MacOS X Upgrade Not Free Anymore?

Jacek Fedorynski writes: "Remember when Steve Jobs said that the MacOS X 10.1 upgrade would be available to anyone to download for free and also on a CD for $20? Well, it seems that they changed their minds about the free download."

and this is suprising?

[zentex]

Jobs is a purist...but his investors are not...

Jobs may want it free, but with Uncle Bill kicking his ass in the market share, he can't afford to give the kitty away for nuthin.

Re:*nix

[TheInternet]

Hell if you wanted to mirror all the linux distro's you could do it with rsync.

So use Linux.

doesn't have big bandwidth friends willing to mirror it for free

That really has nothing to do with it. Apple doesn't distribute software through third parties. This isn't just another *nix distribution. If you want to mirror something, mirror Darwin. It's a perfectly capable *nix OS.

because Apple doesn't give a damn thing back to the community from which it stole its code from

Oh, please. Everything they "stole" (and modified) is re-released to the community as a complete OS in Darwin. They've introduced a lot of new code to the community -- NetInfo, OpenPlay, NetSprocket, QuickTime Streaming Server, and CDSA. They've also submitted patches back to the BSDs and Apache.

- Scott

QT on Linux (was Re:*nix)

[ryochiji]

Still can't watch quicktime movies unless I'm running MacOS or Windows
because Apple wrote a license which forbids operating quicktime on
alternative platforms.

How 'bout doing some research before speaking.
See:
http://linux.oreillynet.com/pub/a/linux/2001/09/06 /crossover_partone.html [oreillynet.com]

"Not only was Apple helpful with the technology issues," Graham said, "but they even changed the QuickTime license..."
Where's the blackhole and who's the whore?

never free download

[extra88]

They never said 10.1 would be available for download, because of its size. The $20 charge is what they've charged for years in the Up-To-Date [apple.com] program which was how you got the current MacOS if your new Mac came with the previous version. For instance when I got a PowerMac 6500, it came with 7.5.5 but 7.6 had already come out. By sending a card and $20, they sent me a full 7.6 installation CD. If you adjust for inflation, you could say their fee has gone down :)

My understanding is the $20 gets you a full 10.1 CD. What I'd like to see is an upgrade-only CD which could cost less (or nothing) and be passed out at Apple Stores and places like college computer stores then duplicated and shared by whoever cares to.

Not saying it's a lie, but...

[frankie]

...why is there only this one guy saying 10.1 will be payware? MacCentral [macworld.com] doesn't have a story, nor MacNN [macnn.com], nor MacSlash [macslash.com].

Heck, this claim isn't even on MacOSRumors [mosr.com], and Ryan is a total weasel known to post ANY random crap that comes his way.

Maybe it's true, maybe not. But one guy on MacObserver isn't convincing.

Re:Not saying it's a lie, but...

[benedict]

I gave an Apple employee a ton of shit about this issue, and though he had a variety of ridiculous arguments as to how a $20 upgrade could be considered "free", he never denied that it was going to cost $20.

(So it's not free as in beer, nor is it free as in speech ... maybe they meant it would be cholesterol-free.)

Re:Not saying it's a lie, but...

[Matthew Weigel]

First, yes it was on MacSlash. A while ago. Second, it's on Apple's website ("[a]n upgrade CD will be available..." - no mention of a download). It's not a rumor, it's a fact (at least unless Apple changes its mind).

I never heard it was going to be a free download, all I heard was "why isn't it a free download?"

NEVER promised a free download.

[JohnKFisher]

In fact, in the keynote, Steve NEVER ONCE even mentioned downloading 10.1. He said, and the slide below him showed:

Mac OS 10.1 - FREE*

($20 shipping and handling)

Everyone just assumed it would be free for download, as that is the Apple standard, but as this is a three CD set (X 10.1, 9.2.1, updated Developer Tools CD), with a megabyte count well into the hundreds, I am not surprised that it is not for download, and for three discs and likely a manual or two, twenty bucks ain't all that out of line.

(And yes, I know other *nix distros are often available for d-load, but, and I am just speculating here, it may be that some things need to be installed from a different CD. Perhaps the non-Darwin/BSD portions? And keep in mind Mac users are less likely to have cd-burning capabilities.)

Re:whatever

[TheInternet]

The Paris expo starts on September 26. It's probably a reasonable bet it will show up then.

- Scott

This is total bullsh*t

[Gizzmonic]

Mac OS X is basically a toy right now. Yeah, it can do all the cool server stuff like Apache and PHP like any UNIXish system, but there are tons of BSD and Linux distro's that do it better, and much cheaper.

The stuff that makes Mac OS X better-native DVD playback, decent speed on the GUI, X-native apps from heavy hitters like MS and Adobe, just aren't there yet.

Apple should thank the early adopters that bothered to shell out $100, instead of shamelessly charging them for what should have been in OS X since day one.

Just another example of the abusive Apple-pampering users with a great GUI, then beating them down with unreasonable charges.