Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

MacOS X Upgrade Not Free Anymore?

Posted by timothy on from the little-f-free-even dept.

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."

5 of 22 comments (clear)

  1. never free download by extra88 · · Score: 2, Interesting
    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 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.

  2. Not saying it's a lie, but... by frankie · · Score: 2

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

    Heck, this claim isn't even on MacOSRumors, 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.

    1. Re:Not saying it's a lie, but... by benedict · · Score: 2

      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.)

      --
      Ben "You have your mind on computers, it seems."
    2. Re:Not saying it's a lie, but... by Matthew+Weigel · · Score: 2

      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?"

      --
      --Matthew
  3. Re:*nix by TheInternet · · Score: 3, Informative

    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

    --
    Scott Stevenson
    Tree House Ideas