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PearPC Trying to Sue CherryOS
Varg Vikernes writes "PearPC developers are taking in donations to sue Maui X-Stream, the developers of the MAC emulator software CherryOS. There have been allegations that CherryOS is nothing more than PearPC code, which is open-source, but with a GUI attached to it. One of the PearPC developers tried to get in contact with someone from Maui X-Stream, but eventually were told to "speak with an Attorney" about the allegations. "
It might be worthwhile mentioning that CherryOS (PearPC) is not a "MAC" (sic) emulator, but rather a general PowerPC architecture and motherboard emulator. PearPC presents itself as such. However, CherryOS markets and specifically targets itself at Mac OS X. Unfortunately, Apple's Mac OS X license agreement specifically states it can only be installed on an Apple-branded computer. Aside from the PearPC issues, CherryOS is a commercial product actively encouraging its users to break Apple's Mac OS X license agreement. And yes, this license agreement is binding: that's why no one makes clones. (And no, Apple "ROMs" are no longer required. Haven't been for ages.)
Funnily enough, Maui X-Stream president Jim Kartes said:
We are building an emulator like they are that uses Mac language. PearPC uses Mac language and next thing you know, they say we are using their code. This is a totally different architecture.
This comment makes no sense. "PearPC uses Mac language" has no meaning, and is, if anything, indicative of the fact that this company does not fundamentally understand the operation of innards of their product, which isn't surprising, since they didn't create it. PearPC is essentially a PowerPC motherboard emulator, which emulates a PowerPC processor, and various necessary elements of a PowerPC motherboard. I think what Kartes is trying to claim is that because PearPC and CherryOS do the same thing, it's no surprise that they'd appear similar. This claim is absurd, because the evidence is overwhelming that CherryOS is using PearPC as the emulation engine. CherryOS is essentially a graphical wrapper for PearPC, which does nothing more than pass instructions to PearPC and execute PearPC within itself. It tries to conceal, rather poorly, that PearPC is what's running underneath. Aside from the proof of very unique shared strings and symbols above, CherryOS also shares PearPC's featureset, or lack thereof in the case of support for sound and networking, and even PearPC's specific bugs. In sum, any claim that CherryOS and PearPC would share unique strings, variable names, and symbols simply because they're both emulators is ridiculous. Also, saying "Mac language" is really irrelevant because, aside from not making sense, PearPC (and CherryOS) doesn't have anything to do with the Mac or "Mac language". It's a *PowerPC* emulator. The fact that a Mac operating system runs on it is incidental; PearPC (and CherryOS) doesn't contain or use anything that could be referred to as "Mac language".
eWeek has a general overview of the situation:
http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,1775386,00.as p
Below is a comprehensive collection of evidence, which runs the gamut from CherryOS including original PearPC graphics, extremely unique strings and error messages, debug code from PearPC, the same unique MAC address as PearPC's default network adapter (of which there are approximately 184884258895036416 different combinations), shared specific functionality, including bugs, and so on, not to mention code from other GPL projects:
http://www.ht-technology.com/cherryos-pearpc/cherr yos-pearpc.html
http://www.drunkenblog.com/drunkenblog-archives/00 0501.html
http://www.drunkenblog.com/drunkenblog-archives/00 0503.html
http://www.drunkenblog.com/drunkenblog-archives/00 0504.html
http://www.drunkenblog.com/drunkenblog-archives/00 0507.html
As a GPL developer I understand that the GPL needs court cases to maintain validity. So I donated $15. Please consider doing the same.
Obligatory corny fruit joke:
There's not a valid suit there...it's like comparing apples to oranges!
Badum-chh!
I justed donated.
I'd like to see the GPL tested over this a bit more. It just adds one more opinion in future events.
That and this guy blatenly misuses GPL'd code repeatedly and then has the audacity to tell the world that he wrote it all.
Proceed with Format (Y/N)? Y
yeah, this is gonna be a test of the GPL. EFF, step forward. epic battle of intellectual property the way we define it, against the way they define it. americans, put away your guns.
coders, continue prepping releases. the point of open source is that things never get stale. if cherryOS is a ripoff today, ain't nothin' stoppin' PearOS from doing another point release in upgrade, and surfing their stupid PR blunder into fame...
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
That annoys me so much I could strangle a manatee in the nude.
Do not touch -Willie
Because, that would be different.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
the Apple.
keanmarine.com
that's one disfunctional fruit salad...
Rise up in the cafeteria and STAB them with your plastic forks!
You give more and more power to companies to "defend their IP" and you end up having the little guy run over like this. When CherryOS originally came out it was booting verbatim like PearPC and now you have this. They stole the PearPC developers' code and now costly litigation will probably be necessary. On top of that, where is the liability for those who may have funded the company responsible here?
