It would still cost $79.99 and the validation server will shutdown 1 month after you buy it with the option of extending the security patches for only 399.99¢. Oh, sorry thought we was talking about windows.
You used to be able to order free discs of all Ubuntu variants. I remember having discs of dapper drake, edgy eft, and feisty fawn. You could order up to 10 and they would just show up in your mailbox for free to give all your friends so you could have workspaces to avoid getting in trouble at school.
This is how I got my first Ubuntu isos. In 2006ish I had a bondi blue iMac G3 that I got from a friend. I wanted to put Linux on it but my Internet was pretty meh so I ordered the Ubuntu disks for all three supported architectures at the time. I never got it running on that iMac because it would kernel panic while loading from the disk.