Mac OS X on x86 Videos Get Apple's Attention

RetrogradeMotion writes "The OSx86 Project is reporting that Apple has served a legal notice to MacBidouille, a French news site that posted videos and instructions on running Mac OS X on x86 hardware . You can find an English translation of the MacBidouille notice on the OSx86Project's forums. This is the first known legal action by Apple regarding the hacked version of OS X and calls into doubt the future of other news sites, similar to the OSx86 Project." Slashdot previously covered the story of hacking Mac OS X onto non-Apple hardware and followed up again a few days later.

Comments

So it starts...

[NickCatal]

Apple is going to have YEARS of this ahead of them... I'm just waiting for Apple Jobs to have about 300 postings for "Piracy Specialist" to open up. M$ has to have an entire building just for their piracy group.

Re:So it starts...

[Concerned Onlooker]

This is all hilarious. Apple has at most 3% market share and everybody here wants to hammer them for trying to protect what they have. Until recently it seems Apple had a fairly decent rep on Slashdot. It is, after all, a really nice alternative to using Windows, which everybody also seems to hate.

You can knock Apple wanting to control things as much as you want, but I can tell you that as an Apple consumer the reason I stay with Apple is because they control their hardware. Things work. I'm not interested in defending anything that leads to Apple quality going downhill because I want to continue using Apple products in the future.

Talk about control, I see control freaks on the other side of this as well. If you want total control how about using Linux, which you can mod/change/hack to your heart's content. Or is it just more fun to try to do the "forbidden" thing?

OSx86 Project Should be safe

[ndansmith]

Is it illegal to post this sort of information? If not, can Apple convince a judge that posting this information is harming them, and thus win a civil suit? I doubt it.

Gave it time to spread the hype

[Logic Bomb]

This is the first known legal action by Apple regarding the hacked version of OS X and calls into doubt the future of other news sites, similar to the OSx86 Project.

Given how fast Apple's legal department is capable of acting, it's a little odd that it took this long. I was speculating with a friend that Apple probably wants to make sure that the hype has time to take hold before it cracks down. It's interesting how they have to do a balancing act between being too heavy-handed and making sure that people keep talking about their products.

It would have been relatively simple for Apple to personalize each copy of OS X Intel that it sent out to developers. I find it pretty strange that we haven't heard about legal action against whomever distributed their copy. Perhaps Apple purposely didn't watermark the installers so the balance could tilt towards hype without them having to sue a developer.

Intel Mac for under $200

[levram2]

OSx86 Project's CEpeep researched building a x86 machine that will run Mac OS X for Intel for under $200. The machine has the same Intel chipset on the motherboard and a processor with SSE3. Total includes CPU, MB, RAM, Case, HD, and DVD drive.

http://www.osx86project.org/index.php?option=com_c ontent&task=view&id=27&Itemid=2

Re:What the?

[FLAGGR]

Then they go Intel and complain when someone figures out how to use it on Intel hardware.

You don't understand. Apple is only switching to Intel because they were getting jacked in the ass by IBM, and Intel had a good roadmap. It's not like they're advertising it as becoming compatibile with PC hardware. The idea is to have it all the same as before, closed hardware and everything, just now Intel happens to be making the cpu's. What these people are doing is getting it to run on PC's instead of 'Macs'

OSX would never survive as an OS if it went open to the x86 platform at large. Windows has too much market share, and o one cares enough to relearn things. Apple makes boatloads off of their hardware, and if they switched to being just a software company with an initial 0% marketshare, they would be fucked. Also, hardware support is a major issue. Everything would cease 'just working', which is a very nice benifit of osx.

If you have a problem with Apple wanting THEIR os which is designed to run only on THEIR hardware, and to take advantage of the less open architecture for greater interoperability with hardware, and putting it all into a complete package, then shutup and just don't buy it, and I'll enjoy OSX for myself thank you very much.

Re:What the?