There was a case recently where a small American company got royally screwed over by Toshiba too. Toshiba took the technology that was being developed for flash memory and practically gave it to San Disk. Does the government itself go tooth and nail after the big company? Of course not because "we can't punish the entire company for a few men's actions..."
Since most of the innovation comes from small time companies and individuals, those are the ones that the government should be putting the most effort into protecting from theft of their hard work. That means better protection from big companies using IP to crush them so they can rape and pillage the innovations of the smaller companies.
Click here or a puppy gets stomped!
I'm totally with the developer here, but look at this:
Notice, if you're paying attention, even if they comply with the GPL now, they're still in violation of my copyright.
He tries to revoke the license just for them retroactively. I don't think that is possible, is it?
Of course it runs NetBSD. BTC: 1NT7QvbetmANwaMzhpVL6
There is a difrence between copying a song by *band* and letting your mate hear it
and letting your mate hear a song by *band*, trying to sell it to him whilst saying you made it
The only things certain in war are Propaganda and Death. You can never be sure which is which though
...take a look at this. [In Internet time it's kinda old, March 16.]
In this case, the people responsible for this are selling the product of another, not just using it for their own collection (which they would be all right with).
It would be a different situation if the RIAA were, for example, suing people who burn pirated music and sell it.
So Apple has a signed contract from all of the customers who bought OS X off the shelf in a retail outlet? Unless you can provide an example of existing precedent, EULAs are still non-binding.
The reason there are no clones is because Apple won't sell OS X in a form that can be easily installed in a production environment. It would be uneconomical for a clone maker to buy boxes of OS X to get the install CDs and license documents.
I am becoming gerund, destroyer of verbs.
Where's PacMan when you need him?
PearPC has been a very big deal to me for a long time. What Arben and MauiX are doing is wrong. Funny thing is they had a chance to step to the plate. A commercial app based off PearPC was never out of the question. They just chose to go about it the wrong way. The community backing PearPC would have (most anyway) supported someone packaging a commercial app derived from PearPC as long as they followed the GPL it was released under. Instead this company has chosen to lie and attempt to hide the facts. It's a fight they can't win, but they are for whatever reason determined to do so.
So if you are a PearPC supporter... I would suggest lending any help you can...
and if not... then as a supporter of the GPL any help you can is needed as well.
"why don't you just slip into something more comfortable...like a coma!"
No, the problem is that I've never seen anyone here go to great lengths to rationalize and justify this type of copyright infringement. But when Slashbork posts the *AA-story-of-the-week you can browse at +5 and read the most mind-bending, self-serving "commentary" about why copyright is "evil", the *AA sucks, the artists are getting screwed and "we're sticking it to the man so fire up eMule and let's get it on". To claps and assenting nods from the peanut gallery. Time and time again.
Copyright is copyright. The GPL exists to counter the idea of copyright and gets its "teeth" as it were from it as well. If everyone is going to ask for blood when the GPL is violated somehow (by ignoring the force of the of the work's original creator copyright) then maybe everyone could also cry foul when someone tries to call infringement "fair use" because it happens to be music instead of source code.
/. roots for the underdog.
-If the GPL wins, everybody wins except the greedy corps. (unless they use\contribute to GPL software.)
-IF the xxAA wins, fat middlemen get a new mansion for exploiting artists.
Either way, it's greed vs. advancing human kind.
Obama's legacy: (N)othing (S)ecure (A)nywhere and (T)error (S)imulation (A)dministration
think about it.
CherryOS is an attempt(allegedly) to make money off a gift given to society via GPL without giving credit where credit is due.
P2P mp3 downloaders are breaking the law, no doubt about that, but only when they download copyrighted works.
However, they are downloading something that is overpriced, and something for which they may have
a "right" to download. what if they own the cd? what if they own it, but they lost it or broke it? they paid for the right to listen to it.
"Trying" to sue?
Sue, or sue not. There is no try.
There's a difference between copying and plagiarism.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
I hope you chickenfuckers /.'ing the site are actually donating, because you're preventing me from doing so.
mstyne: real name, no gimmicks
Don't sue them wait till they make money THEN SUE THEM!
:P Percentage or returns based on percentage of lawyer fees, and tell that guy to GO FOR THE THROAT!
Since it's a blatant copy you should be able to get 100% of profits and force them to take it off the market.
Though Evil I don't understand why they should be taking donations from nice stupid people, rather than taking the money from people who buy open source software, questionably nice stupid people.
I mean aren't lawsuits supposed to MAKE MONEY?
Let people invest in the lawsuit
... Pear sues Cherry over Apple emulation. Film at Eleven.
This is my post. There are many others like it. If you don't like what you read here, go try one of the others.
"MAC", in all capitals, stands for Media Access Control, and is the hardware address of your Ethernet card.
