This question has been lingering in my head for years. I think now would be the appropriate time to ask Apple this question. Do you think they should? 
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sooooo, uhhhhh, when is Apple gonna make Mac OS 8 & 9 free to download?
- Thread starter Bobdude161
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Did they want to release Mac OS 7.5.3 and lower versions? They didn't have to, but it was a nice service for us Apple collectors.
Apple has posted System 7.5 and some lower "Systems" on their own website as free to download a few years ago, and I've been curious as to when they'll release the higher "Mac OS" systems as free to download.
Did they want to release Mac OS 7.5.3 and lower versions? They didn't have to, but it was a nice service for us Apple collectors.
Oh, I didn't even know that. Thanks for the info.
7.6 and above aren't likely to be released anytime soon, as they (apparently) contain code licensed from other companies.
companies can do what they want with obsolete-ware. It would be nice, but then again I have my system 7.6, 8.5 and 9.2 discs at home so I am not worried. A lot of computer stores sell the old systems for dirt cheap. I got system 7.6 boxed retail at half price books for $1.25, I got the 8.5 free from Que's here in Minneapolis and I think I paid $5+ shipping for 9.2 off ebay.
I think in about 5 years we'll see OS 8/9 available as a free download.
7.6 isn't free yet and there is still people using OS 9 (not many but there is still a few).
7.6 isn't free yet and there is still people using OS 9 (not many but there is still a few).
I am sure everyone has another mac friend with a copy of all of these. Anyone thinking it isn't ok to share these is way too paranoid. It was nice to download the os 9 updates for free from the apple site. I still an kinda annoyed that I have to pay for every .1 upgrade they make. Didn't this used to be free? I know someone else feels the same way.
With a mac we shouldn't worry about the OS. That is why we bought a mac. I love the full control over the product, and that is why it works with so little flaws. If the software gets too thick for the hardware they just cut it off...Understood. But why should we have to pay for every upgrade our current premium paid hardware supports? Windows didn't make me pay for SP2 and that was a better upgrade than from Panther to Tiger!!!
Come on apple quit acting like a spoiled little girl!!!!
With a mac we shouldn't worry about the OS. That is why we bought a mac. I love the full control over the product, and that is why it works with so little flaws. If the software gets too thick for the hardware they just cut it off...Understood. But why should we have to pay for every upgrade our current premium paid hardware supports? Windows didn't make me pay for SP2 and that was a better upgrade than from Panther to Tiger!!!
Come on apple quit acting like a spoiled little girl!!!!
Gather 'round, chil'len, lemme tell you a story...
Used to be (back in the System 6 days), when you wanted the latest OS, you just walked into your local Apple reseller - and there were quite a few in San Diego - with four blank floppies and walked out with 6.0.3, 6.0.5, 6.0.7, whatever was fresh out of the oven.
Apple never charged for the OS (the attitude in Cupertino was, "What's the use of the computer without a means to operate the thing?") The didn't start charging until some mercernary jerks in Redmond charged $99 for their POS excuse of an OS. Some hokey shell riding on the command line and balling the whole thing up in the process.
Then it was , "Oh, people will actually PAY for this?" If memory serves, System 7 was the first official paid upgrade.
But $129 for OS X (NO product activation, BTW!) is an absolute bargain. I gladly fork it over. Unless I can time the Macbook purchase to post-Leopard release...
If'n your good, I may tell you all about the Osborne and the Kaypro. 50 pounds of laptop in two computers...
Used to be (back in the System 6 days), when you wanted the latest OS, you just walked into your local Apple reseller - and there were quite a few in San Diego - with four blank floppies and walked out with 6.0.3, 6.0.5, 6.0.7, whatever was fresh out of the oven.
Apple never charged for the OS (the attitude in Cupertino was, "What's the use of the computer without a means to operate the thing?") The didn't start charging until some mercernary jerks in Redmond charged $99 for their POS excuse of an OS. Some hokey shell riding on the command line and balling the whole thing up in the process.
Then it was , "Oh, people will actually PAY for this?" If memory serves, System 7 was the first official paid upgrade.
But $129 for OS X (NO product activation, BTW!) is an absolute bargain. I gladly fork it over. Unless I can time the Macbook purchase to post-Leopard release...
If'n your good, I may tell you all about the Osborne and the Kaypro. 50 pounds of laptop in two computers...
Just when it's utterly pointless to run it! I've lost all my old OS9 discs. I still want to try and make Deus Ex and Carmaggedon 2 run!
OS 9 is less than 500 MB! That is a sorry excuse! If you don't sell it retail, you have no rights to it anymore, as to the consumer. A commercial venture when one makes money on said software, is different.
Of course the law is different, but what is right is right.
If they have shared ownership with some of the components of the software, they should just turn a blind eye to its open sharing. Which, I believe they currently are doing, and rightly so.
It strictly comes down to licensed technology. Period.
There are things in the Mac OS that aren't Apple's to give away for free. If Apple makes them available, they would have to pay the owner of that technology whatever they originally agreed to pay in royalties each time someone downloaded a copy.
