immediate responses. Mostly, it just helps with future developments and directions. Often, customers have no real understanding of the vendor's/company's realities, but the feedback is still valuable.

As for MFOG's price, well, I paid it, both for v11 and v12, because to me the software was and is worth it (it needs a more modern interface, though -- SmartGo does better in that way). Sure, I would have preferred to pay less, but I would also prefer to pay less for rent, books, food and everything else I have to spend money on. I also enjoy "free" software for the many benefits of open source. In fact, a lot of my standard software is open source and multi-platform.

On the flipside, I do understand why developers may not want to open source their software. While "free as in speech" doesn't necessarily or actually equal "free as in beer", for many people there is no difference between the two. If you make your living, at least in part, from a niche software product, going open source may just not be a viable option. In many cases, open software products are either hobby/community projects or they have funding and sponsoring.

Also, lowering the price to, say, thirty dollars would mean that David would have to sell three times as many copies to make the same money. Not as easy, I know, since it would mean more time spent on support, but also result in more recommendations. This may be one of the questions that David is pondering, and if it is, I could understand why he repeatedly asked the "fair price" question (if he did), especially if it's done between longer periods of time. The economical situation is always in flux.

Anyway, the price worked for me and I am a satisfied user of MFoG and SmartGo. Whenever I had a question for David and emailed in, I received a prompt response, so I have no complaints. He seems to be more of a programmer type than a "people's person", but that's quite common. (Or maybe I just notice it, being a community manager among programmers at work!) The support certainly has been better than what I sometimes get from other developers, even much bigger ones that charge the same or significantly more for their products.

Lastly, part of the reason why I didn't mind the price is that I wanted to support the development of Go software. If a market is commercially attractive, it often drives innovation and draws new talent and also money. Chess is a good example for that. It would help to make Go more popular and known outside of the small circle of players in the "west" -- most of which are intellectuals or people who are philosophically inclined.

All reasonable points. I also bought MFG (see my earlier post) so at some level thought it was worth it, otherwise I wouldn't have bought it. I use it every day and would feel naked without it. Nevertheless, it's "odd" that he continually asks this same question and continually keeps the price at $89.95. If I remember correctly, He also asked this question on GD and the answers he got were, again, around $50. So at some point you begin to see that the question is not genuine but rhetorical.

_________________
"This is a game that rewards patience and balance. You must think like a man of action and act like a man of thought."
-Jonas Skarssen

Just curious, what features is it that you use every day?

_________________
FusekiLibrary, an opening library.
SGF converter tools: Wbaduk NGF to SGF | 440 go problems | Fuseki made easy | Tesuji made easy | Elementary training & Dan level testing | Dan Tutor Shortcut To Dan

Everything I use MFG for can be done on other programs for free. I've just gotten accustomed to using this piece of software for a variety of things. Having said that, I use it primarily for replaying games with the territory feature turned on. It does a great job of accurately marking territory, which I find useful. I also use it for solving go problems, studying joseki, and occasionally playing a game against it.

Is all of that worth spending $90 on? Probably not given the alternatives but then I'm known for buying things that any other rational actor would shake her head (aka my wife).

_________________
"This is a game that rewards patience and balance. You must think like a man of action and act like a man of thought."
-Jonas Skarssen

Dega, was MFOG12 the first version of MFOG you bought? If you had earlier bought MFOG11 or 10 then some mistake if MFOG12 cost you $90.

That's why I have a different take on the "listening" question. He was getting responses from two classes of people, non-customers and prior customers. Both classes indicated that they thought something around $50 would be more reasonable for MFOG12. In other words, the prior customers said they thought that they shouldn't be charged more than ~$50 to upgrade and he did listen to them.

a) They had proven (by their having done so) willingness to have paid ~$90 the first time.
b) Thought that upgrading for prior cuctomers should be about half. This second is very important.

When people who had never bought MFOG said that they would be willing to pay ~$50 that is not fully reliable information that he would actually have many more new customers at that price. Coupled with the fact that if he charged new customers $90 he would have had to lower the price for "renewing" customers proportionally or he'd piss them off. They weren't saying a particular price OK but that they thought 1/2 price fair to them.

I've used Many Faces of Go 10, and 11. They are good for the problem libraries, however SmartGo is far better priced. Also if you have an ipoid touch/ipad/iphone it is well worth the 12$ for the plus version. As for Moyo Go studio- the studio is too complicated for a GUI, has performance issues on a lot of computers, and in general isn't very nicely written. In 3 year's it hasn't improved much either . That being said, the good thing it has is the SGF editor. It's GNUGo AI is poorly lacking, reminds me of MFG version 10.

Took me a few days to get around to looking up SmartGo which is why the delayed comment.

Are we talking about apples and oranges and prices not at the same points in time?

You say that you've used MFOG 10 and 11 but that SmartGo is "far better priced". I'm confused by that statement.

To which level of MFOG would SmartGo be an equivalent? (in playing strength)

If to MFOG 10 then @$30 the MFOG 10 is cheaper than SmartGo.
If to MFOG 11 then @$50 the MFOG 11 is the same price as SmartGo

It is normal for pretty much all software that it's price declines as it ages, not just go software. We shouldn't be talking of the price of versions of MFOG as if the current price were still the same as the price when the software was new.

To put voice to a peculiarity of people: no one wants something old. Given the choice between a new version of Y or a 1 edition old version of X, many people will choose Y. Doesn't matter if the 1 edition old version of X is better or not. You can see this in all sorts of different products. Marketers have long since learned to slap a "new" sticker on something, even if it's old, because it gets people's attention and the buy it.

If it were phrased in terms of "standard", "supreme", and "gold", or something like that, where features that "gold" level subscribers get slowly trickle down to the "supreme" and "standard" clients, it's more palatable to everyone involved, even if it amounts to about the same thing. But this implies some sort of subscription based service where regular updates at all the levels are expected.

Actually on the subject, subscription based software works pretty well. You plonk down x$ and get access to the next few versions as part of that, plus any bug fixes. I have a few different programs I subscribe to that work like this.

_________________
1k KGS