Well... I fall into the camp of
original media is your license to use the software. This is generally how Apple has (to date) dealt with such issues. The NDR (Non-Disclosure Agreement) became a non-issue with the release of the final product.
That having been said... getting Rhapsody depends on what you are looking for.
Rhapsody Developer Release (Rhapsody 5.0, PowerPC or Intel) Original media for this release is very rare to find these days. And applications to run on it are even rarer. This version is very very raw... and I (personally) rarely use it for anything. Unless you are a collector and are hunting down the original media for those reasons, I would suggest staying away from this version. It most likely will runyou around $150 on ebay (if you can find it).
Rhapsody Developer Release 2 (Rhapsody 5.1, PowerPC or Intel) This was arguably the most important release of Rhapsody. It has the foundations of all future releases (which gave developers the ability to start making Rhapsody apps) and it was the last OS release that Apple would let off their campus that would run on Intel hardware until Mac OS X v10.4.1 that came with the Developer Kit Systems. Be aware, developers had already started abandoning the Intel version of Rhapsody by this point in favor of using it on Apple hardware (Apple's 604ev and G3 based systems were way ahead of Intel PCs in performance at this point). This version is rare, but can be found from time to time (going for about $150 on ebay the last time I saw people bidding on it).
Rhapsody 1.0 (Rhapsody 5.2, PowerPC or Intel) If you can find this version, you have the Holy Grail of the NeXT/Apple OS releases... even more rare than the NEXTSTEP 4.0 Beta releases. To my knowledge this release never made it off Apple's campus, but was the foundation of both Mac OS X Developer Preview and Mac OS X Server. Parts of this release have been found by people within pre-1.0 Darwin releases. I think this falls under the category of priceless.
Mac OS X Server 1.0 (Rhapsody 5.3, PowerPC) The first public release of Rhapsody... was as a server. But that doesn't mean it has to be used as one (I've owned copies for years and only within the last couple months started using Mac OS X Server as a server). By not installing all the additional server software you get a very nice workstation OS. The first release had some bugs, so Apple released a couple patches... versions 1.0.1 and 1.0.2 (Rhapsody 5.4 and 5.5 respectively) which are free downloads from Apple. You really only need the 1.0.2 patch as it contains everything that was in the 1.0.1 patch. Due to a printing error, some media is labeled version 1.1 when it is actually still version 1.0. If you find this media, you'll still need the 1.0.2 patch. This version is running about $35 when you can find it.
Mac OS X Server 1.2 and 1.2v3 (Rhapsody 5.6, PowerPC) These were mainly hardware compatibility upgrades. These versions can be used on early PowerMac G4s. Also these versions come with Mac OS 8.6 in Blue Box (previous versions came with Mac OS 8.5). This is the version I personally spend the most time in. I have it installed on both a PowerMac 8600/300 (my primary Rhapsody system) and a PowerMac 7500/225 (formerly my primary Rhapsody system, now being used as a server). This version also runs about $35 today.
On the subject of applications, it should be noted that I've been using this operating system for years now... and like most long time users of any platform, I have a ton of apps. They are out there (and I've started mirroring many of them on my site).
For word processing I use TextEdit (which is what I use in Mac OS X too, so that shouldn't come as a surprise). For page layout, illustration and web design I use Create (version 5.1 on my ThinkPad and 10.0 on my 8600). For image editing/correcting I use ToyViewer, PixelNhance and TIFFany3. For image browsing I use ToyAlbum. For PDFs I use PDFview (and OmniPDF) and PStill (for distilling). I use Resound for sound editing and MacOSXAmp for playing MP3s. For e-mail I have MailViewer and FTP I use RBrowser. And I'm using OmniWeb for web browsing and HTML editing.
And of course I have games (some I cover
here).
As you can see, I have most of my needs covered. Any apps I need a license for, I have a license for. The others are freeware.
Also, I started down this path before most people even knew what Mac OS X was. I made my ThinkPad my primary mobile system (only running Rhapsody) to force myself to learn how to deal with any technical issue that popped up (had I use Rhapsody on a Mac, I could have retreated to the Mac OS... and I didn't want to give myself an out).
As for what it looks like when I'm working in Rhapsody, here are some examples of what I see...
