Once we have the whole “pay-to-play” license model in place, ie. a new online shop, infrastructure, license checking in PTB etc. I can release a first iteration. So the question is mostly how long it will take us to implement the new license model.
The current code works reasonably well, at least as good as what you can use now with Octave/Matlab for Intel under Rosetta2 emulation, just with native Octave for ARM or native Matlab R2023b+ for ARM, with no obvious problems. So it should be quite a step up in ease of installation / usability / future proofing etc.
So far the work done since 2020 involved:
~1000 work hours worth of work, funded by a big Linux (+ a bit Windows) contract multiple years ago, which was not aimed at macOS at all, as the contract givers consider macOS something not worth supporting at all. Their primary priority was Linux, followed by Windows as a nice to have extra. Luckily the knowledge gained during that work, and infrastructure implemented, proved to be very useful and to a large part recyclable / transferable for a potential solution to macOS on Apple Silicon Macs. So these crucial 1000 hours are a free gift from the Linux side of things to the macOS side of things. Without Linux and my work there, none of this macOS work would be possible, as the macOS side of things lives a lot from technology and knowledge transfer from Linux. As does the Windows side of things, at least as far as knowledge transfer is concerned.
~ 70 work hours of work sponsored by Mathworks in 2021 or 2022, can’t remember, for some proof-of-concept prototype port of the Linux+Windows technology to macOS for IntelMacs and some basic feasibility testing.
~ 200 hours of completely unpaid and unfunded work by myself, to move that forward, because despite my justified low opinion of Apple macOS as a system for experiment data collection, I still have more empathy for Apple users than what I’m given credit for, and my inner geek also wanted to know if one can “make pigs fly”.
Based on that, @keith funded 50 hours of work this year, on top of which I gifted another 13 hours of free work, to bring Apple Silicon support to its current state.
So the current state reflects ~1000 hours of Linux work repurposed/translated to macOS, and ~333 hours of dedicated work on macOS for Apple Silicon enablement.
Basic tests, e.g., of timing, beyond that “basic work” look promising, but I haven’t had time yet to perform the extensive kind of testing I normally do, e.g., involving hardware testing equipment.
We have potential upcoming funding for another 50 work hours, but this is not yet set in stone and still could go sideways. It would fund more extensive tests, needed refinements and whatever may become necessary based on test results.
It was meant as a donation model in disguise, but mostly designed as also providing a real service of value by itself, so universities should not have had any or many issues with it, based on feedback of hundreds of P.I’s. Their feedback was wrong, and the fact it essentially didn’t work drives the point home that nothing in the “carrot” category would ever work. Very sad, but unfortunately true.
Nothing is set in stone or implemented yet. It was supposed to launch at VSS, but the lack of money caused the need for getting in new contract work to survive, which caused delays of many months. I hope we will have something within the next months.
Here is my rough idea for how it might go:
First we will implement it on macOS, not just for Apple Silicon. One reason is that continuing to support macOS beyond the year 2013 was so far the biggest money hole and worst personal and business decision one could have made. It is time we get something back. The primary reason is the large apparent interest in Apple Silicon support, as indicated by this discussion thread which has over 8900 views, by far more than any other discussion thread ever. If this is the feature that the largest group of people are waiting for, then it has the highest chance of people actually buying licenses quickly and thereby turning Psychtoolbox finances around. The fact that afaik all other software packages for macOS or Apple Silicon are in a way worse condition should hopefully help as an incentive. If this doesn’t work either then it is time to pull the plug on Psychtoolbox completely, because nothing will ever work.
I assume there will be kinks to be worked out with this at the beginning, given that I don’t have any experience whatsoever in implementing such a licensing scheme, and nobody I know does.
Once the kinks are worked out, we will apply the same scheme to Microsoft Windows.
And then we’ll see if that provides enough funding, or if we have to lock down some of the Linux variants as well. E.g., one future plan would be to eventually also provide a Psychtoolbox for Apple Silicon Macs under Linux, both to have a plan B / fallback in case Apple screws up macOS for Apple Silicon as badly as they did with Intel Macs, and also to provide a higher performance solution for people who want to make the most of their Apple Silicon. I don’t see a reason why that Linux variant should be free.
Wrt., what licenses specifically to offer, I’m up for feedback. E.g., I thought maybe something like a “lab license” for installation on ~ 5 machines for ~200 Euros/year, to cover needs of a small lab. I guess cheaper single individual licenses would also be useful. The question then immediately becomes what kind of support in case of trouble one could offer.
Whatever we do, we will be at least initially limited by the models that can actually be implemented by whatever 3rd party online shop or licensing manager we’d choose.
Such online shops legally act as “merchants of record” / resellers, just as our current Digistore24 online shop does. Iow. you don’t actually buy from us, but from that shop, we provide the service “on behalf of the shop”, the shop takes a cut of the profit, and the shop is responsible for handling international tax obligations and sales laws for hundreds of countries, credit card / payment transactions processing etc. Most such online shops are unfortunately not that well equipped to deal with all the special requirements that research labs often have, as opposed to Joe Average consumer on Amazon or similar.
Most flexible would be to operate all this ourselves, but I’m sure my employer would not be willing to take on that responsibility at this point, given how poor the Psychtoolbox business so far performed, and what kind of extra costs and risks to their business they would take. Sadly you can only throw money at problems if you have (earned) that money in the first place, so we are not in the luxurious position of being able to do that.