Valid Mac OS X license
 

Hi. I'm a newbie to this forum and relatively new (less than a year) to macs.

What qualifies as a legal license of MAC OS X 10.4? Would any of the following qualify as legally licensed?

* A used Mac did not come with restore DVDs (that is, it should come with the Tiger DVD but it didn't)
* A used Mac with restore DVDs that includes Tiger but are from a different Mac
* A Tiger retail DVD but without supporting documents (i.e., just the DVD)

Just wondering.

1) No.
2) No.
3) Maybe, but only for 1 Mac.

are you sure yellow? I know that we own site licesense for both mac os x and winxp here at my work, but also every single computer we purchase also has its own liscense and comes with its own preloaded OS. So, when you purchase a computer the cost of the OS liscense is already figured in. If it were not we would be getting our computers even cheaper and we would just have them shipped to us with no preloaded OS. Since we have the site liscense we can put however many copies we want on just about any computer we want. I work for an educational system so it may work a bit different than the private sector, because I have never been in charge of purchasing software liscense before.

See I always saw it as you never actually owned that copy of the OS, it was bound to the machine it came with and whoever owned that machine owned that liscense of the OS by default. Hence the restore cds are only made for that particular model of computer. If you truly owned the license when you purchased a computer why could not just load linux (or something free) on that system and put the OS that it came with on something else?

I could, however, be totally wrong on this.

That is correct.

In the OP's case, there's no mention of site licenses or family licenses.

Thanks for your responses. So then what constitutes a legal license?

If I sell my Powerbook on eBay, am I able to keep the Tiger license for myself? What do I need to "keep" in order to do this properly?

Does a license follow the machine, the disk, or the little piece of paper that says "single-user license"?

I'm not sure what Apple's lawyers would say, but common convention is that the licence follows the disk - that is a practical way of thinking of it since the disk is a physical object that is also a useful embodiment of the licence.

If you sell your Powerbook, it is very clear that you can't keep the Tiger licence for yourself (or sell it to someone else) unless you remove Tiger from the Powerbook. And since few people will be interested in buying a machine without an OS, it is practical to say that you need to sell the Tiger licence along with the machine. In the case of a Tiger licence and disk that came with the machine (as opposed to a copy of Tiger you bought separately at retail), I think it is even stronger - I think the licence agreement says that the copy of Tiger is for that one particular machine only and cannot be legally used on any other machine.

So, then if you buy a machine that originally had Tiger but it came without the disks, is it or is it not properly licensed (i.e., i use my friend's disk to do a clean install on my machine).

i guess i'm thinking about most software that requires an installation key. It would seem plausible (but not necessarily right) that the license follows the physical printout of the key (since you can use it with any physical disk). It seems murky to me since there is no key with the Tiger DVDs (retail or the system install disks that come with Macs).

I would say that the installation of Tiger on that machine when you bought it was unlicensed. And it certainly was illegal (if you care) to use your friend's Tiger disk to install Tiger on your machine.

Is not.

So far, it appears that Apple does not play hardball as far as licensing the OS is concerned. But I agree with the others, If you buy a machine from someone else and you want to be OS legal and clean, you need to have a legitimate, appropriate OS X CD or DVD. An installer for a different model, or an update CD only, are not enough.

Suppose I buy a Powerbook today, it comes with the disks with Tiger. Which of the following would be true:
1. If I lose the install disk, I now have an unlicensed version of Tiger on my computer?
2. If I lose the install disk, it would be illegal to use my friend's disks to do a clean install on my computer.
3. If I sell the computer (format the hard drive so it's blank) but keep the disks for my old Powerbook, that wouldn't be legal.

BTW, I'm not being argumentative. I just want to get a proper handle regarding licensing. I'm very thankful for all the responses.

Interesting questions.

It makes me wonder. I have a Full Install Panther disc (Ed price) that was on a computer that was stolen. I still have the discs though. I am pretty sure I still have the Jaguar and 10.1 discs (all Ed pricing), since when I got the stolen machine it was only running 9.1.

I have the restore disc that came with my new computer (Panther later version).

