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From: sho@maxwell.physics.purdue.edu (Sho Kuwamoto)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac
Subject: Re: Apple OS 7.0 - Cost?
Message-ID: <2945@pur-phy>
Date: 22 Dec 89 17:27:30 GMT
References: <1989Dec21.210721.9191@uncecs.edu>
Sender: news@pur-phy
Reply-To: sho@maxwell.physics.purdue.edu.UUCP (Sho Kuwamoto)
Organization: Purdue Univ. Physics Dept., W. Lafayette, IN
Lines: 31

In article <1989Dec21.210721.9191@uncecs.edu> egapmh@uncecs.edu (Paul M. Hudy) writes:
>   Has anyone had an *official* word from Apple that System 7.0
>will be distributed free-of-charge?  This seems to be an unstated
>assumption among the "wait for system 7" group on the net. 

No, but I did read in MacWeek that it will be distributed in the
same way as other releases.  If you believe them, that is.

>[...]
>   On a tangential note, I would like to see some discussions con-
>cerning the relative merits/drawbacks (for consumers & developers)
>of Apple's approach where you give away the OS and charge high
>prices (if you listen to some netlanders) for the hardware versus
>the MSDOS approach where the OS always cost, but the hardware is
>relatively cheap.

One of the differences between the IBM world and the mac world is the
availability of clones.  First, IBM's are not neccessarily cheap, but
clones are cheap.  Second, they pretty much have to charge for the OS,
because most buyers probably didn't buuy IBM products to begin with.

Personally, I like the free system, becuase it guarantees a more
uniform market.  Not everyone will switch over to the new system
(especially with sys 7 taking 2M) but the situation would have been
worse had the updates cost money.  Programming the mac is hard enough
as it is without having to worry about the people who don't have the
patches to add, say, the List Manager to pre-MacPlus machines.

-Sho
--
sho@physics.purdue.edu