"I was quite surprised that Mountain Lion was a fee upgrade"
My knowledge of American anti-competition laws is lacking, but I remember back when they were able to release iOS-upgrades for the iPhone, but not the iPod Touch for free. At the time, there was supposedly something on the legal side of things which they were afraid to run afoul with by releasing free iPod Touch updates.
I suppose, if they were to release new versions of OS X for free, they may risk being sued for trying to push competitors out of the market by giving away a product that others are trying to sell.
No, it doesn't seem right to me, but sometimes laws are outdated or simply abused.
Specifically it's because Apple likes to take the Research and Experimentation Tax Credit for operating system development. The R&E credit requires that you work on a new product and not on simple refinement of an existing product and its features. There are a lot of subjective factors involved in qualifying and Apple felt more secure by requiring some money to upgrade. The big advantage was not the income but the big fat check from the federal government at the end of the year.
The R&E credit is a pork barrel scam for big companies with clever accounting departments, of course. But if it's there, why not take it?
"In 1996, 1999 and 2000, for instance, the California Legislature increased the state’s research and development tax credit, permitting hundreds of companies, including Apple, to avoid billions in state taxes, according to legislative analysts. Apple has reported tax savings of $412 million from research and development credits of all sorts since 1996."
$412M on the hundreds of billions Apple has earned since 1996 are pennies. That doesn't seem that much... Are there more?
You are mistaken. Free upgrades are not illegal. The Apple OS is not even a competitor of Windows because they dont run on the same hardware. MS got into trouble because they tried to use their dominant os position to force out competitors of their other products.
My knowledge of American anti-competition laws is lacking, but I remember back when they were able to release iOS-upgrades for the iPhone, but not the iPod Touch for free. At the time, there was supposedly something on the legal side of things which they were afraid to run afoul with by releasing free iPod Touch updates.
I suppose, if they were to release new versions of OS X for free, they may risk being sued for trying to push competitors out of the market by giving away a product that others are trying to sell.
No, it doesn't seem right to me, but sometimes laws are outdated or simply abused.