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A comment on Apple Says New OS X ‘Mavericks’ Will Be Offered for Free. Parent comment

Re:Apple Says New OS X ‘Mavericks’ Will Be Offered for Free by glhaynes on Tuesday October 22, 2013 @03:37PM (#6594341)
They went out of their way to point out that this is a "going forward" thing, too — system software on Apple devices is free. I assume Windows 9 isn't gonna be.
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Re:Apple Says New OS X ‘Mavericks’ Will Be Offered for Free by gohrt on Tuesday October 22, 2013 @05:21PM (#6595077)
I wonder how this jibes with Apple's much-derided claims that stuff like XCode had to be $5 due to accounting regulations around free upgrades.

Windows 9 might be free for the same reason -- the new features are in apps and services, and the OS is a compatibility layer than needs to keep up.

For example, hypothetically: Office 2014 is expensive, Win 9 is free to provide access to Office 2014 Viewer or whatever.

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Re:Apple Says New OS X ‘Mavericks’ Will Be Offered for Free by parasubvert on Tuesday October 22, 2013 @06:45PM (#6595501)
The accounting regs were real, but FASB changed revenue recognition principles in 2010 to allow for free releases.
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