Steve Jobs directly confirmed to one questioner that Apple would charge for its 802.11n enabler for existing Macintoshes. A reader who prefers to remain anonymous forwarded to Glenn Fleishman of Wi-Fi Networking News the mail he sent to Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO, and the reply he received. He included mail headers so that I can confirm the mail is legitimate.
The reader asked Jobs whether press reports were in error that Apple would charge $5 for an “enabler” that would turn on the 802.11n functions in most Core 2 Duo and Xeon systems shipped in 2006. Jobs replied, simply, “It’s the law,” which would confirm that the Sarbanes-Oxley requirement that seemed bizarre to me is, in fact, correct.