I also have the Full Install Tiger disc (Ed Price).

Now, could I legally give away the Pather/Jaguar (if I found it) disc to a friend who say has Jaguar because I am pretty sure my machine was wiped because it was stolen and if so, does it have to go to someone who also would be eligible for the ed discount?

As an aside, I find it funny (in a good way) that people actually care about the licensing on a computer that so freely lets you install when there is rampant copying of the OS that has such strict rules and hoops one must jump through to get that OS put on a machine.

No - you have to give it to the thief who stole your Mac.
:)

Fair enough.

If they catch him, I'll hand over the disc to him so he can give it to the person he sold it to. I don't want that person running an unlicensed copy now!

While we still don't have the definite "legal" answer, I believe that common sense and the fact that Apple has been nice enough never to bother us with serial numbers, "activations" and whatnot else for the basic OS should help everybody to do the Right Thing. Also note that there might be differences from country to country because national law takes precedence.

Tentative answer to post #10:

1
As you have proof of purchase, you still own the license. Under what conditions Apple would deliver replacement media, I have no idea.

2
That may or may not be illegal, however I would have no moral problem with that. Had you made a backup copy of the original disk, that would be ok anyway.

3
That's the really sticky point: is the license strictly bound to the computer it came with or would it be ok to sell the original media set/paperwork from a broken Mac to someone with an identical machine ?
It is certainly legal to sell the PB incomplete (there can be no conceivable obligation not to lose stuff), the debatable point is what you gain by keeping the media...

The used Mac stores here in Tokyo (HUGE market for the things) always reimage the used boxes with whatever OS it originally shipped with. Wether you get the discs or not is reflected in the price. I haven't a clue how they work out which OS goes on what machine, probably date or s/n index. This seems to reinforce voldenuit's answer #3 and tlarkin's comment way up there - Apple considers the machine to have a more-or-less perpetual license to use whatever it was sold with. They are probably unique in this regard.

Regarding the post about posession of the paper the serial/license is printed on, remember that software is an ethereal product. Your license applies to the sequence of electrons that make it work, not the magnetic or optical frisbee it shipped on. Thus, if your place burns down the same day the drive in your laptop gives up the ghost it is ok to use someone else's install disc or a downloaded copy to restore the same major version. The moderators frequently (and correctly) close threads about using a downloaded installer, but if you paid for the software in a box and then back the SUV over it in the driveway you still have the right to use the program no matter where it came from. The same principle would also apply to other copyrighted works.

i think that if you sell a machine, you should either
1) put the original OS back on it and include the restore discs in the package
2) charge more, and include the latest OS version disc to go with whatever is on the machine.

that seems to be legal (and consistent with previous posts) and also common sense. if you sell a machine with an OS installed and you keep the install discs, then either you or the purchaser are in the wrong.

if you are concerned about being legal, and are on a budget, maybe the best option would be to get on ebay and buy a second hand Panther install disc. Then you can be legal and (pretty much) up to date.

oh, and dont forget that you get education discount if you are a full time student/teacher/university-researcher

Working for a self maintainer/AASP over the years I have been sent restore cd/dvds from apple and can download older versions of mac os from their service site. Like anytime I need to load classic support I can download OS9 and just copy the folder onto the HD for classic support. There is NO mention of liscensing at all and the OS itself is a .dmg file. I am pretty sure I can download it and toss it on any machine I want for classic support, especially since the new macs cannot even boot OS 9. I can also load any factory image on a customer's machine. Meaning that if they lost their disk, don't have their disk, or whatever there is still a means to image an OS on the system. Which is why I believe the EULA is tied to the machine and not the disk. I could however, be wrong.

Here is where I get my theory on the license is with the machine. Now, lets say you buy a PC laptop or desktop (HP, Sony, whatever), the product key for windows is on a sticker on the laptop/desktop. Hence the liscense is bound to the machine. Now, on my Macs here at work I have a similiar sticker that would look something like this (I don't have one right in front of me).

But it looks something like this...

G5 DP 2.0/1G DDR/80G HD/OS X

Is that not the license like on the the PCs you buy? The sticker will also have the s/n and the MAC address of the machine on it as well.

