Apple Offers "Family License" for Jaguar

DietFluffy writes "According to this article, Apple Computer will offer a $199 5-user family license for Jaguar (Mac OS X 10.2). The article notes that the family license program depends on an honor system because unlike Microsoft, Apple 'does not put technical barriers in place to prevent people from installing software on more than one machine.'" It's likely that most families would buy only one license anyway, so Apple stands to lose little. Sounds like a smart move to me. (For those keeping score on today's game, that makes it Apple 2, Microsoft 0.)

Comments

Look, no Dragons!

[freerangegeek]

Please make sure to notice, Apple isn't attempting to add security to make anyone 'buy' their family license. Instead they're just giving you the option to be a good citizen and pay for those upgrades.

Lambast Apple all you want for the price of 10.2, but remember you won't suddenly find that your iMac stopped working because somebody thinks you've stolen the license.

I really want to see how many people will avail themselves of this option. Perhaps the MPAA and RIAA will sit up and notice if people demonstrate that they're willing to pay for reasonable licenses.

Re:Look, no Dragons!

[Anonymous Coward]

Lambast Apple all you want for the price of 10.2, but remember you won't suddenly find that your iMac stopped working because somebody thinks you've stolen the license.

I work at Apple, and I can tell you that if management decided to try to pull that kind of shit, engineering would make quite sure that it was trivial to defeat.

Nice move by Apple, but...

[sebi]

It's a nice thing to do, but only something that Apple can really afford to pull of (what with the honor system and all). The five machines that Jaguar will be installed on under this license have allready brought money to Apple. I'm sure that they don't like people to pirate their OS, but they surely aren't going to lose sleep if somebody does it. They are, after all, a hardware company. They can "risk" to play nice and improve their image. After all people are going to be buying Apples again in the future - especially if they feel like the company treats them with respect.

Weren't you paying attention?

[jcr]

Right, except this probably means that there will be more anti-copying mechanisms and perhaps a network-aware multiple copies checker.

From the article:

The family license program, to some degree, depends on the honor system. Although legally Mac owners are required to purchase a copy of the operating system for each Mac they own, Apple, unlike Microsoft, does not put technical barriers in place to prevent people from installing software on more than one machine.

Given the fact that Apple likes to put loyal customers into corners focusing on scoring more money on the OS sounds like something they'd do.

Guess again.

-jcr

Re:wow, 2-0 Apple.....

[foobar104]

God, I hope not.

Haven't you ever thought about the irony of Microsoft's market position? They're the #1 operating system in the world, in number of units, but their software is almost universally terrible. In what kind of world does that make sense?

Then I came up with my own hypothesis: popular software tends to suck. Think about it. The most popular software products in the world-- like, say, Windows-- are always awful pieces of work. There's clearly a connection here. I haven't identified the exact mechanism yet; maybe it has something to do with the products growing too fast or something. But the connection is undeniable!

If Mac OS X ever grows beyond a few million users, it'll start to suck. Keep the user base small! Keep Macs expensive! Keep out the riff-raff!

(HHOS)