"Mac" is short for "Macintosh", which is the computer made by Apple.
Call me a stickler but I believe there is just as good a reason for this convention to be enforced as there is for the difference between "KB","Kb","kb", and "kB" to be enforced. Reply if you really need me to elaborate further.
CAn'T CompreHend SARcaSm?
We got similar advise once. One of our supposed 'distribution partners' tried to license a product of ours, under their own name.
They walked away from the deal, started selling a different product under that name, but claimed our performance numbers (this was a fire supression chemical), and even quoted our test results, for a totally dissimilar product!
One of our legal staff advised us, "It's going to be a terrible pain to sue them. Rather, continue selling your products, use the same marketing literature, and 'copy-cat' them right back. Force them to sue you, if they dare."
The PearPC community should do this to CherryOS. Create a gui, that matches CherryOS exactly.
Release it as CherryOS Plus. Even use the same name. If they have the balls to take you to court, lots of interesting things will have to be revealed in discovery.
It'll cost you the same amount in lawyer fees, but it'll cost them much more. (Easier to defend, especially in a GPL question, where discovery will reveal the code).
WhiteWolf666 an exBush supporter. All you new-school,compassionate,save the children Republicans can rot in hell
If there were no copyright, then what CherryOS is doing to PearPC would be perfectly fine. Copyright exists in part to prevent just this sort of thing.
straight from the horses mouth
the link even includes reference to the software used for the comparison.
The test was conducted using UltraCompare, a standard tool for application comparison. The test used CherryOS 1.2 and PPC 0.4 Pre as the basis for comparison. The UltraCompare test works by running through every possible process of the application. The results show the matching number of bytes and gives a consensus on whether the core architectures of the two products are the Same, Similiar or Different. As you will see from the results below, CherryOS and PearPC are radically different products.
apparently running "diff pearPC.exe cherryOS.exe" is all you need to do.
ironically, the screenshot included on the page appears to me to be more evidence that they include similarities. something that, in the binary, is even more damning.
and no, the UltraCompare site shows no evidence that it can "[run] through every process of the application"
-- i am jack's amusing sig file
You're confused. Maybe you've been reading The Stallman Diaries too much.
If copyright didn't exist then the GPL (and pretty much any other use or distribution license) would be unenforceable. That is, the limitations imposed by the GPL in terms of distribution would not stand. So anyone could anything with your code. That "plenty of people" can give software away and still eat is because of copyright enforcement.
Hope that helps.
There is a fundamental difference, though it doesn't necessarily excuse our behavior :)
Works that are GPL'd start out free and open, and we strive to keep it that way.
Copyrighted works start out as proprietary and (sometimes) not free, and are vigorously defended.
Basically the Slashdot crowd's emotional response is not to the copyrighting involved but to the idea that "information wants to be free"... whatever that means.
-Robert
Actually, it is the point.
The reason people have different reactions to these same two violations of IP law is that the violators in one case are not making money, and the violators in the other case are.
While they are both breaking the same law, there's no reason that we have to feel the same about the lawbreaking. Just like we'd want to let off a person that steals bread to feed their family, but want to lock up the Enron executives. Both stole.
Why sould you distinguish between the two? Stealing is stealing. Since you make a distinction between the two, how do you define rich and poor? What if some poor soul has the same attitude, sees you as rich, and then steals from you?
I just don't get it - who is advising Maui X-Stream? Why would the company be so dumb as to do this? Complying wouldn't hurt them at all - in fact, it could help them, and save them money as well.
Consider: they could easily go the Apple route and built a proprietary GUI for Pear PC, while releasing their modified PearPC under the GPL and contributing their changes upstream to the original project. All this would require would be for them to post the source code for their modified PearPC on their site. Apple took this development approach with OS X (FreeBSD) and Safari (Konqueror). Probably as many people would buy CherryOS - no sales lost. But the PearPC developers would be pleased instead of litigious because they'd get development support from a company. And the company would be on friendly terms with the project, so they'd be able to work together to get the features they need for CherryOS implemented in the core project. Those features would be carried on in future versions of PearPC, ensuring that everyone has the same updates - in other words, it would be as if Maui X-Stream has more developers, without having to pay them. Money saved. Everyone happy.
Whoever told the PearPC folks to "speak with an Attorney" should be given his or her pink slip. The company is throwing out an opportunity to save money on development, and at the same time it is steering toward a long lawsuit they'll likely lose. Where do I sign up to be their strategic consultant? I never would have thought it, but I guess I'm qualified.
"Without copyright, there would be virtually no creation. The only artists and creative people doing any work would be those sponsored by corporations who sell physical things, those who are independently wealthy, and those who have other means of supporting themselves. The only produced would be part time amateur works. The professional artist would fade away."
