Writing on the Wall?

'Developers get access to early previews of Lion via the Mac App Store. It seems possible Apple may distribute Lion to end users this way-at least to users of Mac OS X 10.6.6.'

Just like how during the 10.6 DP release it 'seemed possible' that PPC users were going to be left out in the cold?

And just like how during the 10.5 DP release it 'seemed possible' that G3 owners were going to be left out in the cold?

We know how those two GM releases turned out.

It should be painfully clear now as to why the App Store is in place starting with 10.6.6.

This is how you're going to get Mac OS X from now on. No more installation discs, my friend. Why do it the Redmond way by making people key in long strings of alphanumeric characters and force them to have a piece of crippleware constantly monitor their systems when you can go one better and enforce purchases (and licenses) via the App Store? Just hope that you don't toast your hard drive. And here we've been laughing all along at those Windoze lusers trying to convince their OEMs to send them physical recovery discs.

I hope I am proven wrong in this post. But if this isn't evidence that you have been smelling the smoke all along and now are just seeing that the curtains are ablaze, I don't know what to tell you if you don't trust your instinct and make a run for the emergency exits...

Starting now, Apple control all aspects of software development and release. There is no free market anymore. Freedom is gone.
 - Rixstep

See Also
Red Hat Diaries: Secure the Internet?
Red Hat Diaries: How Lucky Do You Feel?
Learning Curve: 'So much for anonymity these days'