Slashdot Mirror
Apple to Lock OSXi to Apple Hardware
spac writes "It seems that Apple has chosen to use the Trusted Platform Module chip to ensure that Mac OS X can only run on Apple Hardware. The report from vnunet states that the chips contain a unique identifier, which can be used to determine the manufacturer of a PC as well as facilities for data encryption. "
... how is apple going to profit from piracy?
Tell me you didn't read this, and then the posted article. You did post both, Taco, cause you are the editor of both....
Good quote, too many chars. Seriously, the slashdot 120 char limit sucks!
Apple, might be changing their system design , but they are CERTAINLY not changing their business model.
Were there any people out there with a clue who DIDNT think this would happen ?
Expect software workarounds (Darwin is OS afterall) or "Mod Chips" about 1 week after release.
Good luck!
Honestly though, if the net outcome is that Macs get faster processors, and more often, that could be a good thing.
while this is true, the single biggest reason for this obvious move is this: apple is a hardware company.
since the mac came out, and even before, apple has been using revenue from hardware sales to support os development. if millions of home users stampede to emachines discount boxes for their os x platform then, apple's real source of revenue will dissappear.
and then there'll be no os x.
2 1337 4 u!
Or, witht he way things are today, it'll be unlocked and all over the place a week before the "golden masters" are pressed. Only time will tell, but ther is NO way that software can be successfully locked down 100%. Anyone betting on that as a business strategy is playing russian roulette with a loaded gun.
Seriously though, this is a reasonable move for Apple to ensure that the look, feel and reliability of the MacOS does not become corrupted for some users who may want to install OS X on "lower quality hardware".
I think a more likely explanation is that they want to continue grossly overcharging for Apple hardware to increase their profits. People pay extra for Apple stuff, and they know this. Why would they cut themselves out of that by allowing third-party hardware?
All three seem reasonable to me. The combination would definatly stop the casual users (until someone figured how to simulate it all in a VMWare type environment, which I would think would take awhile).
Comment forecast: Bits of genius surrounded by a sea of mediocrity.
In my opinion, I expect that there will be some contingent of shady users attempting to hack OS X to run on commodity hardware. I actually look forward to this, but I think that Apple will care little about this because of the small number of users who will bother with this. If installing OS X on commodity hardware is possible, but non-trivial, Apple stands to lose very little (and perhaps even gain a tiny bit more market share from the /. crowd).
I think you're right on the money with regards to content protection.
As much as apple claims that they don't see a market for portable video, I believe that is exactly what they are driving themselves towards. It's obvious that iPod is their premiere device, and to keep that product fresh and desirable as a lifestyle accessory, they're going to have to eventually incorporate video.
Incorporating video will then beget the potential for an online iTunes Video Store, and thus more revenue and market share for apple.
Apple has constantly said there is no market for portable video because the content isn't there. The truth is more likely that the assurance isn't there yet to guarantee that hollywood/broadcast companies will retain some sense of control of their product. A rigid hardware/software solution to ensure the protection of content will facilitate the partnership between Apple and media at large.
Apple has to build a cop to guard the door before they can open the video store.
:::: the insomniac's digest
There was a study a few years ago that asserted that OVER 65% of Microsoft Windows installations were pirated copies. This means that more than half of their market share is due to piracy.
If someone pirates Windows (or OSX) and puts it on their machine, they'll become comfortable with it. They'll use it. They'll tweak it. They'll download tools and applications to make it useful. They may even go upgrade the machine (RAM, vide card, whatever). They may even go PURCHASE applications for it.
The key here is, they're NOT using your competitor's OS on the same machine (in most cases). That gives you an advantage, even if you did lose the $129.00 sale on a Tiger purchase.
But back on track, I documented exactly this last week. Wow, some blogger reads Slashdot, takes our insight, writes up a blog as if he thought of it, and now he's famous?
Nice. This trend about using blogs to report the news, when blogs are nothing but plagarizing, content-recycling engines, is pretty hilarious.
Windows 2000 didn't have Windows Product Activation ("WPA") and the "corporate" site license versions of XP don't have it either.
