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Apple Sends Hidden Message to Hackers?
RetrogradeMotion writes "The OSx86 Project is reporting on a hidden
message to hackers in Apple's new MacBook Pro. The new Intel-based OS X contains
a file named 'Dont Steal Mac OS X.kext' and is accompanied by the message,
'The purpose of this Apple software is to protect Apple copyrighted materials
from unauthorized copying and use.' The file is not present in either the
PowerPC version of OS X or the Intel version shipped to developers last year.
While Apple has sent messages
to hackers before, is this a tounge-in-cheek introduction to the anticipated (and hated) Trusted Platform Module? Is locking down OS X a strategic necessity or a missed opportunity?" Obviously a big maybe here, but a good story just the same.
I want to thank my cable modem for this breif moment of fame...all my friends and family that thought I had no life by living online...and of course my cat...
I recall a company in the past that wouldn't sell you their software unless you purchased their hardrware. They were taken to court and forced to unbundle the OS from the Hardware since the OS was capable for running on other hardware. I can't recall the company name off hand but I feel someone will to do the same to Apple.
Coral cache of the link. Some fucknut thought it would be a good idea to use the "Cache-Control: no-store" HTTP header, so it'll be only a short amount of time until their server blows up due to excessive MySQL queries.
'Yes, firefox is indeed greater than women. Can women block pops up for you? No. Can Firefox show you naked women? Yes.'
What if that's the file that the TPM system uses to "sign" the OS? Essentially you have to have "/System/Library/Extensions/Dont Steal Mac OS X.kext" present on your system to boot OS X with exactly those contents. If you have it, it means you've got the warning in place and can't claim ignorance if sued for improper use of the OS.
I thought they only read .knfo files.
Why do submitters always have to end their submission with the usual "Is this XXXX or is it YYYY?" It's so inane and pointless. Just submit the story without trying to inject your opinion with an idiotic question at the end.
I can see one day in a slashdot story: "Is this a sign from God or the mark of the beast?" Please stop. You make the baby Jesus cry.
It says ooooooooo.
Peter, those are Cheerios.
"You make the baby Jesus cry." shove it up your ass
It was IBM, but they were also under Anti-Trust scrutiny that placed a lot of restrictions on their business. Another example: They were forced to license things like ISA and VGA to PC clone manufacturers for a very low price.
Business. Numbers. Money. People. Computer World.
"We're coming for you."
Ignorance of the law is no excuse, and it never has been.
Only cracked out moderators would mod this up.
--
Internet Explorer (n): Another bug -- that is, a feature that can't be turned off -- in Windows.
Anyone else amused that they quoted the text saying not to "distribute or reproduce" any portion of the text? Hehe... Too late!
Come on it's tongue not tounge!
-----------------
Ninja, fuck, baby, special olympics
'Dont Steal Mac OS X.kext' Ok... stealing Windows!
The best excuse for a President, a King or others *insert your words*, is God. God has still yet to find an excuse.
Microsoft announce an Aqua theme in Windows Vista.
Most computer users are stupid. They'd try to run OS X on a typical PC, it'd suck and then they'd do the typical stupid computer user thing which is to say "this software fucking sucks." Never mind that the software was targetted at a specific hardware platform, that's too much mental heavy lifting for the average, at least American, computer user. Apple has to prevent piracy of its OS if for no other reason than to protect the brand from the idiots out there who aren't smart enough to realize that OSX is DESIGNED to work primarily with one specific hardware set, but would have nothing stopping them from running OSX into the ground with everyone they know.
Click here or a puppy gets stomped!
Think about it. One of the reasons Windows can be so annoying is that there are a bazillion different configurations. Apple can keep OS X running smoothly because they know exactly what's inside their machines. Once it gets put on a Dell, some idiot's going to complain about how buggy OS X is because it doesn't run on his own personal cobbled-together POS.
