Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!ulowell!m2c!wpi!tron
From: tron@wpi.wpi.edu (Richard G Brewer)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac
Subject: Re: Jonathan (Macintosh Clone for somewhat more than $1000!)
Message-ID: <1996@wpi.wpi.edu>
Date: 21 Apr 89 15:22:44 GMT
References: <530@umiami.miami.edu> <7423@phoenix.Princeton.EDU> <42494260.17b76@puffin.engin.umich.edu> <28404@apple.Apple.COM>
Reply-To: tron@wpi.wpi.edu (Richard G Brewer)
Organization: Worcester Polytechnic Institute, Worcester, MA. USA
Lines: 27

In article <28404@apple.Apple.COM> han@Apple.COM (Byron Han, wyl E. coyote ) 
writes:

->An interesting piece of reading is the Apple System Software License Agreement.
->
->"This license allows you to: (a) Use the Apple Software only on a single
->Apple computer."

Now this is something that I don't understand (and I probably never will). Why
doesn't Apple do what IBM did with the PC and liscense out the OS? That is why
the IBM was (and still is) so popular in the research / business areas. It
wasn't because the machine was easy to use (obviously), it quickly became the
most widely used platform for the pc industry (whether that is good or bad is
up to the observer). I love my Mac, and I get really irritated when someone
says that I aught to drop that "cute thing" for a "real" (calm down, Rick) PC.
I honestly think that if Apple wend public with the OS, the HFS/Windowing
environment would rank right up there with the other popular OS's (UNIX,
MS-DOS, VMS, CPM, etc.) "The Power to be your Best" deserves the power of high
distribution. 

And to think, Apple could still make a more than reasonable profit selling the
chips to manufacturers, and liscensing out software (I imagine that the cost
vs profit ratio would be even better). Just look at what this process did to
IBM & Microsoft - they are now, effectively, the biggest PC oriented companies
in the world. 

Just a thought...