Bill Clinton: Pimp we can believe in. - The Shirt!!!
to crack hardware while software cracking is just a matter of time. Imagine you could get OS X to boot you still need to write a driver for your video card. Anyone who has used Linux knows how poor the open source drivers are for the latest brand of video cards. Also would these drivers be illegal? Who is going to write them? It's not like cracking a registration code where some college student or amature can use a hex editor. This is some serious stuff.
I'm sure people will be successful in getting OS X to boot on a non-native Apple intel. However what about sound cards, video cards, ethernet, wireless, mouse, etc. And would these attempts at non-native Apple driver production be illegal?
The best education consists in immunizing people against systematic attempts at education. - Paul Feyerabend
I thought that this sort of tying of one product to another wasn't actually legal? Please correct me if I have misunderstood.
Easier/cheaper to use the standard architecture rather than re-invent the wheel.
They may also see the dual booting to windows as an advantage that brings in former windows users (like me).
This could be the first "major" hardware that includes solid, next-generation DRM.
It'll be interesting to see if it can/will be cracked as easily as some on this site believe..
As an EE-type person it appears to me that hardware can be protected to a much larger degree than today; after all the only reasons why the XBOX and various other consoles were cracked is because their pcbs included debug solder points and various busses were exposed on the surface layer..
Amateur mistakes that won't be made the second time around.
NOTHING (including Apple itself) says Apple WILL be using this.
The article says apple COULD or MIGHT use this to lock Mac OS X to its own hardware; nothing more. They have no inside or special information - they're simply speculating on how Apple MIGHT lock Mac OS X to its own hardware IF it so desired. Apple also MIGHT not do anything of the sort, and simply limit Mac OS X to Apple hardware via the EULA, non-support on non-Apple hardware, lack of drivers, etc. (And this is news how, exactly?)
but i disagree with you. *nothing* is going to create a situation where "there'll be no os x." There are far too many people who are firmly entrenched into Mac OS X.. your comment is absurd. Even if Cupertino fell into the Pacific, the Apple community would keep OS X going.
I believe Apple will grow substantially by opening Mac OS X to commodity hardware. how much revenue will apple honestly bring in on hardware in the long-term? there is a small, one-time margin on hardware sales. they then make money continuously by selling upgrades to their operating system and to their other software assets.
IMHO Apple will foster long-term growth by embracing the larger installed hardware base of the Intel platform. My prediction, however, is that it will begin as a closed system, branching quickly into licensed partners... eg a Gateway or HP or SGI (who knows?) box that is Mac OS X Certified. But success in this area (which I believe is a given) will dictate that Apple open themselves up to the wider clone market, the Computer Shopper types.
I suppose we'll all just have to wait and see how long Apple sticks to being a "hardware company". :)
Can you show us some examples of hardware that *spec for spec* is grossly overpriced compared to name brand PC box sellers?
Apple isn't grossly overcharging for most of its hardware. This is a myth. Yes, it is more expensive, and you can dig and find some dirt cheap-ass PC to compare it to argue how horrible the pricing is, but the reality is that Apple's prices are fairly competitive, when you factor in not just a barebones system, but the software and additional functionality .. especially in the mid-to-high end of the market.
And if you don't like their prices -- don't buy a Mac. What? You want the full Mac experience but don't want to pay for it? So you want the full BMW M6 driving experience, but want to pay the cost of a Ford Focus? That's your problem, not Apple's (or BMW).
I really don't consider the Apple pricing to be unreasonable considering the fit and finish of the components. The pricing of Powermacs is in line with Opteron and Xeon workstations, but is generally quieter.
The Powermac's case uses 1/8" thick aluminum sheet for the side plates, 3/32" thick between them. Heck, even the Mac mini uses a pound of aluminum. The components inside these things look top-notch to me, without the corner cutting known to the budget PC industry.
Apple is no longer a hardware company. You're living in the past, like they have been for the last 5 years.
Think about it. They don't make their own processors, graphics cards, memory, hard drives, fans, cords, peripherals, etc.
They get companies to make this stuff for them, they package it up, and sell it for a decent profit.
Aside from using a different architecture (which doesn't change the end user experience that much), the only thing that really sets a mac apart from a pc, is the software.
Apple is ALL ABOUT software. They themselves are now just starting to realize this.