Now, with regard to the text in question
software is to protect Apple copyrighted materials from unauthorized copying and use.
this could merely indicate that Apple is going get more aggressive about insuring that the OS in use is indeed paid for. That is, if a single user copy is bought, then it is only used on the single computer. I have no problems with this, as a five user edition can be acquired for less than Windows XP. Now, if this copy protection becomes too much of hassle and wastes my time, such as typing in long serial numbers, I will likely be looking for an OS with less hassle.
But the facts remains that the move to intel will expose Apple to a greater risk of unlicensed use of thier product, and they are likely to react accordingly, no matter how silly. I hope they don't make me pay for an extra chip to manage thier shrinkage issue. I hope that it is a simple matter of registering the machine and the serial of the software at Apple, as they appear to do now, and then just leave us alone. Honestly, if I wish to install one of my licensing of Mac OS on an extra PC, and I cannot, then I am likley to an become an irate customer. And given how ambivilant many of us are about the move to intel, I would hope that Apple would think long and hard about transforming that ambivilance to outright annoyance.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
Peter: Brian, there's a message in my Alpha-bits. It says ooooooooo.
Brian: Peter, those are Cheerios.
Someone is a bit angry. Dude, you need to relax. Seriously.
I wouldn't call it very "hidden" though. Here I was thinking of something ROT13 encrypted, or at least baked into a TPM-related file. Not a file they've dropped into /System/Library/Extensions/Dont Steal Mac OS X.kext as XML. Actually, since it was in XML, I have to wonder if it's not intended to show up at some place in the OS as a warning.
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
Except in that case there was some unfair monopoly issues involved.
In apples case, the market share is far to small to be even considered for that.. So they can bundle as much as they want.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
OK I've asked a couple lawyers and they all seem to agree. If Apple sells their OS separately on their website (which they do)*. They can't legal say that you can only use their software their hardware. The other side of course is you need to break the DMCA to use it on any other hardware. I'd really like to see someone challege Apple in court. I don't think they can legally say you can buy their OS, but can only use it on their hardware.
* Currently, they only sell the PPC version, but let's assume they'll offer the next release to Intel Mac users.
Keep up the good work! Thanks guys, without you jumping on every Winblows exploit, we would never have gotten where we are today. Linux and OS X for a brighter future! - The Apple Team
The 'Net is a waste of time, and that's exactly what's right about it. - William Gibson
I recall a company in the past that wouldn't sell you their software unless you purchased their hardrware. They were taken to court and forced to unbundle the OS from the Hardware since the OS was capable for running on other hardware. I can't recall the company name off hand but I feel someone will to do the same to Apple.
People who don't understand monopoly law should have their fingers hacked off so they don't post such stupid comments.
Look, I know some people like to bash Apple because they tie the OS to the hardware. Bash away on that argument I don't care, on several levels you are right. But your not so subtle implication is that somehow Apple's situation is the same as Microsoft's is a fundamental lack of brain matter for anyone who's posted on slashdot.
Apple is NOT a monopoly, Microsoft IS a monopoly. The first step to understanding monopolies is quite simply that the rules change once you are a monopoly. Monopolies wield incredible power and pervert the forces of a free market into something that is definitely not a free market. Everyone argument ever made that is anti-Microsoft is based on this premise. Bassed on that, Microsoft's actions are typically illegal, while Apple's actions at worst are quite simply immoral. It doesn't make them any less annoying, but under law they aren't illegal, because market forces have the opportunity to break that bundling package if someone with a better business model (that's not illegal) comes along.
Go back to the shallow end of the gene pool where you belong. John Dvorak has a seat next to him waiting for you.
"All great wisdom is contained in .signature files"
Can some Apple officiados tell me whether or not it was legal to make PPC-based Mac clones without needing some special license from Apple? I vaguely remember something about a court case or 10 where clone makers were told they could sell machines with OS-X preinstalled so long as they used no Apple logos on their promotions and made it clear to their customers that they were indeed buying a clone. Wouldn't the same rulings apply if Dell wanted to ship Intel-based Mac clones with OS-X preinstalled? Not that I imagine they would.