Or if you just work for any sort of school system, or if you have family that are students. Parents of students are allowed to get educational versions of software as well. Just remember that educational versions are different than retail. Like our versions of Maya put a watermark in everything you do that says, "Educational Version" However, the OS would not have any watermarks

I work for a school district in the IT department and I know we all qualify for educational discounts in the same manner as the lunch lady does at some elementary school.

Is that the sticker on the box? Are we now saying the license is tied to the machine's box? If I throw away the box, is it no longer legally licensed? I'm really confused now. :(

Regarding buying a "second-hand Panther disk". Is this legal? Again, it seems to me (I may be wrong) that the license is indeed tied to the machine, and that I should be able to use any Powerbook DVD to reinstall Tiger, not just the original DVD.

But what if I broke my original DVDs? Can I use my friend's DVDs to reinstall Tiger?

I was hoping for a simple answer, but I'm always up for a good discussion. This is definitely thought-provoking.

If your computer came with Tiger, or you bought Tiger, and broke/lost either installer and borrowed your buddy's to reinstall, I think that would be OK. However, I'm not a lawyer, nor do I play one on TV.

Better call Lional Hutz, he would know. It would be his best case since his law suit against the never ending story.

Anyways, I am referring to the sticker that is physically on every macintosh computer. it will have the s/n, the Mac address and then a description like the one I posted earlier.

How about laptops (ibook, pbook)?

Yes usually under the battery or under the keyboard you can find the sticker. it has a grayish/silver tone to it. On the desktops it is either on the back or on the panel where the case drops down. On Imacs I think its under the user access panel and on emacs it is on the back side of the user access panel. Some of the flat panel imacs had it on the tray to the optical drive (the part that drops down so the tray can eject).

You will see the serial number, the mac address and bar codes for both so you can scan it and then you will see the description

PB 1.25Ghz/256/80/OSX

It will say something like that.

First off, I have not read the previous posts, but...

In the case of a COMPUTER, the OS that was licensed with the computer when it was purchased originally follows the computer, not the media. If you sell a Mac, you are supposed to include all of the original media and documentation, and the license for the software follows the Mac. If you buy a Mac and it didn't come with media, you can call Apple and have replacement media (and usually agreements, etc) sent to you, for various fees.

Which Mac would be licensed? The computer it was originally installed on or for the computer of the person who physically has the DVD?

This makes a lot of sense. Then I can see buying "second-hand" computer install disks as purchasing replacement media for programs that you already have licenses for.

But your response is very different than the moderator's (yellow regarding a computer without the media).

All the materials included in the original packaging (including installation media and other software discs) are licensed for use with the specific machine they are bundled with only.

What is less clear is the license option for the commercial retail box of, say, Panther when one installs a fresh retail copy of Tiger on a machine. Since it's not really an upgrade, one might feel that the license for use of Panther has been freed up for transfer to another machine.

I'm curious to hear peoples' takes on that one.

That sounds right to me, Craig. If you're not running the OS on a machine any more, then it should seemingly be licit to run it on another. I'm not sure how that would go over at Apple if/when the OS was re-registered on another machine, however.

The originally bundled software including OS is licensed for the machine (which is why the newer discs say "iMac restore" and such), and the license travels with the machine.

The license with a commercially purchased copy of say, 10.3, is itself. You can sell it if it is not installed on any computer.

I know the license agreement for the OS bought commercially has how to transfer the license and sell it in it. I believe the computer license does too.

Hmm... I wonder if that applies to students in pre-school? If not, my little one will be starting kindie in less than two years. Will that count?

The educational discount is pretty liberally offered. My girlfriend is in grad school, so she officially qualifies. When I bought her an iBook, however, I used my credit card and my personal Apple Store account. I just went to the Apple store and clicked "education." I then bought her iBook and iPod at the lower rate, without ever having to confirm her student status. The only time I keyed in her name was to have it engraved in the Mini.

I even went so far as to call the local Apple campus rep to make sure it would go through without a problem. He said it would be fine, adding "homeschooled kids and their teachers (i.e. their parents) qualify for the educational discount."

