Apple settles with one of three being sued for Tiger leak

Apple has reached a settlement with 22yo Doug Steigerwald, one of three men being sued for online distribution of the unreleased OS X 10.4 “Tiger” operating system. Specific details of the settlement have not been made available, although Apple does say that it definately involves money - they just don’t say how much. For all we know, Steigerwald may only be on the hook for a few pennies.

Since Steigerwald admitted his guilt, the only question has been how, if at all, he’d be held accountable for his actions. In an Apple-apprived prepared statement, which was mandated by the settlement terms, Steigerwald said “As a member of Apple’s Developer Connection program I received a pre-release version of Apple’s Mac OS X 10.4 ‘Tiger’ software, which I promised to keep confidential. Instead, I disseminated it over the Internet, and thousands of unauthorized copies of Apple’s software were illegally distributed to the public.”

While there are still criminal charges pending against the recent North Carolina State grad, Apple has stated that “it is not our desire to send students to jail.”

See TUAW’s previous coverage on this suit for background and some great links about this case:
DrunkenBlog Interviews Man Accused of Leaking Tiger Beta
Posted by Scott McNulty on 1/10/2005

Developers speak out against Apple’s Tiger Leak Lawsuit
Posted by Scott McNulty on 2/22/2005

For a really good time, head directly over to this DrunkenBlog post, where you can see me get a good flaming in the comments for doubting the overall truthfulness and intelligence of one of the accused.