These agreements have loop holes (for example, there are licensed parts of 7.5.5, but the 7.5.5 update wasn't covered, so Apple can provide the full 7.5.3 install and the 7.5.5 update, but not the full 7.5.5 install), but not many.
This same question has been asked about other Apple operating systems like A/UX, NEXTSTEP, OPENSTEP and Rhapsody. In all these cases, they have licensed technologies which Apple doesn't have the rights to give away for free.
Infact, in the case of Rhapsody, Apple went through and removed everything that was encumbered and made what was leftover available to the public for free... it was Darwin 0.1 (and the end result was nothing like Rhapsody).
The closest they can do (legally) is provide 8.5 for a system that shipped with 8.1 or 8.5 originally. In those cases, your license for that software is your hardware. I provide free copies of operating systems for my clients... but only the versions that came with the original hardware they own (or the very next version if the system required a hardware specific version of the original OS).
Que provides operating systems with their used hardware, but you aren't given the latest and greatest. If you buy a Beige G3 from over there, I'll bet you get either 8.1 or 8.5 preinstalled.
We can put it to the test... I'll be grabbing an All-in-One from over there later this week for a client.
There are things in the Mac OS that aren't Apple's to give away for free. If Apple makes them available, they would have to pay the owner of that technology whatever they originally agreed to pay in royalties each time someone downloaded a copy.
These agreements have loop holes (for example, there are licensed parts of 7.5.5, but the 7.5.5 update wasn't covered, so Apple can provide the full 7.5.3 install and the 7.5.5 update, but not the full 7.5.5 install), but not many.
This same question has been asked about other Apple operating systems like A/UX, NEXTSTEP, OPENSTEP and Rhapsody. In all these cases, they have licensed technologies which Apple doesn't have the rights to give away for free.
Infact, in the case of Rhapsody, Apple went through and removed everything that was encumbered and made what was leftover available to the public for free... it was Darwin 0.1 (and the end result was nothing like Rhapsody).
Que shouldn't be giving away anything like that for free.synth3tik said:
The closest they can do (legally) is provide 8.5 for a system that shipped with 8.1 or 8.5 originally. In those cases, your license for that software is your hardware. I provide free copies of operating systems for my clients... but only the versions that came with the original hardware they own (or the very next version if the system required a hardware specific version of the original OS).
Que provides operating systems with their used hardware, but you aren't given the latest and greatest. If you buy a Beige G3 from over there, I'll bet you get either 8.1 or 8.5 preinstalled.
We can put it to the test... I'll be grabbing an All-in-One from over there later this week for a client.
It would be great if Apple could offer a download version for a small fee. That way it could cover the license costs and Apple could make a small sum.
For that matter, the family pack is an absolute steal and still costs less than a single user license of Windows.
Where did you ever get the idea that just because someone isn't marketing a piece of software anymore that it automatically makes it right to steal it?? All you abandonware people better wake up and realize that unless the holder of the copyright officially releases his rights to the public domain, then he still owns his own work. Whether you think it is right for him to retain his rights is irrelevant. The law protects the copyright holder, not you.
Is that really a concern for a company that provides hi-def trailers, 180 MB combo updaters, and even let you use to download XCode? I somehow think the bandwidth cost, especially when you consider how many (i.e. few) people actually want these files, is not so bad....
I like this idea. If not free, maybe a small cost? But I have no idea how they would charge you per download the way the support site is built.
What a timely post, for me at least. I helped a friend whose office machine running OS 9 crashed. I hadn't used OS 9 since I retired Classic from my machines. What a wonderful day that was, although I must admit that it was nice to use the old girl one more time.
i have never got a answer to what software was in OS 7.6 - 9.2.2 that was from another company making releasing those OSes unable to be free.
The Adobe software would be enough... it is the Postscript licenses for NEXTSTEP/OPENSTEP/Rhapsody that are the most encumbering. And that was part of the reason Apple replaced Display Postscript with a rendering engine based on PDF.madmax_2069 said:
The built-in Postscript elements of the older Mac OS alone would make them costly to provide for free. Apple was forced at one point to eat these types of cost when they ended the clone era and purchase Power Computing (that is why 7.5.3 is available).
I might be able to go back and find out what elements of other companies' technology are in the older Mac OS, but I don't think that there are any publicly available sources for the exact terms of Apple's licenses with those companies. Some things in A/UX and NEXTSTEP/OPENSTEP/Rhapsody are easy to point out (System V in A/UX and 4.3BSD and 4.4BSD in the Mach based operating systems... NeXT/Apple used the encumbered version of BSD until the work on Darwin started which used elements of 4.4BSD Lite and FreeBSD).
As it stands today, Apple is getting burned by the codecs in QuickTime. They have to pay a number of companies each time someone downloads a copy from their servers. It is only justifiable to the bottom line if (in someway) it added to the sales of hardware (where they make there money).
More importantly (and most often overlooked), license agreements don't scale with time. If Apple was paying around $30 per copy for the Mac OS for licensed software when it was new in the stores, they would still have to pay $30 per copy that they distribute via download today (no matter how old that software is). And in the cases of A/UX and NEXTSTEP/OPENSTEP/Rhapsody, you are actually talking about a few hundred dollars per copy... which again, they would be responsible for if they made that software available for download.
