When was the last time you heard of someone actually buying a copy of Windows, though? I've owned a lot of different versions of Windows in the past 30 years, but never paid for a single one.
I know someone who bought a copy of Windows 10 for their computer, because they asked me to help install it. It was definitely not an OEM thing, and the packaging had a USB drive in it.
Don't you just get a free license when you buy their expensive ~locked down~ hardware? Afaik you don't get free osx licenses for hackintosh or virtual build machines.
> Don't you just get a free license when you buy their expensive locked down hardware?
Apple hardware capable of running macOS may be expensive, but "locked down"? Definitely not. You can run Debian on anything from old PowerMacs to the new M1 model, although I admit that the driver situation on M1 isn't feature-complete.
Don’t be like that. Providing it for free does not mean that it has to work on your device. By that definition, no software (including non-Apple) for macOS is ever free because it requires a more expensive computer to run.
Besides, there’s guides-a-plenty all over the internet about making “Hackintoshes”.
Then the comparison on pricing between Windows and MacOS that grandparent made doesn't make sense if one cannot be bough without accompanying hardware, unlike the other, effectively making MacOS priced into the hardware itself, so the comparison falls flat from the start.
By that logic iOS and Android are also free and you can alo get Windows for free with various OEM Laptops and system if we use that logic with the difference that you can choose to purchase Windows licenses to use on a machine you build yourself vs the inability to purchase an separate MacOS license without any Apple hardware.
So any comparisons on the price of the OS are moot since the cost of MacOS is priced into the accompanying hardware, MacBook, iMAc, etc as you cannot buy it without.
Characterizing macOS as something Apple intends to distribute as free is mostly false. They intend to charge for it with the purchase of a Mac.
Microsoft also distributes Windows "for free" on their website and if you care not at all about license terms as we evidently don't when it comes to Mac OS, then it presents no moral quandary to disable its activation annoyances. Is Windows free?
There is no license that can be purchased for MacOS. It literally has no cost in any circumstance. This is just tortured sophistry to arrive at the tremendous conclusion that Windows does, and sometimes doesn’t, cost money. Is windows free? "Sometimes!"
You're intentionally stepping around my arguments. Sure, it has no cost for Mac owners, but the ISO is free to download, and Hackintoshes are very much a thing. Again: if we use your definition, then anything requiring paid hardware cannot, by definition, be free. Which is absurd to suggest. No one I've met claims that free macOS exclusive software isn't actually free. Why is the OS any different.
Violating the EULA that Apple makes you agree to during install (by making a Hackintosh), while a tortuous action, is not necessarily illegal, and it doesn't cost money.
What makes it worse is that you are PAYING to test their buggy software.