14 DAY TRIAL // It has been revealed that an Intel Mac user can directly install Snow Leopard over Tiger, as the system specs and install disc see the match and carry out the instructions. However, as surprising as this may sound to some, Apple says it’s not allowed.
A little while ago, tech-columnist Walt Mossberg stated that the Snow Leopard upgrade "will work properly on [...]Tiger equipped Macs, so you can save the extra $140." The tests have been made and, yes, Walt was right. You can save the extra buck, but that doesn’t mean you should, a TUAW report suggests.
Just so everyone is on the same level here, Apple intended Snow Leopard as an upgrade from OS X 10.5 Leopard. This means that, as an OS X 10.4 Tiger user, you’d have to first go through an upgrade to Leopard, and then install Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard.
While Leopard users have an easy (and cheap) task of upgrading to the latest Mac OS, Tiger users must purchase the $169 Mac Box Set, which contains three discs: Mac OS X v10.6 Snow Leopard, iLife ’09, and iWork ’09, according to Apple’s End User License Agreement. Why? Because Tiger users didn’t pay for the upgrade to Leopard, on which OS X 10.6 is built.
An excerpt from Apple’s Snow Leopard EULA can be found below.
"C. Leopard Upgrade Licenses. If you have purchased an Upgrade for Mac OS X Leopard license, then subject to the terms and conditions of this License, you are granted a limited nonexclusive license to install, use and run one (1) copy of the Apple Software on a single Apple-branded computer as long as that computer has a properly licensed copy of Mac OS X Leopard already installed on it. If you have purchased a Family Pack Upgrade for Mac OS X Leopard license, then subject to the terms and conditions of this License, you are granted a limited non-exclusive license to install, use and run one (1) copy of the Apple Software on up to a maximum of five (5) Apple-branded computers at a time as long as those computers are located in the same household (as defined above), are used by persons who occupy that same household, and each such computer has a properly licensed copy of Mac OS X Leopard already installed on it. The Family Pack Upgrade for Mac OS X Leopard License does not extend to business or commercial users."
To put it in the shortest way possible, in all cases, the user is required to run a version of OS X 10.5 in order to legally upgrade to Snow Leopard. Yet, Apple doesn’t do anything (except for adding this clause to its EULA) to stop users from performing the Tiger-to-Snow Leopard upgrade by just purchasing the $29 retail disc. Basically, it’s all about ethics here. How does this strike you, dear readers?