Hell even the iPod... what truly separates it from other players? Yeah the hardware is good, and it looks slick, but it's the interface. And iTunes.
I guarantee you with OSX x86 in place, Apple's hardware business could completely dissapear and they will make more money than they ever have in the history of Apple computers.
Apple makes next to nothing on its software sales. In fact, some of its products are sold at a loss. The lion's share of Apple's revenue comes from hardware sales.
Bzzzt! Somebody has bought the copyright cartel's line hook line and sinker.
The only way a company can lose money on [i]additional[/i] software sales is if they sold the software for less than the price of delivery. Software development is a fixed cost. Once it is finished, additional sales are pure profit minus distribution costs.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
apple is a hardware company
Apple is a platform company. Apple brand is based on a user "experience". Both the hardware and software are designed as complimentary components to an integrated platform. Seperating the hardware and software will hurt the Apple brand as a whole.
D6 63 0D 70 89 81 BB 8E 7B 7C 5F 5D 54 EA AB 73
if millions of home users stampede to emachines discount boxes
Typical home users will do no such thing, they like to have a supported platform.
For get all untrusted computing platform crap - all Apple has to do is say "OSX is only supported on boxes x, y and z" and then only the fringe will go to emachines (or homebrew) and try to run it on non apple hardware.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
Though interesting as this info is, I can't find a reference anywhere in this analysis that validates Gartner's claims. I think this should be taken with a large grain of Sodium Nitrate.
perl -e "eval pack(q{H*},join q{},qw{70 72696e74207061636b28717b482a7d2c717b343 637323635363534323533343430617d293b})"
I suggest maybe you spend some time in the trenches of the software industry. You statement is laughable on it's face.
]additional[/i] software sales is if they sold the software for less than the price of delivery
Wrong, just plain wrong.
Software today has a cost that grows with each copy sold. Software today is virtually never "done".
Prime example: you have 100 users of a software package, and you sell it. A user finds a security bug. You fix it in a few days, test it, and e-mail the users the fix. Problem solved. No extra cost. Now, you have 8 million users. A user find a security bug. You fix it in a few days, and 8 million users download it from your site. The patch is only 250K, small by most standards, that's a big chunk of bandwidth. You are obligated to support that patch. It breaks some stuff. Your phone lines are jammed. People are pissed. But still, it cost you nothing other than a few bucks in bandwidth and maybe a little goodwill.
Wrong in both cases. In both cases the person doing the fixes lost the opportunity to do other work. The time spent on the fixes is lost forever to the engineers. If it is a really significant bug it could take dozens or a hundred people to prepare the fix - from programmers to testers to QA to legal to webmasters to documentation experts to channel partners to vendors to hardware suppliers to PR. All of which has a significant and non-trivial cost. Meanwhile, while your users are calling support - even if rare - your phone people are denied the opportunity to help another user which has a ral cost.
"Pure profit minus distribution" may have been true when software was updated once every 2 years, if that. But today, between bugfixes, securtiy updates, feature "fixes", etc software is not "done". It is very much an ongoing effort.
That figure of speech has never made sense to me. Why would I want to have a cake and not be able to eat it? Do I just want to let it sit and rot?
Anyhow, the "Big Brother" ad is 21 years old now. I can't imagine holding any person or company to a standard for that long, because it denies them a chance to change their opinion, for better or worse.
You are a Mac Zealot are you not? How dare you to defend Apple to produce something that is actually worth it's money?
Okay, all kidding aside: I agree. I look at my Powerbook, Powermac and Cinemadisplay and I do not feel like I got ripped off.
Three weeks ago I was arm deep in the guts of my cheapo Linux File Server and I once again realized just how ugly the majority of PCs are. The replacing of a harddisk alone takes forever, on the Powermac? 2 Seconds, slide in disk, plug in cables, lower lock. Done.
Memory? Same thing. Open Case (no Screwdriver), take out the plastic side panel, pull Fan Assembly, put in Memory, plug in Fan Assembly, put in side panels, power on.
On the PC? Unscrew case, remove the HDD Cage as the memory bank just HAPPNES to be half way under it, make sure to unplug all cables because they are running all across the main board, then put in memory and reverse the whole thing. Takes me roughly 4x as long to upgrade the RAM in a standard PC than in the Mac.
