[WinMac] Re: About the Liscencing of Mac OS-X

John W. McCarthy(jwmcmac[at]flash.net)
Fri, 26 Mar 1999 02:34:17 -0600

If Apple goes the way of most of these negative articles Dan posted, it
would probably be the 2nd most evil thing Jobs has had to do since he
has come back.

However, a few valid points can be made to dispel at least some of this venom:

1) Aren't all of these scared/angry people missing something? They
have had almost their full 2 years of licensing for the agreed upon
price. Now they want the latest OS-X (not really Rhapsody, no matter
what is being said) for virtually free. Come on already! It's worth
the try, but come on!

2) Have you seen the price of an unlimited OS-X license?

Pricing:

            $499 for "unlimited client license" (Apple Store)
            $249 Education/Government
            5-client version mailed free to members of Apple's
upper-level developer
            program; $99 for lower-level members

Can anyone realistically expect better than that? Unlimited for crying
out loud. That is much better than any 30 or 50 or 300 client site license.

3) Good Will dictates that you at least look for the other side of the
story. Apple appears to be changing licensing strategy for the better
and cheaper.

The above pricing hardly looks like an evil thing.

I doubt that any of the complaintants could have renewed their former
"limited"
-- not "unlimited" -- licenses for anywhere near the above costs. And
all the complaintants appear to be at the time of renewal. . . . I
could be wrong about their costs under the old contracts, but I think
the new prices are better.

Perhaps they should get a discount in lieu of the near cousin nature of
Mac OS-X to the former Rhapsody? Perhaps.

************

Similarly, as soon as Apple can get Adobe's proprietary Postscript out
of their OS, they will possibly eliminate license fees for the yellow box.

[March 18, 1999]
            After Apple's introduction of Mac OS X Server and its open
source licensing strategy, a reader reports that the company will soon
cut the cost its "Yellow Box" licenses [unconfirmed]:

                  "Apple is planning to reduce the cost per seat from
$499 to
                  about $15 with a 100 seat minimum. Royalties to Adobe for
                  Display Postscript will supposedly account for most of
the new
                  licensing fee, along with some miscellaneous royalties
for other
                  code. Apple will not profit much, if any, from
licensing the
                  Yellow Box, and the licensing fee may disappear once Apple
                  replaces Display Postscript with a new, proprietary imaging
                  model (a.k.a. QuickDraw Enhanced). This is great news for
                  developers planning to deploy Mac OS X Server
applications on
                  Windows 95, 98 & NT 4.0, as well as Solaris and HP-UX.
                  Finally, the benefits of OPENSTEP will be realized by
                  Macdevelopers."

Now I don't pretend to know what this last thing (above) means, but I
know that if I'm of a mind I can find something evil in it . . . or
something equally good. I choose the good today.

As to the Unlimited Licensing:

[memo from Henry Norr]

"OK, I finally plowed through the license-agreement booklets in the
(formerly) shrink-wrapped package. There are four such booklets in the
package, each with one agreement in eight languages. (Altogether, they
add up to something on the order of half the printed pages in the package.)

The English part of one of these documents is entitled 'Apple Computer
Inc. Server Operating System Software License Agreement.' It states that
'This License allows you to install and use the Apple Software on a
single computer at a time.' Unless I overlooked some of the fine print
(I read a lot of it but not all), it doesn't specify anything one way or
the other about the number of clients.

A second booklet includes the 'NetBoot Server Software License.' It says
'This License allows an unlimited number of End-Users ('Clients') using
a NetBooted computer to connect to the Server Software.'

A third booklet has the 'Macintosh Management Client Software License.'
It says 'This License allows you to install and use the Client Software
on a an unlimited number of Macintosh computers.'

The fourth has the 'Object Oriented SDK Software License.' This one is
pretty hard to understand, but as best I can tell, it allows you to use
each copy you licensed for development on 'one (1) Authorized
Development System of the processor family identified by you at the time
of purchase' and to deploy your apps on whatever number of servers you
paid for.

Bottom line: At least in these docs, there doesn't appear to be any
limit on the number of clients."

Additionally:

[Apple]

"For WebObjects, you get a basic 50-transaction-per-minute deployment
license. You can purchase WebObjects upgrade licenses through the normal
Apple Enterprise Software channels."

Good will to you all.

Kelly

> Subject:
> Apple breaching contracts over OS-X?
> Date:
> Thu, 25 Mar 1999 09:37:14 -0500
> From:
> "Daniel L. Schwartz" <expresso@snip.net>
>
>
>
>
>
> If you are a corporate Apple customer and have an Upgrade Contract, better click on:
> <http://macweek.zdnet.com/1999/03/21/licensing.html>; and follow this link to Macintouch at:
> <http://www.macintouch.com/mxsrhaplic.html>.
>
> The last letter (as of this morning) from a confidential source describing his experience with an Apple
> VP calling him was especially troubling... There are over 1.5 million licences covered by Apple's
> agreements. My experience only tells me that a contract is only as good as the people that sign it.

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