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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.
Is that new-speak for duped?
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.
-nick
"Terrible news, sir! People are installing our OS!"
"Quick! To the Applejet!"
Note to mods: I'm probably being sarcastic.
Apple is not minor league engineering department attached to a powerhouse marketing deparment.
It's also attached to a powerhouse legal department.
Think Different !!!
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.
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.
it should be noted there is an English translationversion of MacBidoulille always available. Just go to www.hardmac.com instead of MacBidoulle.
Ubiquitous piracy made Microsoft Windows big and Linux a contender. It's hard enough to get people to try another operating system when it's free.
Not that I'm supporting piracy, because I'm not, but at this point you'd have to be a nut to grab something like this (not necessarily stable, anybody could have altered it) and install it on your system, with the risk of losing whatever else you've got on there. The kind of nut that could be an excellent customer down the road if Apple capitalized on this fanaticism and offered legit demos of the technology in lieu of the illegal downloads already out there.
I suppose it wouldn't jive with their strategy of keeping their innovations under wraps until release, but as long as the toothpaste is out of the tube you get better results with the carrot than the stick.
Try not. Do or do not, there is no try.
-- Dr. Spock, stardate 2822-3.
Yeah, even though they make so much money of their hardware, I'm sure they'll realize how cool it is and embrace their os, most copies of which are stolen developer previews, running on hardware that they make nothing off of.
Suing someone to stop them from doing something sometimes means they actually don't want anyone to do it. Apple has a very obvious reason to keep OS X off of generic PCs, and I'm sure they're happy to flex a little muscle when someone obviously broke their NDA and provided OS X x86 to someone else, gave a public demo of it, or provided info on it.
My sig is blank, I typed this by hand.
When has Apple been frivolous with their IP? They have already sued people for distributing Tiger over BitTorrent, and that was for an OS that would only run on hardware that they had sold.
So let me get this straight...According to your line of thinking, If I park my car in a shitty neighborhood and it gets stolen, even though I knew there was a chance and put an alarm in my car, I shouldn't have any legal recourse and the thief is not legally liable??
It's obvious YANAL...
http://www.osx86project.org/index.php?option=com_c ontent&task=view&id=27&Itemid=2
With its latest cease and desist order, Apple demonstrated its new iLawyer program. A method the corporation hopes to use for protecting itself against any forseeable legal disputes in a method that's easy for users to understand. The new, friendly interface speaks English instead of lawyerese and comes dressed in a soft white suit.
Elsewhere, Microsoft claims to have patented the underlying concept of using lawyers as a high-level communications protocol.
~Someday, I hope to be an aspiring author.
Conversely, selling 20 million $200 operating systems every 2 years is better than selling 1 million $1000 computers, considering the margins leave about $250 profit.
M$ learned this lesson a long time ago, only chumps sell hardware. The profit margin on a cdr and small pamphlet is much higher.
The first rule of USENET is you do not talk about USENET.
It's additionally fishy that they took their first action against a French site when so many American sites were doing the same thing. It's like they waited for the info to get out, wanted everyone talking about it, then made some sort of action against a foe far from the center of the limelight and in another country, which only steps up the difficulty in achieving success.
It's pretty clear that Apple, usually quick draw McGraw with the legal complaints, sat on this one because they saw the benefit of these copies getting out and getting people talking and excited about OS X.
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.
you're assuming there's no profit from stamping OSX on a circular piece of polycarbonate plastic and putting it in a cardboard box and selling it for $129.
You're assuming that people will pay for the OS, instead of pirating it.
Piracy doesn't dent MS's revenues, since they get the Dells and HPs of the world to pay them for every box they ship. Apple doesn't have that luxury.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
And after PC owners install it, they will conclude that OS X is stripped-down, unoptimized and poorly supported. That's exactly the opposite of the image Apple would like for OSX.
my blog
Except a lot of people will be turned off by such a crippled OS. Look how well Windows XP Starter Edition (or whatever it was called) did. Apple wouldn't risk tarnishing their image in such a way.
I don't know what kind of crack I was on, but I suspect it was decaf.
I'm thinking that the majority of slashdot readers have never actually worked for a proprietary software company.
Contrary to popular believe on slashdot, software is not a money printing machine. On the surface it may look like software has a near 90% margin with economies of scale but the readers here seem to forget about hidden costs such as support and "free" upgrades and patches.
Compared to hardware, software has a great deal of after market costs associated with it.
I would argue that software can end up having a lower margin than hardware after all of the after market costs are factored in.
I've worked in technical support dealing with software issues in the past and I'm also a developer of in-house software for a major multi-national organization. I can tell you that software is neither cheap to develop or maintain.
Jesus was a compassionate social conservative who called individuals to sin no more.
Guess what? They don't care. And they don't want to sell you a lisence. They want to sell you a Macintosh computer. They are not intersted in supporting third-party PCs and never have been. Ever.
Boobies never hurt anyone. - Sherry Glaser.
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.
Well you have some vague and unscientific evidence supporting your claim. As a slashdot reader this is enough for me to form my opinion. I'll go ahead and agree with you.
check out the best blog ever:
http://oehlberg.com
Get real jobs and get the fuck out of your parents basement already.
If you feel that "you" are entitled to be paid for the work that you do, you should feel obligated to pay for the work of others in kind if you make use of the products and services they provide.
If you cannot work for free then you should not expect software, music or movies for free either or for companies to provide support for hardware they did not sell or licence.
If you do not like the licence terms of a product, don't use it. You cannot use that as an excuse to pirate software.
Remember, even open source software can have terms that you must agree to in order to use it.