[arkanes]

Apple is only switching to Intel because they were getting jacked in the ass by IBM

In fairness, signs point to the reason having more to do with Apple throwing it's weight around like it was still 1997. Note that IBM announced improved PPC chips just weeks after Jobs revealed the Intel Macs.

The idea is to have it all the same as before, closed hardware and everything, just now Intel happens to be making the cpu's.

Every sign points to this not being the case. There's essentially zero closed hardware in a Mac as is anyway - you can, if you're determined enough, build a generic PPC machine and install OS X on it.

OSX would never survive as an OS if it went open to the x86 platform at large.

I'm not so sure about this, assuming that they kept making Macs and didn't just drop them.

A large part of Apples profits are from the iPod and iTunes. That won't go away. A signifigant portion of Apples current customers will stick with them, still buying Apple hardware, regardless of what they do. A portion will be upset of the switch to x86 and will ditch Apple for it - they'll be gone regardless of whether or not they support generic x86.

So the only loss is from customers who would have bought Apple hardware, but now will buy generic and run OS X on it. The question is if this amount of people is large enough that the additional revenue from the greater amount of switchers (low cost of entry, just like the Mini - but without the performance penalty) won't offset it.

I don't think Apple will do it, but I don't think it's an obvious cut & dried case of a loss, either. I think they *may* do it in a few years, if they see a market for it. They certainly wouldn't be starting over from 0 - the core of the Mac market won't be going away.

Re:Seriously, here's the solution to Apple's probl

[EndlessNameless]

:::I realize driver issues would cause Apple some grief, but I think it'd be worth it to create the ultimate wedge to get people to switch.:::

They could mitigate that problem by including excellent generic drivers for NICs and being able to load drivers on the fly from their website by having the OS transmit the PnP ID of the unknown devices. Of course, I wouldn't care to speculate on the bandwidth requirements of such a scheme. I must admit that it would take some uber skills to pull off.

Actually, if they could make something like this work seamlessly, that would be sufficient grounds to consider switching right off the bat. :)

Re:Followed up?

[AlexTheBeast]

  Here are the instructions I used to get it running on my USB drive in my Intel system.

I would never have tried OSX except for this challenge. Obviously, it's not the most stable thing in the world... but it's mainly the challenge of hacking this little project together.

Is it practical? Only that people will explore OSX... and yes, some people will like it and switch. For me, however, it was just the challenge of showing my apple fan-boy buddies that I too can run OSx.

Re:Not running their OS

[hacker]

So Apple doesn't want people running their OS. What a surprise. Attitudes like that probably explain their current market share.

[...]

Here Apple has people wanting to run their OS so badly on Intel hardware that they're hacking apart betas to do it, and running systems with no native applications yet.

So let me get this straight:

1. Buy an Intel Dell PC ($999.00 from Dell)
2. Wipe Microsoft Windows from the machine (Microsoft gets paid, Microsoft tax)
3. Download this hacked-up OSX/Intel pirated image (costs nothing to download, $0.00)
4. Image your blank Dell machine with this image (costs nothing, $0.00)
5. Now you're running OSX on your Dell.

Totals:
Dell: $999.00
Microsoft: $15.00 (or whatever)
Apple: $0.00

So you think Apple should let you pay Dell and Microsoft to run their OS, all while giving Apple not a single cent? You think this is what they should allow?

Don't you understand? All of this "running-OSX-on-Intel-today" means ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to the end-result of running OSX-for-Intel on the customized hardware Apple is designing with Intel.

All this does is provide Apple with an exact blueprint of where to lock down the OS even tighter, to prevent 'hacking' when they release it. Besides, with Intel's LaGrande chipset, the whole OS runs in a silicon-locked sandbox, separate from anything else, and strongly keyed to the silicon itself. You literally CANNOT get inside without the proper key.

All of this hacking around with OSX today on Intel today, is going to rapidly become very irrelevant when they release their own boxes.