Tiger, my precious!

I knew I'd have to buy Tiger sooner or later. But I just wasn't sure how I wanted to buy it.

A single DVD can be used to install it on any number of Macs, so the possibility of forsaking ethics and just buying one license was always there. On the flip side, there's a 5-license "family pack" that would be nice and legit, and since we don't have 5 Macs (nor do we want to - maybe 3, maybe 4, but not 5!), there'd be room for expansion. And the family pack lists for $199, quite a bit less than even two individual $129 licenses.

But there's no academic pricing on the family pack in the US, while a single license can be had for $69, and since we're only actively using two Macs, $69 times two would be far less than $199. But what if we got more?

And then, of course, there was Amazon, which had mail-in rebates for $35 off a single retail box, or $50 off the family pack. And an offer for $30 off my first purchase made with an Amazon VISA card. With instant online approval.

So I wound up spending $169 ($199 minus $30) up front, and will get another $50 of that back, bringing my total cost for a family pack to $119, and my per-license cost to roughly $24. 5 licenses for $10 less than the list price of a single one is... acceptable.