Jesus was a compassionate social conservative who called individuals to sin no more.
:::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.
---
According to the latest ruleset, this post should be modded as Vorpal Flamebait +5.
There are several problems with this.
Linux doesn't beat Windows in every respect (and neither does MacOS X), but it's quite a bit cheaper than either. Why has it been so hard to convince people to even try Linux, and why doesn't MacOS X suffer the same problems?
Most people would probably more readily dive for Linux than want to go out and buy all new hardware
Nonsense. If this was the case, everybody would be running Linux now. The fact is that people are far more willing to continue using their old computer (which is why Windows 98 is still not quite dead), or buy a new computer. Linux is a distant third choice (and so is a Mac), in terms of popularity.
for people with small budgets -- getting an off-the-shelf x86 system and slapping Apple's "starter" OS on it would be good for basic needs.
Wouldn't people with these really small budgets rather run a free beer OS? Besides, even $300 Dell boxes come with Windows.
Wow, you are so out of it.
Apple is a hardware company first and foremost. But they also have a part of them that makes straight up software like the apps you mentioned. OSX does not fall in the later.
OSX is made to sell the hardware. They make the other apps to make money and maintain viability.
If they were to ditch the hardware and sell OSX as a stand alone, it would carry prices higher then their pro-apps. OSX is priced simply to keep things moving and selling hardware.
And no, the benefit of going intel is not to repackage other peoples mainboards in a pretty case. They did it so they can have a real supplier who delivers product. Apple will still make very custom boards just like they always have. They do that for a reason, to make a good box. They have no interest in making ATX hack jobs like the developer boxes. Besides, creating their own boards is a non-issue to them. It's not hard for them, they have done it for ages, and they still use companies like ASUS as manufactures for them anyways.
Its doubtful you will even see intel sockets in the intel macs. Expect cpus to be on daughter cards and such the same as they are today.
So let me get this straight:
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.
I doubt this will be a particularly popular view on the situation, but here's how I see it:
- People with the Intel transition kits are under NDA
- The VAST majority of people installing Tiger on off-the-shelf Intel hardware are doing it using pirated copies
- Installing OS X on said Intel hardware is against the clickwrap license
- Instructing people how to obtain said pirated goods and then specifically do something that's against both NDA and license agreements is quite far over the top.
There's a lot of sites out there that are posting Torrent links and how-to videos that are basically forcing Apple's hand in this matter.
What the hell do you expect Apple to do? Not defend their IP when sites get that far out of line? The way the legal system works, Apple *has* to respond, even if they don't want to.
Anyone who doesn't think that the Intel compiles of OS X over the last 5 years hasn't been running on off-the-shelf boxes in Cupertino is seriously naïve. Of course Apple knew it was possible to do this.
Because if Joe Blow goes round to his cousin John Doe's house to watch a game, and is looking to buy a new computer, is Joe going to be more or less interested in Apple if John tells him OS X has been nothing but trouble on his white-box x86.
Apple's whole philosophy is "it just works" - they want to be able to control the hardware so they can be 100% sure that all their boxes work as they should without having to support every piece of hardware under the sun, especially as this would mean running into the same problems with a lack of support or hardware specs from manufacturers that Linux has over the years.
To your average man-on-the-street, all computers are the same - Apples might come with shinier boxes, but a computer is a computer - and if he sees OS X running poorly on a white-box x86, he's going to assume it's the fault of the OS.
Apple don't want that. It damages their image.
You could argue that they could, quite easily, make more money selling OS X to all and sundry than they can by guarding their 5% of the market and locking the OS to the hardware, but that's just the Apple way, and they're being successful with it. Why should they change a profitable business structure?
Dealing with lawyers would be a lot less tedious if they all looked like Casey Novak.
This is such a stupid argument to me. One of the wealthiest companies on earth (Microsoft) didn't get rich selling hardware. You can say there different markets - but that doesn't matter - fact is Apple's biggest competitor is Microsoft and they don't make hardware at all.
Look at the hardware companies who made money on just hardware. Commodore (don't knock them - they used one of the largest computer manufacturer in Europe ti'll the day they went backrupt), SGI, SUN, Compaq, Gateway etc etc - all of these companies are either gone or marginialized by cheap "windows" hardware.
Finally - Apple should just raise the price of their OS until it is profitable.
For $999 you can get two Dell PCs, a keg of beer, and a night with three Welsh hookers. Don't ask me how I know. The point is, you must be used to paying Apple prices, that figure is way off.
Now before I get modded down, I be to remind whoever might read this that what I am saying is FACT. - bogaboga
I've always seen Apple as company selling pretty things to women who want to send email.
And you've always been shallow and ignorant in making that assessment. They make some other stuff that you seem to have overlooked.
They're picking on geeks with the desire to hack and make stuff work!
No, they're picking on geeks with a willingness to break NDAs, pirate pre-release operating systems, and not pay for anything.
Don't become a regular here -- you will become retarded.
Try this: Apple is neither a hardware company nor a software company. Apple sells a service called "vertical integration." The hardware, OS, middleware, userland, and network services all fit together in a single package that Just Works, Right Out Of The Box.
IBM is in the same business in enterprise space, and it's done pretty well for them. For that matter, Red Hat also sells vertical integration, it just services a shorter stack.. only OS, middleware and userland.
Yes, Apple makes most of its profits from the hardware, just like Red Hat makes most of its profits from circles of plastic. That doesn't make Apple exclusively a 'hardware' company, though. It does, however, mean that Apple wants to protect the part of its integration stack that brings in the bulk of the money, and supports development across the rest of the stack.