How we know is more important than what we know.
Cute message but of course it's not hidden in any way; it lacks the finesse and charm of the "Stolen © Apple" easter egg (described at the second link in the article summary, for those who didn't RTFA). Too bad nobody ever copied the ROM on the early Macs and get busted; it would have been a pretty hilarious moment in Apple legal history for someone to bring that message up on the screen during a trial. This would serve the same purpose if it wasn't so obvious; then again, perhaps there is a hidden version of the same message just waiting to be popped open at the right time....
The main reason is that Apple has promised Microsoft not to compete with their market. By keeping their hardware proprietary and locking their OS to that hardware, they can keep their little niche without competing directly with Microsoft. In return, Microsoft will continue giving Apple free money and promise not to crush them (intentionally.)
The second reason is that Apple is a hardware company; they make money on hardware (primarily the iPod, but a little from computers too). If you buy a Dell or some no-name PC to run OS X, Apple makes even less money.
Anyway, Apple just doesn't make all that much money selling their products. They make most of their money from interest of cash in the bank.
is important and intersting. With this statement it seems that they are acknowledgeing that people will run it on other hardware, and they just want you to pay for a license to the software if you run it.
I have the exact opposite experience; I don't remember anyone with big problems with any of the clones. I'm still a proud owner of a Power Computing Power Tower Pro 225... never had a hardware problem with the computer itself in about 10 years of ownership (and about 5 years of daily use). It was a dream compared to its Apple-branded sibling the 9500 and it benchmarked faster at the same speed CPUs. Great advertising too. I also administered another clone, UMAX J700 I believe; it wasn't nearly as sweet but it gave me no trouble in terms of hardware. And I never heard anything but praise for the Daystar Millennium (I think that's what they were called) which could sport up to 4 PPC chips (though not a lot of software would use all CPUs at the time). There probably were some crappy clones out too but they didn't do as well.
it's an absolute necessity to lock down OS X from PC use. Apple has, after a series of costly mistakes (i.e. believing that a major corporation like IBM would actually spend money to actively develop a chip that has less that 4% market share) backed themselves into a corner when it comes to software and hardware development. Not to say they aren't good at either of those, but they now serve a very focused and very concentrated user base, consisting mainly of schools and, of course, artists of every kind. The cost is that to continue making the products they do, they must charge a relative premium.
And if their (excellent) software were suddenly available for the $350 dollar PC you bought from dell (don't tell me no one in their right mind would dare put the holy OS X on a dell... there are enough people not in their right mind to make that common practice) their computer market would be cut in half because frankly; every school, business and especially those poor ass artists, would love to run a safer and more creative friendly platform on a cheaper computer.
Now, maybe they could make more money if they just dropped computer development completely, but I think someone over at Apple believes that they can start to take some more serious market share back... and with the Intel Macs, it looks as though they can.
I hate "tounge-in-cheek". Much worse than tongue-in-cheek...
Spill chicks ire four loosers.
Here's the rest of the story. The hardware that goes into personal computers built by Dell, Lenovo, etc. is dirt cheap, and the profit margins are ultra-thin. Meanwhile the x86 Macs command a price premium because Apple builds them. If everyone could run the new Mac OS on an regular PC, who would want to buy the x86 Macs?
Hence, Apple management is flashing its lawyers in front of all the hackers.
Apple management will fail in its attempts to thwart the hackers. The hackers are clever, and some web site in Mongolia will soon feature a new download that enables you to run the new Mac OS on a regular PC. Are there extradition agreements between Mongolia and the USA?
Given that Apple management has embraced the x86, Jobs and his ilk should just admit that the value of Apple is its OS and jettison the hardware business. Apple could morph into a pure software house specializing in multimedia OSes, software for music gadgets like iPods and Sony MP3 players, etc. Sony just builds the hardware and licenses Apple's software for the new Sony MP3 players.
