Just because they stopped selling it doesn't mean it's free. The only legal way to aquire MacOS is to buy an Apple product, or somehow get an upgrade from one of those old paid versions (which since this happens through the App Store now, you still need an Apple product).

Windows is also not free even though you can download the iso. There's license terms

That’s a guess, not evidence of your claim.

Building momentum for the year of the Linux.

You know, the one we've been reading about for 20 years.

You have to agree to that same license agreement even if you download macOS from Apple’s website without paying for it. So I still don’t see what in the world you’re talking about except for twisting yourself into pretzels to make sense of your nonsense argument.

Get it to run Office and you've a game changer.

Yes, yes I know Libre/Open Office but try telling Shelly in Accounting who still struggles with Excel after 36 years of experience.

Get it to run Office and you've a game changer.

Yes, yes I know Libre/Open Office but try telling Shelly in Accounting who still struggles with Excel after 36 years of experience.

Right, I’m the one “fixated” on this, but all of the people like you dog pile on me, and trying to insist a fact isn’t true aren’t “fixated”.

Seems like projection to me. And deflection from the fact that you can’t prove your point.

macOS has been free for, like, 15 years.

Yes, you have to already own an Apple computer, but Apple users don’t pay for OS upgrades.

Technically, anyone could download the OS images, but there’s not a lot that non-Apple users can do with them.

And in my original comment, I said they hadn’t charged for it in about 15 years. And it’s been almost exactly 15 years.

As they need to be installed on Apple hardware, there's an implicit cost associated with it.

If you want to be super pedantic for no reason, you're correct, it is technically free.

It’s free because it’s free, not because you can’t seem to wrap your head around that fact. Or whatever pretzel branded maneuvering you’re trying to do to validate your position

macOS is free. There’s really no way you can twist that to be untrue. Not without making stuff up.

Thank you Lord Gaben

I don’t understand how compatibility has anything to do with the cost of something. As I’ve mentioned elsewhere, any operating system requires that you pay money for a compatible device to run it on.

You’re just drawing some imaginary line at Apple computers. But that makes no sense.

Actually, the macOS software license specifically mentions to install macOS only on hardware built by Apple itself. The line is not imaginary lol

Gonna die on this hill huh?

Sure, and if you got modern hardware with Windows 7 on it in 2009 then you had up-to-date free Windows since 16 years.

Bruh what? Did you really just say that not having to buy software exclusive to a certain hardware makes the software free?

That's like saying the OS on a PlayStation is free because you only had to pay for the PlayStation.

Nah man, you purchased the OS with the hardware. That's why it's exclusive.

There's no point to prove, idiot.

You're not allowed to use it after downloading it for free unless you use it on Apple hardware that it paid for. If you don't have Apple hardware you only have a file you're not allowed to use. Paying for Apple hardware pays for the license permitting you to use it.

That's like saying that using a fixed cost subscription service is free because you're not paying at the time that you access it.