While researching a story about Apple letting users run Leopard in a virtualized environment, I came across some interesting language in the software's license agreement. Who knew you can't use Leopard to run a nuclear power plant, or a 747?The end user license agreement for the server version of Leopard, aka OS X 10.5, contains this list of restrictions.

Leopard is "not intended for use in the operation of nuclear facilities, aircraft navigation or communication systems, air traffic control systems, life support machines or other equipment in which the failure of the Apple software could lead to death, personal injury or severe physical or environmental damage."

Apple is concerned about environmental damage? Didn't Greenpeace just discover that the iPhone is loaded with nasty chemicals?

Anyhow, it seems Apple CEO Steve Jobs just doesn't want the liability that might arise if Leopard were to be installed in, say, the radar system that tracks planes going in and out of JFK airport.

I'm not sure if the EULAs for previous versions of the Mac OS contain these restrictions, but I'm sure the blogosphere will let me know.

By imposing these limits, is Jobs just doing his, uh, job and protecting Apple shareholders from lawsuits filed by the victims of, say, a meltdown at a nuclear plant that was running Macs?

Or is he wimping out?

I mean, what if Microsoft and all the Linux and Unix vendors imposed the same restrictions. On what software would the nation's critical infrastructure run -- BeOS?