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Comment by gks | Hacker News Reader

Am I reading this right? That Lion Server is included in the normal OS X Lion release?

That's pretty awesome if so. Means I'd be willing to fork over the cash for one of those Mac Minis to use for Calendar/Contact syncing instead of using MobileMe.

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Seems so, from the Apple page on Lion:

> Lion Server is now part of Mac OS X Lion.

Previously, only OS X Server was allowed to be virtualized (on Apple hardware). I wonder if Apple is going to open it up to everyone.

Probably not, but I really wish they would. It would make experimenting with programming kexts a lot less painful.

The developer program has always included the server versions.

At least it did up until they put out the iPhone developer program and didn't give the paid up Apple developers access without stumping up even more cash, which was the point where I rage-quit (would have been 2007 or 2008).

$500 -> $99. Depending on if you paid before or after the price change. Besides, $99 somethings gotta give. And all indications (atleast, recent indications) were pointing to Apple discontinuing the Server OS. Even though every version of OSX was basically server without the management tools, its good they brought the management to the desktop version.

I think another factor is that disk drives have gotten so large compared to your average *nix that it doesn't really make sense not to include everything anymore on a desktop machine. Which is not to say that stripped down versions don't still have their place, but on a machine with half or even a full terabyte standard, tossing out the kitchen sink is more work than it is worth.

Though note that the server software is a custom install option; i.e., it's not there by default.

Also note that Lion will be sold from the App Store, so physical discs (DVDs) are probably out. (They'll likely include one of those little flash drives with the new hardware with the install disk image on it.)

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