But I guess some peoples time is just not worth anything.
If you want to e-mail me, use my PGP Key.
Dream on, Kemosabe.
Slashdot's editors have never applied journalistic integrity standards to themselves, and never will. Given the amount of traffic
They make money by the boatload doing what they're doing. There's no evidence that integrity would improve their situation. QED.
I stole this sig from someone cleverer than me.
OK, so when will MacOSX be "finished"? Or is 10.4 the final release ever?
Your statement is so completely and utterly untrue it amazes me. PC hardware is the business where profit margins continue to shrink, being a software company is still incredibly profitable (see MS, Adobe, Google etc). I think if Jobs would get off his high horse and actually cede some control over his little empire, Apple would stand to earn a ton more money. Imagine, OSX competing directly with Windows XP for the average user. Picture this: a consumer walks into Best Buy or wherever and sees 2 identically priced and spec'd machines, 1 running OSX, 1 running XP. What do you think they will choose?
Personally, I think Apple locking into their proprietory hardware is a bad move, and all about Jobs being an insane control freak. Maybe back in the clone years, when Apple actually was a hardware company they almost went under due to allowing 3rd party Macs, but today it is a totally different environment.
I understand your point but normal journalists has been doing this since forever. In the old days they read each others papers and rewrote the stories.
A few years ago I read a Danish major news paper along with NYT / Herald Tribune. You could find unaccredited articles in the Danish paper that were almost a verbatim translation of something I had read a few days earlier..
Same thing with regional papers. Blogs are just a faster medium.
Help fight continental drift.
Get a clue, Apple could care less what you think. You are not their market. Go ahead and stay planted in 2005. Personally, I could care less. I deal with computers enough at work. At home I just want it to work. When my new PB 15" is ready to be replaced, I'll stick with Apple. Screw tinkering on Linux at home.
are we honestly saying that software should have an inflated cost because they didn't finish the process during the beta stage. I understand that you can't find every bug, but claiming that developers are LOSING something when they debug is bunk. Developers often spend many hours debugging code, and it's not time that should have went elsewhere.
Remove *your pants* to send me email.
I don't say that I'm necessarily right about that, just take it as food for thought.
I don't think that's really true. Balancing the possible loss of hardware profits is the potential gain of enormous software profits. Think about how many people right now are incredibly frustrated with Windows viruses and spyware. Many of those people would be eager to shell out good money for a highly functional, good looking OS that doesn't suffer from those problems, and Apple is in a perfect position to sell it to them. Apple has a real chance to increase their OS market share by an order of magnitude, and the potential profits from that are far greater than any loss of hardware revenue they'd be likely to suffer.
I think that the real problem is that Microsoft would crush Apple like a bug if they tried. Any OS is only as good as the applications it runs, and OSX still depends heavily on Microsoft applications like Office. Microsoft has only to let the release of Office for OSXi slip indefinitely to destroy its market. It doesn't even matter that Microsoft would easily lose Apple's inevitable anti-trust suit, since both sides know that the company would be long dead before any final judgment. Apple will never go head to head with Windows as long as Microsoft is holding a gun to their head.
There's no point in questioning authority if you aren't going to listen to the answers.
I went to WWDC and nobody conclusively answered the OF question. However, there are a couple reasons to believe that OF will continue to be used.
* Target Disk Mode. If this is suddenly taken away, many, many people are going to be pissed off. OF allowed for this to be easily done because of the architecture. I don't think this feat will be easily replicated in under a year.
* No PCs use Open Firmware. Easiest way to start keeping people from running OS X on their non-macs.
* The BIOS does not show the entire device tree. Frankly, this is because the BIOS is an idiotic way to continue to work with hardware. An incomplete IORegistry is not something Apple can afford to ship, as IOKit is something of a crown jewel for hardware level programming on the Mac.
* Its not difficult. Given that Open Firmware was something that has been recently moved to, and that it is relatively platform agnostic, it would be ridiculous for Apple to pour all the engineering effort (including TDM) into a BIOS and not simply spend minimal effort moving OF to their new motherboards. Apple is not stupid.
