Posted an analogy here http://slashdot.org/comments.p...

Also see my reply to that post with additional info.

Also posted a proper hotel analogy here http://slashdot.org/comments.p...

Also see my own reply to that post.

To extend the analogy to OS X's free upgrade argument, imagine hotel A gives free lunch too, not just breakfast. So the arguments here seem to be saying, "since lunch is also free, it means breakfast is free, unlike at hotel O where you have to order food from M directly(which implies that breakfast there was not really free), hence CA does not deserve a refund while CO does".

All this talk is just mostly semantics and shifting things around. Let me tell you how.

Lets take a hotel that gives a complimentary free breakfast.

First, "free" there does not refer to free as in beer, nor free as in liberty.

Why not? Because the breakfast is not free to someone who hasn't paid for the hotel room(similar to how OS X is not free to install on VMs and PCs), and the cost for the beer comes directly out of the pool of the prices paid for the room by users.

So now, lets take two hotels, Hotel O and Hotel A.

Hotel O outsources their breakfast to a catering company M. A pays M for making breakfast. M hires chefs, buys food from the market etc.

Hotel A makes the breakfast in it's own kitchen, hiring chefs, buying ingredients etc on it's own.

Now , customers CO (staying at hotel O) and CA(staying at hotel A) do not like hotel breakfasts because they suck and they have free breakfast at the conference they're attending anyway. So they want a refund from their hotels.

So, your argument for Hotel O being forced to refund the breakfast cost and Hotel A not being forced legally is that "it's kinda difficult to calculate A's costs because you have to add this and that and subtract that and this, while it's easy to calculate O's costs. Hence O should refund the money to CO but CA is screwed?!

Can you explain why CA has less consumer rights just because A happens to make breakfast inhouse instead of outsourcing it like O?

What difference does it make to CA and how does this make any sense?

That's actually a bad example, since a beer drinking club purchases beer from the market and it shows up on it's invoices, just like the OEMs.

Apple is like a beer drinking club that brews its own beer and has costs associated with doing that, from raw materials to labor costs. Not sure what the difference between those two clubs is regarding how they resell the beer to their customer.

Apple spends money on developing OS X in-house, the OEMs outsource the development to Microsoft. They sure can say it's complimentary. A hotel that gives free breakfast can say their food is complimentary regardless of whether they hire an outside firm to make it or if they make it in their own kitchen.

There was a report in the Guardian that they charged 75c per device, but later Google denied it.

Why should we listen to someone who can't spell the two letter word "we" correctly?

C:\> choco install VisualStudioExpress2013WindowsDesktop

http://www.pcworld.com/article...

The significance is that Open Source doesn't automatically mean not bloated. Just see Mozilla, Open/Libre Office etc.

Debian could argue that, since they make it freely available to all, but I doubt your argument would stand up in court. Apple knows exactly how much OS X developments costs, and since they're not a charity shareholders wouldn't agree if OS X dev costs exceed Mac profits. If they say it is zero, then they would have to demonstrate that they it for free from the developers which they didn't. They paid them salaries, bought office space and hardware just like the OEMs paid MS.

What bull crap. The price is what the market will bear, not how much it costs to make something. And software isn't special in this regard. Do you really think it costs ~$100 to dig out one barrel of crude oil? $15k to extract and make a diamond ring?

When was the last time you went to your boss and said "I can afford luxuries like A/C at home now, you're paying me too much, why don't you give me a pay cut and reduce the company's products' price to customers so they have more money in their pockets?"

If you find gold bricks while digging in your yard and they legally belong to you, would you sell them for $50 because thats what you would charge for digging someone else's yard for an hour?

The cost of the OS is definitely not zero. Apple only allows OS X on Macs, which means you're forced to purchase a license to OS X(and future "free" updates to it) when you buy a Mac. Mac sales revenue are directly used to fund OS X development. When reporting earnings and profits, OS X costs are included in the cost of sales revenue of a Mac just like the Intel CPU is. If OS X was really $0 and the costs not passed onto Mac buyers, it would be available to install legally on PCs and VMs like Debian is.

This is against the quote referred to in the summary:

It's because Windows boots too fast.

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/b8/arc...

That means you're buying a license to use OS X and updates when you buy a Mac, regardless of whether you want it or not.

It is definitely relevant. Where does the money for the development of OS X come from? Are they a charity like Debian? No.

They get the money from selling Macs. Which means the buyer of Macs is paying for OS X regardless of whether they want it or not.

Let me quote the summary here

If Apple gave away OS X to everyone to install on VMs and PCs for free like Debian does, they could conceivably they aren't charging Mac buyersbut are using profits from hardware sales for charity and public good.