Well i'm sure it won't be hard to "find" a copy of the leopard install disc somewhere after they give out the free copies. Too bad my iMac is no longer supported. oh well. tigers fine for me till i save up enough for a new 24 incher, that is after I pay my tuition for last semester.
No, you have to have access to an Apple Developer Account. Which you either need to pay for or have a seed account. But it probably won't have activation or anything like Vista has. You can still get a free account to develop, but you don't get access to the betas and would have to pay for the non-free software.