* Have you seen the inside of the developer kits? They are the most slapdashed devices on the face of the planet. They aren't selling them because they're pieces of engineering hackery. Given Apple's previous motherboard designs, there is no way they would ship with anything resembling the dev kits, other than having an Intel chip in them
And, the arguments for custom chipsets.
* I2C and everything else. Apple uses I2C extensively and Intel does not natively include them on any PC chipsets. Not only I2C, but they have some bizarre things hooked up to GPIO for modems, NMI support, thermal sensors, and other things that CAN NOT be just "thrown out." The driver (not userland) codebase changes would be too large for them to tell developers two weeks ago and expect them to change everything in less than a year. The only thing new for Apple is DDR2, which they may or may not use.
* Too Easy To Lock Out. With a custom ASIC, its way too easy to throw in a dozen checks for dumb things like I2C thermal sensor stubs and the like and automatically prevent people from using OS X on their PCs. Again, more free lockout by not having to re-engineer everything. It just makes too much sense.
So, anyway, until the first mac ships without OF, I think its too early to write it off.
-a7
Actually, MS can make quite a few assumptions regarding the hardware underneath. Now Linux, on the other hand...
Probably less than 5%. Like I said last week, Apple has a very narrow focus and their core market is creative professionals. You buy Apple hardware to run MacOS and because there's a certain cachet in owning a Mac. And to avoid viruses, spyware, and all the other crap that plagues Windows users.
I could see someone doing mission critical stuff having a dual-boot box, but someone buying Ap-tel hardware to run Windows is just out of the question. If you want a cheap box, you buy a Dell, Gateway, whatever. If you want a hot rod, you get an Alienware. Apple probably won't sell more than a handful of their boxen to Windows users (that intend to use it only for Windows). Apple never has been able to compete on price, they're just not big enough. When they do, their hardware ends up being significantly slower and lower spec'ed than comparable Intel hardware. Even with them using commodity hardware, they'll assert the Apple Hardware Tax to supplement OSX development, so it'll remain consistently more expensive than your average PC beige box.
So to summarize, almost nobody will buy these boxen specifically for Windows only.
Keep drinking the coolaide Mac boy.
I am amazed at all the mindless Mac zealots raving about how OS X will be available on commodity hardware and how this will be so great for Apple. Guess what, it won't. Steve Jobs said Apple will be the only hardware OS X will officially run on. Plus the move puts Apple in the same playing field philosophically as Linux and windows. It remains to be seen if Apple's philosophy will be adopted by anyone in the buy it cheap crowd. So lets be honest cheap is not a selling point of Apple nor will it ever be. I will be very surprised and happy if some of Apple's Philosophies get adopted by the current Intel PC crowd, but I am not holding my breath. Also every pro Mac industry rag is saying how this is such a good move for Apple to use Intel because they have the better processor road map. Guess what, they don't. IBM will continue to make superior processors in the long run. Unfortunately they had to delay on some deliverables to Apple because a small market segment called the gamming industry needed a new chip and that is where IBM spent their resources. You won't see any major game console using Intel as their main processor for the next decade. Why you ask? because IBM has a better, cheaper, faster processor road map than Intel. Not a general purpose processor you say? Well it still remains to be seen if Intel will produce superior processors than IBM in the next several years except in the mobile arena.
This move is terribly risky and everyone is mindlessly coating it with a spoon full of sugar. I hope it goes well for Apple but I have to admit that it might not. This is not a slam dunk for Apples short term viability. The only significant reason Apple is moving to Intel is because they were no longer competitive in the mobile market and they could not weather any erosion of their share. So Steve did the only thing he could, he gave IBM the finger and made the phone call to Intel. Smart? yes with an exclamation but not without risks to their desktop market. I will agree completely with Apple making gains in the mobile market because of this move but their other segments will most likely suffer. To what extent I nor anyone else could predict. I will be among the rest to lift my glass and cheer Apple when they have had a successful transition but I will not mindlessly proclaim success when they have just only begun this monumental task.
The truth suffers more from convictions than from lies.
Microsoft is a platform company. Microsoft brand is based on a user "experience". Both the browser and OS are designed as complimentary components to an integrated platform. Seperating Internet Explorer and Windows will hurt the Microsoft brand as a whole.