Nonsense. Copyright is a relatively new invention of mankind and creation has gone on for thousands of years.
evil is as evil does
Cherry OS pretty much sucks right now--it'll probably die on the vine anyway.
People buy things because of their belief they'll satisfy a want. There are plenty of people who want to run Mac OS X on their PC. They'll do a search for such a product, and come up with one "hit": CherryOS.
For every hundred people who find Maui-X's Web site this way -- and give them money based on the best information they have -- maybe one of them will also read Slashdot or some other forum where geeks say, "CherryOS sux0rs!"
Don't kid yourself: Geekdom is a laughably insignificant factor in how consumer technology decisions are made. Geek influence correlates to the geekiness of the product.
But the benefits CherryOS promises are NOT primarily geeky. Their tagline: "Experience Mac OS X on your PC". You don't need a CS degree to understand that.
Tom Geller
I'm not sure what your lawyer was smoking but you don't cure copyright infringment by committing it yourself. You just allow the other side to remove their damages from what you would have been awarded and opened yourself up to other counterclaims and nasty defenses like "unclean hands" which could result in you being unable to pursue the case.
It's much better to take the high road and get a good lawyer. Hopefully one will be willing to do it pro-bono or at least on contingency. Their donations should be able to cover court filing fees and document duplication costs (well, I hope). Maybe the FSF or the OSDN could assist them with the GPL aspects.
Please also consider donating to the RIAA to see their intellectual property protected.
The RIAA seems to be doing just fine protecting their intellectual property without need of donations.
Many p2p file sharers blatantly misuse copyrighted music repeatedly and then have the audacity to share those mp3 files with the world.
The RIAA sues individual infringers, just as PearPC may sue CherryOS.
Remember, kids: it's copyright law which allows the enforcement of the GPL. It's copyright law which allows the RIAA to enforce its rights. You can't have one without the other.
There is one thing you can have without the other. It is possible to have copyrights, and licensing without having evil price fixing cartels that conspire to keep artists poor, while using their obscene profits to lobby for infinite term copyright laws, criminalizing software tools, DMCA, DRM, etc.
I think the moral, ethical and financial (as far as donations) differences between the RIAA and PearPC are night and day different.
Those who would give up liberty in exchange for security and DRM should switch to Microsoft Palladium!
The most striking piece of this article, for me, was the comment that when a PearOS developer tried to contact someone at the offending company's offices, they were just dismissed summarily with a "go talk to an attorney" response.
In recent months I have dealt with someone who gave me two similar responses (not related to the GPL, but a bounced check). First he asked "well, since you've got my address, why don't you just come out here and arrest me?" Next in an online conversation he suggested I take his firm "I'll never honor that check" answer to the district attorney. Then, when he got the certified letter from me trying to resolve the problem without involving a court, he messaged me online inviting me to file the suit, even offering to give me a list of lawyers to consult.
I'm amazed people still bluff like this -- he says "go on, then, sue me!" ... it's a no brainer to respond "um, okay, here's the suit" (I filed suit March 1, and take him to small claims April 11).
This CherryOS thing is clear-cut. It's as much a no-brainer as a bounced check small claims case is. The people working at this company have to know this. There's no conceivable way every person at that company (particularly the legal team, if it exists :) could honestly believe they have a unique, new product. There's no conceivable way this guy I'm suing can "win" the case -- a bounced check is actionable by itself regardless of circumstance (not that there are any).
There are only three possibilities in both these instances: 1) they're hoping we won't call their bluffs by actually filing suit, 2) they actually honestly think some magic loophole will save them, or 3) they really are as stupid as they seem.
Actually, I suppose there's a fourth option: they never plan to pay a judgment when they lose. It's easy for me; sell the judgment to a collection agency for 70% of its value, move on (punitive damages will still make it worth the trouble and the cut). For PearOS, it might be harder. If they actually win a judgment, there could be an appeal process (probably will be), and by the time that's over with, even when PearOS emerges triumphant, there won't be money left in the defendant company (or it'll just file for bankruptcy) to take. Hurrah, justice is served, or something.
I don't really know how to pick the most likely outcome here except, I suppose, to just wait and see.
Read my stuff.
The elements of contract are:
- Offer
- Acceptance
- Consideration
So, if I walk into a retailer and they offer OS X under terms that I am willing to accept, and I give them the amount of money (consideration) they asked for, when we have a contract. Any additional terms or conditions that the seller wishes to assert after I've agreed to the stated terms of the sale are completely unenforceable. Suppose someone were to purchase a Chevy floormat from a dealer, then when they go to add Calvin urinating on the logo and put it in their Ford pickup, they find a GM EULA that says they can't use it that way. I can't imagine an attorney that would prosecute that one.[100% ISO 646 Compliant]
SVM, ERGO MONSTRO.