Originally posted by theCaptain
RacerX, I would agree that its really nice to have an orriginal disc, but dont you think its kind of rediculous to pay 300 dollars for software that is over 5 years old and will not be recieving any updates. I understand that it is a collectable, but for those of us who just want the software I think it should be provided more widespred for free. I do understand where your coming from however.
I don't know, $300 is not an unfair price considering that the software is still considered an enterprise solution (for those who don't want to pay Apple thousands of dollars for basically the same thing), and that the User CD was originally $799 and the Developers CD was $4999. I think it sounds like a deal, but I went with ebay and paid about $120 for OPENSTEP 4.2 User/Dev, $75 for OPENSTEP 4.1 User/Dev, and $100 for NEXTSTEP 3.3 User/Dev. And about $150 for all three Rhapsody DR2 CDs (PPC, Intel, and Yellow Box) on ebay. If it is important enough to someone (like it was to me) then you can always find a way.
It was very important to me, and this can be seen in the fact that I have collected a large amount of software for all versions of this OS leading up to and including Rhapsody just so that these would be complete working environments for me. In the field I carry no other computer with me other than my Rhapsody ThinkPad which has no other operating system on it other than Rhapsody. It has to have all the information I need when I need it for anything I am working on, and it has to be my only source of entertainment when I have to sit and watch installations and file transfers for hours on site. I spend as much time in Rhapsody on a daily basis as most people spend on their computers each day.
So no I don't mind people getting it for free (specially if they have no real need for it), but when they start to complain when they can't
get something for free or what they get for free doesn't work right... that is a little on the strange side if you ask me. If I downloaded Photoshop off the internet, I don't think I would have any right to complain to Adobe if it is not working all that great or I don't get any support from Adobe. Apple was providing support for NEXTSTEP/OPENSTEP through their Enterprise site (
http://www.apple.com/enterprise/ ) up until about a year or so ago (because Apple continued to sell OPENSTEP for a few years after they had acquired NeXT). I would also love if Appleshare IP 6.0 (which doesn't work on anything past Mac OS 8.1 and was still being sold at the say time as Apple was selling OPENSTEP 4.2) was free, it makes a great server and would be perfect for many of my clients... but some how I don't think that is going to happen anytime soon. For me, I have gotten may times my moneys worth out of NEXTSTEP/OPENSTEP/Rhapsody, so I didn't mind paying what I paid (and would do it again if I had to do over).
I am always happy to see people have fun in an environment which I have come to call home, and I am happy to try and help with any problems they may have, but seeing as this is not yet a
dead platform (and thanks to Apple, may not be for quite some time), if you plan on more than visiting, consider acquiring the actual media. I know most of you are not going to take the time to find out how to do some of the small (but important) things like installing fonts or adding icons to folders or installing apps that require an installer, and so this is not going to be anything more than a toy to you. I have worked with web developers who made Mac OS X Server 1.x their work environment and they required help from someone who also lived in that environment to help them when they had problems. And many people are still using Mac OS X Server 1.x as their primary server which is hardly more than Rhapsody DR2 with a few GUI Server apps added on. That OS only stopped shipping within the last year, and is still being supported by Apple. Considering that these people paid $499 for an operating system that you guys are getting for free (and I got for about $150), I don't see where we can complain that much. You have to remember that from the release of Rhapsody DR2 in 1998 to when Apple stopped shipping Mac OS X Server 1.2 in 2001 very little about that operating system changed. More importantly, many of the solutions that applied to OPENSTEP still applied to Rhapsody/Mac OS X Server 1.x. Given that, I don't think I could personally support the
widespred for free idea... except maybe for the BeOS.