Well, this is hidden twice as wellHere I was thinking of something ROT13 encrypted, as that -- it's double-ROT-13 encrypted!
I don't think that's true. I believe ISA was simply reverse engineered, I don't think it was ever licensed by anybody. That was the whole point to the PS/2 and the Micro Channel architecture... it was something IBM actually owned and COULD license. They had this vision of a piece of every PC out there, but MCA was complex, expensive to implement, and then expensive to license on top of that. So, for the most part, the industry just went around them, with EISA (never broadly taken up), VESA Local Bus for graphics, and then eventually PCI. Micro Channel died a quiet death.
I don't think anyone has ever attempted to license VGA, either. NVidia and ATI license out their modern 3D chips to third parties, but basic VGA functionality is, to my best knowledge, a completely free specification, and always has been.
You may not copy, modify, reverse engineer, publicly display, publicly perform, sublicense, transfer or redistribute this file, in whole or in part.
"For this next song, we're going to play 'Dont Steal Mac OS X.kext'." WTF?
If you can read this sig, you're too close.
Good hardware = good platform = good prerequisite for good software engineering. Software meant to run on every single possible hardware combination is bound to be littered with cheap hacks and workarounds. I won't shed a tear if Os X won't run on some manufacturer's broken firmware configuration; I'll buy a shiny new Powerbook Duo (no I'll never call it Mac*... that's a MacDonald trademark) and enjoy the experience and mourn the loss of Openfirmware.
Mi domando chi à il mandante di tutte le cazzate che faccio - Altan
Apple could morph into a pure software house specializing in multimedia OSes
And instantly be crushed by Microsoft.
I have always found Apple to have some element of dry humor associated with their products/slogans/manuals, etc. My favorite is the quote on my signature.
Every iPod has a sticker that says "Don't Steal Music". And we all know iPod users are the least likely to steal. This is obviously because Apple users in general always pay attention to little lables like this. And by touching anything Apple, even their code, by proxy makes you an Apple user, it's like a disease, it's catchy.
I believe anyone hoping to see OS X running on non-Apple hardware is gonna be SOL now.
I need to look it up again, but the new Intel Macs have somethign similar to Apple's ROM, or it's another ROM, which can not be coppied without doing so illegally. So unless Dell backwards engineers Apple's tech, they would have to break the law to install it on their machines.
I personally don't recall any court case involving OS X and clones. Jobs killed off the clones, by not renewing their license for newer versions of Apple's ROM when they would not re-negoiate their terms. This was back in 97, way before OS X.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macintosh_clones
http://lowendmac.com/history/1997dk.shtml
I remember requesting a 300 Mhz G3 from Power Computing, only to see it killed by Apple, which then introduced a 266 with a slower backside cache. Blah...
If this were the case, it wouldn't be any different than things were before the transition to x86. There were, and still, other machines available that run on the PowerPC (or the mostly-compatible POWER) architecture other than Macs, so this issue already existed.
In fact, it has existed from the very beginning, because even back before the transition to PowerPC, Macs ran on Motorola 680x0 processors, and there were other machines that would have been capable of running Mac OS back then. I had an Amiga (also a 68k processor), and there was some company back then that sold a board that allowed you to take ROMs out of a dead Mac and put them on their board, and then you could boot Mac OS up as a task under AmigaDOS. And it worked just fine. If I recall correctly, at first people were buying ROMs from Apple parts dealers, and Apple got angry about this and made it so the ROMs were no longer available, and they may have even threatened to sue, although I can't remember.
No, ISA was under a government-mandated Reasonable And Non-Discrimatory hardware license program which dated from the minicomputer wars of the 1970s. Every PC clone vendor paid IBM several dollars per PC up until the late 1990s when the patents finally expired.
