We had this before: Panther is not abandonware.

You are best off getting a pressed disc (i.e. manufactured) anyway, as they are more likely to boot and hold up longer than burned discs (even if burnt from an original pressed disc, rather than some questionable download from the Internet).

Available 2nd hand and new here
amazon.com/Mac-10-3-Panther-OLD-VERSION/dp/B0000E6NK9/ref=sr_1_1?s=software&ie=UTF8&qid=1323804122&sr=1-1
or you may be able to source a cheaper 2nd hand disc elsewhere.

I very much agree that Panther is not abandonware. But… what is abandonware? Is there a general consensus towards a definition for the term abandonware, as it is used and practiced here at the Garden?

[Edit#1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abandonware sums it up quite nicely. Still, a precise and confine definition about how we use abandonware here would make it much easier to participate.

We've had a few threads just discuss this question, with many varying views, some borrowed from the PC world (over 2 revisions old, over 4 years old, etc).
But for Mac we have to use some common sense, it's not just about hosting every single piece of old software, but preserving old software that needs to be preserved. So something that is not readily available is ONE of the key requirements. Older PC-Mac hybrid software that can be picked up for $2 on eBay or in PC game shops as "retro" titles would not qualify.
We also have to consider the original publisher, and multiple distributors (say one for US and one for Europe and one for R.O.W.) and if they would consider it worth their effort to stop us.
Some might want to draw a line at OS X, ie. no OS X software, or no Apple Software. But, "times, they are a changin", pre-OS X software is hard to find on Apple's website, consider all the OS9 updaters. Then consider iTunes, if you persever you can maybe find v8.2.1 (for G3 owners), v9.x and v10.x - there's no intermediate versions nor any of the older versions - which many want since it's before the bloat set in.
Before bashing others that may have a radically different view, personal perspective and needs will play a large part in this - I need an iMac G4 USB2 restore DVD image, International English preferred, impossible to source an original - so to me this is abandonware, but it contains Mac OSX 10.2.8.
If you have some software and are unsure, ask.

>>preface - in no way do I wish to alter the prevailing definitions of abandonware used here, nor do I wish to see the Garden expand to OS X<<

That having been said, I know from personal experience that old versions of OS X software are increasingly difficult to find - EVEN if you limit yourself to freeware and opensource (just try and find a Panther compatible version of Scribus for instance)

>>background - for the pure heck of it I decided to install Panther 10.3.9 on a partition of my old Titanium, initially just to have OS X for an emergency boot if OS 9 failed - but given my insatiable tendency to tweak I've been on a voracious hunt for Panther compatible software ever since ...yeah yeah I know Tiger is vastly superior but it resides on the partition of my MDD, so I didn't really need another version of it, plus I was curious about Panther...<<

Luckily there are some "Old Version" sites popping up, but so far they seem somewhat limited in their scope of interest - maybe they'll catch up - meanwhile, I guess I'm curious as to the Garden community's stance on affiliating with locations for old PPC apps? (I have collected a few links/sources myself but I hesitate to post them here because I am in total agreement with preserving the focus on Classic OS.) Perhaps I am just accustomed to the Garden being my "onestop shopping" default for old apps and have a purely selfish desire to simplify my own needs.

It's a given that OS X archiving creates huge problems - beyond legality & abandonware issues is the fact that there's just an overwhelming huge storage hogging amount of stuff out there - but in the same spirit of preservation that drives this site I would sure like to see some progress towards an OS X project.

Also it seems that, in the same way that OS 9 was left behind, PPC is near dead; as a quick unit of measure Adobe and Microsoft support is evaporating - are we drawing ever closer to the extension of the definition of abandonware (as used here) being almost universally applicable to Jaguar and Panther era apps?

Or do we have to wait for support for Snow Leopard (and hence Rosetta) to end?

Adding petrol to the fire, I tried to use Software Update on a fresh OSX 10.3.5 install on a partition of my 17" PBG4. This was just to get a list of the updates that needed to be applied, all of which I already have downloaded. It's now a no-go. It appears from Google searches that Software Update no longer responds to requests from OS X 10.3 and earlier. I can only guess that OSX 10.4 is next.

My plan B has worked a treat so far. I have a number of other Mac OSX 10.3.9 installation fully updated, plus the backup of /Library before I reformatted and started the install (I had to replace the failed original 100GB disk). So I was able to get a list of the packages I had installed from the contents of /Library/Receipts, sorted in Date order of course.

If anyone has a fully-update OSX 10.2.8 install, can they do the same ? Just list the contents of /Library/Receipts in date order ??

thank you bertyboy and MikeTomTom for weighing in - you both offer vast knowledge, support and enthusiasm, both personally to me and countless others here - one of the many reasons I love the Garden so much.

re: Panther Software Update - that scared me; I immediately went to Apple Support to make sure for myself the updates were still available (..they are - whew...) - but I guess in the future we will all need that receipts list so we can manually update ourselves (sadly I cannot supply the Jaguar list)

re: SnapClip - I will give it a look; it was just a couple of days ago I culled SnapnDrag 2.4 thru Wayback Machine though I was unable to find version 2.4.3 (last version for Panther I think.)

re: Scribus - I found 1.3.3.10 already but it looks like 1.3.3.11 was last version for Panther, which I could not find (except for Windows.)

This all reminds me of another problematic issue with OS X archiving - "last version" versus "best version." The fact that an older version is sometimes better (I'm sure we have all been frustrated by an "update" that removes features or stability) is the philosophy that drives oldversion.com, while oldapps.com organizes by operating system compatibility - both are fairly comprehensive so far as it goes, though they limit themselves in scope to only very popular albeit useful apps (not so much the small utilities that tweakers like myself tend to gravitate towards) - they are also very constrained by legal concerns - old versions of iTunes for instance (technically freeware, yes?) are not available there.

Anyway perhaps there is someone here reading this thread who is considering "stepping up to the plate" as it were to host a PPC site - it's probably OK that it would start out small - ultimately the number of contributions from within the membership would expand it rapidly. Plus I would think that the Garden offers an excellent template for organization, though the ability to search/sort by operating system might be a useful function.

Hey all. This is my first post on the Garden but I've know about it for awhile through HotuD.
I have about one month experience of using a MAC & it was OS 9.

I just purchased a 1ghz EMAC running 10.3.9 & what I really want to know from the more mac
experienced users here on the Garden is... What OS should I run?

I read this is still compatible with OS 9 should I downgrade & have the fastest OS 9 mac on the block?
Or if I go to 10.5 will It be compatible enough for a decent Internet machine

I really wanted to set it up with games & music recording software from the os x 3.9 era which seems no longer supported by anyone.

I know I can run Emulators for older software but I don't really want to.
The EMAC is going in my daughters room who has been using iPads all year at school.
So yeah I kind of want to keep her running native software for now?