Oh, the irony.
I am becoming gerund, destroyer of verbs.
I wonder how many people will buy Apple hardware to run Windows (1%, 10%?).
I actually think it would be much higher, if you consider people wanting to dual-boot. I personally have been interested in getting an OS-X box, but can't really leave Windows behind. I see many people dual booting their machines. Look at how many Linux people keep their machines dual-booted for games, or [insert use here]. Now look at how many people don't use linux because its "too hard to use". Now, look at how many people would like to have a stable user-friendly Unix box, but need windows for something.
APPLE TRIED CLONING. APPLE MAKES THEIR MONEY FROM SELLING HARDWARE.
Apple is not a hardware company but that's where they make their money. If licensing the OS was so profitable, why didn't it work the first time around?
Not since Marie-Antoinette played milkmaid has looking simple and honest been so fake and complicated.
Software today has a cost that grows with each copy sold.
Wrong, just plain wrong.
What you are talking about are the costs of SUPPORT not of software production. Billing for support as a separate line item is standard, even for home users. Just look at what MS charges for a phone call.
In both cases the person doing the fixes lost the opportunity to do other work.
Unless you are trying to argue that with less users there would be less bugs FOUND then your entire argument is specious. In fact, even that argument is specious because the bugs are still there either way.
It is a testament to how blind to reality the mac fanatics are that you've been modded so highly for such a complete misrepresentation of how software is supported.
I mean come on - this is the GNU-friendly site where a giving away the software because it is a fixed cost and earning a living on the support because it is an ongoing cost is one of the most common memes.
What, do you all forget that when the word Apple is on your screen?
I've been in the trenches of software development for 25 years, and it is you who I'm laughing at. I can't begin to describe how appalling I found your post. But I'll refrain from further pithy insults and get straight to the invalid concepts.
If you have a known bug in your program that is causing people problems, it is a software engineer's first duty to fix that bug. Working on a bug doesn't mean you've, "lost the opportunity to do other work." The opportunity does not exist because you have no other work until the bug is fixed. Adding new features and animated buttons and gee-gaws always -- ALWAYS -- takes a back seat to creating a reliable, robust product. To do otherwise would result in an unmitigated disaster like -- just to pick a completely random example out of thin air -- Windows.
Invalid concept; presupposes false economy. The time spent on the fixes is time that would have been spent in the first place by the engineers had they done a proper job. Perhaps they were incompetent boobs. Perhaps they were top-flight engineers who, like all humans, made an honest mistake. Perhaps they were top-flight engineers who were being pressured by senior management to, "get something out the door making money now and worry about the details later." Whatever the reason for the bug, it's engineering time that is inextricably part of the product, whether you choose to "spend" it or not.
Yup; no argument here. That's why you hire top-flight engineers and give them the time and resources they need to do the best possible job the first time. That way you avoid the (much larger) costs of bug fixes later on. What you don't do is use those costs to justify not developing and shipping a fix. That simply shifts those costs to your customers.
I'm sure your point of view makes perfect sense from a business/accounting/shareholder standpoint. But from the perspective of an engineer, or even simple human decency, it stinks.
Schwab
Editor, A1-AAA AmeriCaptions
Maybe in the 80s and 90s yes. Or perhaps you are referring to Apple the record label.
I might buy the statement that Apple's core G5 market is creative professionals.
I don't believe movie makers and professional designers are buying up all those iMacs and Mac minis and iBooks. Creative professionals may have been Apple's focus previously, but that market was sewn up years ago.
I suspect Apple is more interested in the average home computer user, Mom and Pop, Gramp and Gran who for years have routinely thrown out their ancient (read 3 or more years old), spyware-laden, disposable Windows machines. For a lot of my average home customers (I work for an ISP) Apple has made it VERY easy for them to chuck the PC/CPU, keep everything else and slide in a Mac mini, a copy of OfficeMac and all of a sudden I never hear from them again. Funny how little technical support our Mac users need.
this is 2005, the masses (read: the geeks) have finally accepted Mac OS X as a competent operating system, and many who use it find it superior to windows. comparing this situation to Apple's earlier flirtation with clones fails to recognize the dramatically changed environment.