IBM supposedly developed MicroChannel several years earlier and sat on it until they could get the Reagan DOJ to let them out of their consent decrees. That's why MCA was not under RND licensing (ie, not only was it more expensive, IBM could have used it to force clone vendors to buy OS/2.)
Business. Numbers. Money. People. Computer World.
You could always go for the pannick attack and say, "Hi, you just triggered a system worm that should currupt every file on your machine within fifteen seconds. Please enjoy the last ten seconds of your Mac operating system. Have a nice day and might we recommend Windows?"
I don't know if that matters but maybe because they can say they are selling you an upgrade to a previous version of the os that came with the system. I have no idea though actually
OMG Ponies!!! with Glitter!!!! I miss Pink
I've never given Microsoft any money if I could help it, but I'd be happy to pay for an OS X that would run on the computers I have. But that's just it, I HAVE hardware. I don't want to buy any more. I like having hardware that will run whatever OS I care to boot to.
I suppose the question is whether Apple's X86 hardware will boot Windows (not just run it in a window or emulate it) - then the apple hardware might be the generic platform to run Win/Linux/OS X.
Here's the output of system_profiler, ioreg, and kextstat on an Intel-based iMac:
http://appleintelfaq.com/#17.6
Of note in ioreg:
| +-o TPM
And kextstat:
83 0 0x20a15000 0x3000 0x2000 com.apple.Dont_Steal_Mac_OS_X (4.0.0)
'Dont Steal Mac OS X.kthnx'
Follow the glossy apple
Isn't Apple just creating scarcity in order to force their products to be novel cool? This is the same strategy Krispy-Kreme uses. If only a few people have/(can have) something, it must be good.
It looks like they tried commodity cool with the iPods and realized it is possible to replace scarcity by good design and still keep something desirable. Maybe that is why they switched to intel -- to see if the same can go for an OS. Don't want to be to consiratorial, but didn't Gates invest 100million in Apple some years back? Maybe that is the only reason Apple is trying to protect OSX from hackers -- it was a deal with MS to stay out of their market, which, face it, is BUILT on pirated copies of Windows that produce a monopoly. If MS secured Windows, would it still have a monopoly?
'' I recall a company in the past that wouldn't sell you their software unless you purchased their hardrware. They were taken to court and forced to unbundle the OS from the Hardware since the OS was capable for running on other hardware. I can't recall the company name off hand but I feel someone will to do the same to Apple. ''
If MacOS X is the only operating system that runs on your Dell computer, then Apple might have to sell it to Dell users. Since that is not the case, you have no point.
In any case, Apple would be allowed to charge a fair price for it. Currently, MacOS X upgrades are sold for $129. Full versions that you would need to install on your Dell would obviously be more expensive, maybe $499 or so.
Ouch, the industry lost out there didn't it? Just imagine the benefits of a forced migration from MS-DOS to OS/2! Real Multitasking! Memory Protection, X-windows support! And at the same time as the rest of the industry! WOW!
Yes, we missed out on paying a huge IBM tax on single-user machines that would have been intentionally crippled to keep them away from IBM's midrange systems. That would have been great.
Instead, PCs developed real server hardware and real server OSes (including Linux and Windows NT), that IBM would never have provided (and didn't, until the market forced them to change their ways).
Business. Numbers. Money. People. Computer World.
This is slightly offtopic, but I just looked into buying one of those cool Mac Mini computers. I would use it as a server and would put Debian on it (not because I think it is better, but because I am more familiar with it) so I had to do what every Linux user has to do before buying hard ware, I checked if it is supported (nowdays with changing wlan chipsets without changing the name of the wlan product one has to dig really hard).
Anyways, there was information about the fact that the wlan module for the Mac Mini was not supported. That strikes me as odd. I thought Apple took a lot of work from the BSD project and used it for free in their OS. But they don't even bother to give something back by opening their hardware specs so the people that wrote/write BSD can use their OS on Apple hardware? I mean I wouldn't steal something. I would even have to buy a bundled version of their OS that I wouldn't use anyways. I would pay the Apple tax. I just would like to use a different OS.
