Slashdot Mirror
Mac OS X Intel Build Addresses Pirating
aardwolf64 writes "ThinkSecret has an article up detailing information about the newest Mac OS X 10.4.3 builds (which is currently said to fix almost 500 bugs with 10.4.2.) What is more interesting is the release of 10.4.2 (Intel) to developers. Universal binaries built with the new version (and apparently all subsequent versions) will not work on systems running the older version of the OS."
Since this is still not a publicly released Operating System available to buy, I'm not all that surprised they're taking care of this sort of thing now. There's no reason for them to care about the old versions of the Operating System if it is not available to the general public. Once the Operating System is actually available to buy this sort of thing will stop, but they want their developers to be using the most recent version available to give them the newest target. I don't really see a problem with this.
cheese logs keep my wang warm at night.
Well, the poster has one take on this, but perhaps the current release is incompatible because Apple has changed the compiler and some of the dynamic libraries? Perhaps this was not to specifically address pirating, but to fix bugs and to otherwise optimize the system. The OS X 86 project page has a slightly more informed discussion.
Currently Apple requires NO serial number, registration, or any other verification to load OS X. People trade Jaguar, Panther & Tiger disk images on filesharing networks and they burn great. The same disks or legit copies can be used to load onto multiple machines on the same network. "Upgrades" bought from Apple require no previous version's SN to install, and cost the same as a brand new copy.
The big question is, does this new policy signal a change?I hope not, I appreciate Apple's laid back policy. Right now I'm trying to determine which flavor works best on my near-obsolete G3/333 "Lombard" Powerbook. It's convenient to be able to try out different options before I license a copy.
I think you'd be discouraging them too if there was a chance all your profits would die because you could go out anywhere and get an illegal copy of their OS and run it on generic hardware.
Sure some people would actually buy legitament copies of OS X for the MacTels, but a lot more people would just pirate it to save money and not buy an Apple Machine.
If you have a choice between buying an Apple Machine at $2000, but you can build an even more powerful machine for that price or lower and stick a cracked copy of OS X on it, where will you spend your money?
Believe me, I'd love to have an Athlon 64 FX-57 PowerMac over some Pentium Mac any day, but Apple has to keep itself afloat. They can't live off the iPod sales forever.