There have been "licensees".
There is a huge difference.
When IBM lost the clone battles Phoenix & everyone else were free to offer reverse-engineered work-alike PCs. Not just "mostly alike", just alike. Buy the same MS or whomever OS, install the same Lotus 123 or whathaveyou, it's all a commodity.
IBM later tried to recapture the market by redefining it with MicroChannel, their proprietary & well defended next-gen bus architecture. But the ISA market was too big and had enough momentum that IBM's efforts were doomed and look, 25 years later they're out of the PC market they helped create not having made a profit at it in years.
On the other hand Apple, after a few early skirmishes, never lost control of their products. Their architecture didn't lend itself to easy reengineering and there was rarely an eager alternative OS vender around to make non-MacOS boxes viable. Be, Yellow Dog, etc. never were more then novelties.
What Apple did do was, under contracted terms, sell their proprietary system ROMs & MacOS 7 to third parties for a licensing fee and per-unit compensation. The idea was that these nimbler & more aggressive partners would expand the Mac into markets Apple wasn't interested in or where it was unable to compete effectively (usually cost or distribution-wise).
However instead companies like Power Computing turned around and cannibalized Apple's domestic bread-&-butter Mac market by offering similar systems at price points slightly below Apples.
A few did expand the Mac into new markets - high-end multi-processor, etc. but by-and-large it was a financial disaster for Apple. They were already suffering from extremely poor supply chain management, a shrinking market, and high R&D costs; to then start supplying direct competitors with products that undercut their own was disastrous.
So when the opportunity arose with a new MacOS to change terms Apple did - they bought back their licenses and shut down the program. Most folks agree if they hadn't the company wouldn't have lasted another year.
What has changed since then? Not much.
Apple now does charge for their OS upgrades, but makes no effort to enforce this. They've leveraged their R&D by adopting more standard components, adopting & using some open source code & development, and now moving to Intel-associated motherboards & CPUs. But to date they make their profit on selling the hardware & the rest is mostly part of the package.
So, Mac-clones?
Probably not. Apple is unlike Wintel - they sell the hardware and the OS: There's no advantage to their opening either end to competition. Heck for protection they could build their OS so it does something as trivial as look for an Apple-encoded string in a system firmware and sue the bagoobers outta anyone who tries to fake that.
Beyond that Apple has a long history of innovating in fundamental ways. While the development boxes they're shipping out now may be based on plain-jane Intel tech there's no promises that substantial parts of the Mactels won't be something fresh 'n funky - clever memory architecture, bus design, whatever - intractable hardware/OS interactions that homers & cloners can't easily reverse-engineer.
Time will tell, but Apple, it's officers & engineers, aren't stoopid; they're likely not looking to start giving away their crown jewels and undercutting their fiduciary responsibility no matter how many geek fan-boys want MacOS X on their hopped up Athlon-with-fins box. Me, I'll be looking forward to buying a Mactel someday, and not giving a damn what's inside of it as long as it-just-works.
I don't read ACs: If a post isn't worth so much as a nom de plume to its author then I wont bother either.
Apple wants to have a stranglehold on their OS. If they don't maintain that stranglehold, then issues with non-Apple hardware will begin to crop up.
What scares me about the idea of Apple incorporating TPM (which, right now, is just speculation, mind you) is that ultimately, TPM is about control. It is about who is in charge of the computer system you bought. It brings up the question who really owns "your" computer, and in this sense, OSX would set a precedence - one year ahead of Longhorn, who's incidentally gonna drop the "my" part of "my computer" - maybe because thanks to DRM and TPM, it no longer is "my" computer. Apple's motives for using the TPM (if they choose to) may or may not be noble. (Like sparing the user the frustrating experience of an unstable OSX, in favour of no OSX at all.)
John Gilmore once said, "Be vary glad that your PC is insecure - it means that after you buy it, you can break into it and install whatever software you want. What YOU want, not what Sony or Warner or AOL wants."
The TPM is about who is in control of your computer. And I don't want neither Sony, nor Warner, nor AOL, nor Microsoft (Longhorn), nor Apple, in control of my computer. I want to be in control of my computer.
--- The light at the end of the tunnel is probably a burning truck.