I am certainly not advocating ineligible people take advantage of the discounts, just noting that Apple takes very reasonable and non-restrictive approach to offering them.

Someone at our Mac User Group was able to get an educational discount by saying that he knew a student and thought he might at sometime have a conversation about the program in question. So if Apple or their dealers want to interpret their own policies so liberally, go to it.

I've always had to provide proof that I'm a university faculty member when purchasing from sites like academicsuperstore.com, however. Apparently, they hold to pretty strict standards.

i think that the EULAs for educational software are pretty liberal. I have never had to show proof i work for a school system to get it. Plus some educational versions can be bought at retail stores, how are they going to effectively track that?

If you think about it, it really is smart business. For example our G5 animation labs at the school i work for have all the adobe software, maya, 3d studio max, (like 80 gigs of software, I am not kidding, it is insane - takes like 4 hours to make a new image) and they all work just like any other mac program. However, everytime you do a project it is watermarked with "EDUCATIONAL VERSION" in the background. Which means everytime you output (render) a project to its final format it will have that mark on it. You are not allowed to make any profit from educational versions either. So, technically if you purchased an educational version of software you could use it as normal for personal (educational) use. Now, if you wanted to turn a profit and get rid of that stupid watermark on your file you can purchase the full version. Now that you purchased software for a discount and are going to use it for your business and make money you can purchase the upgrade of the software to make it a legal version and get rid of that watermark. So, if you ever decide to go legit and make money off of your computer you can do so. If you want to use the software for your own personal reasons, or even to self educate yourself you can.

The advantage is to the company, it is along the same logic as why piracy is a good thing. Once someone has the money to go legit they will do so. Thus, buying all the software they already know. I play around with photoshop a little bit just so I can support users sometimes when they have a problem with that application. I cannot possibly learn every program that we use at the school system, it would take years. I can however learn a few of the ones I kind of like and it helps out my users.

I know for microsoft office you can purchase it as long as someone in your family is a student, and it is not upgradeable. Student/Teacher edition of MS office is around 150 dollars and it gets you the 300 dollar standard version of office. When the next version of office comes out you will not be able to upgrade from student/teacher ed. you will be forced to buy a full version of the new office or wait until the next version of student/teacher comes out.

Now with other applications it is hard to say they all have different fine print, but for the most part in my experiences they are pretty liberal about it. Students are not software companies main target of customers, but they are potential future customers. Then when they are no longer students and in the work force they will use whatever skills they have at their job. Meaning that their company buys more licenses for their employees, so they can make money for the company. In return the software company makes more money from more sales, and so on and so forth.

I can see how the animation apps can prevent someone from using them professionally by watermarking the output. On the other hand, Macromedia's web development apps are available in educational versions, and they don't do that. You can't very well watermark HTML (although I suppose they could watermark Flash if they wanted to). Then again, they are trivially easy to pirate anyway, and I'm sure they'd rather have professional web developers buying the educational version than getting it from a newsgroup.

Still, it's good to know about the parent of student eligibility. Cheap software for the next 18 years will at least partially offset the diapers, formula, food, clothing, college savings, car, insurance... eh, who am I kidding? :)

What ever the actual legal answer may be, it is all a conjured way of printing money. I make this statement as an apple share holder. I have no problem with business licensing as i deal in that also, if you make money from a product then fine. But when it comes to "family" licenses i think it's a bit rich. So There:)

Note that the family licenses are only for those who think it is morally wrong to use commercial software for which you haven't paid - i.e. using it illegally. It's an honour system - just like that used in many transit systems. It isn't costing the transport company any more if you bring your kids along - and you aren't likely to get caught, so the only reason to buy tickets for them is because that's the right thing to do.

i guess the answer is that each person makes their choice - and its down to your concience to decide how much money you pass on to the software developers etc. you could buy a copy of tiger and install it on 3 machines at your home, or you could buy the family license and be more fair/wholesome/legal.

your choice, but remember that saving a bit of money now might end up meaning that good developers stop developing....