Anyone care to comment?
Everyone's been wondering why Microsoft is going to keep producing Office for five more years, and it's really pretty simple. Apple agreed not to let Mac OS run on regular PCs for the same duration. As long as they keep it tied to their hardware, Microsoft really has no worries about a Windows competitor.
At some point later, Christian Bauer released Shapeshifter to compete with EMPLANT, and then after Jim Drew claimed that Shapeshifter was stealing EMPLANT ip (which kind of put the lie to his earlier claims that the card held the emulation engine) released the GPLed Basilisk II, which is still usable on modern hardware - emulating the MCM680x0 Mac under Windows, x86 Linux and Unixes, and PPC Mac OS X.
In any case, if I recall correctly the ROM wasn't even used directly... you could obtain a ROM image on the net if you didn't have one to rip with the card.
"It is our blasphemy which has made us great, and will sustain us, and which the gods secretly admire in us." - Zelazny
Can't Apple be forced to release OS X for all x86?
It would be nice to be able to run OSX on the desktop without buying new hardware, I've been quite happy with it on the laptop. But I fear that supporting the near-infinite number of configurations would introduce stability problems and slow Apple's rate of development... which is a big reason that its attractive in the first place.
Honestly, the only reason I'd want to run OSX on generic x86 is simply because I don't like ANY of Apple's desktop setups. The Mac Mini is underpowered with a G4 and 64 meg video card, I don't like the concept of married Computers/Displays a la iMac, and the PowerMac is kind of overkill for my purposes. I mean, am I really the only one that wants (one) reasonable CPU & a nice (upgradable) video card of occasional gaming in a seperate tower so that I can upgrade thie display seperatley and use the machine as a server when its outlived its usefullness as a desktop?
Windows is alright and OSX is pretty, but I love GNU.
I've noticed, Microsoft sure spends a lot of time and money patching their OS and making sure hackers like me can't easily activate it when we move our harddrives between PCs. And Apple has been trying hard to keep me from copying any of those songs my friends purchase from iTunes. And now OSX will only run on Apple x86 hardware, even though it may have drivers for another PC and be able to run just find on it. Some people might even be willing to pay the $130 retail price to be able to use it. But that's not for me.
If I want it I know I can get it. You see, I have friends that know all about Windows XP activation and how to get around it. And they know all about OSX and how to crack it too. I can even steal music from iTunes. But why don't I?
Because I love GNU. I love the effort a bunch of people are putting into this system. And you know something? None of that effort, none of that time or money is going towards DRM or any lockin/lockout, activation, CD-KEY authorization or other form of authoritarian copy prevention technology that might one day cost me time and money when I try to use the software in a way other than its original intended purpose. Plus we get access to the source code. And on top of all of that, we get the right to modify and resell it.
I'd love to see Microsoft or Apple compete with that. But I know they won't. They can't. Capitalism won't let them. Not until its too late.
This just In: Apple looses case for ripping off Windows code in the new MacOS. It was noted that the prosecution was able to repeatedly cause MacOS to bluescreen by doing simple rudmentary tasks.
A huge portion of what makes the Mac OS X so valuable is the user experience that goes with it. A decent portion of the user experience lies in the hardware integration, and in the quality of the hardware on which it runs. If I had OS X running on my previous laptop (Toshiba Satellite 3000-something, I think), for instance... It was a great laptop, but the hardware is just not the same caliber as that which Apple sells. More importantly, OS X is not DESIGNED for the Toshiba Satellite line, nor is the Satellite designed for OS X. Apple has no control over the environment in which the system is running and therefore opens their system up to decreased responsiveness or even stability, as the case may be.
Excellent software on shoddy hardware still makes for a poor user experience.
Apple management will fail in its attempts to thwart the hackers.
The hackers and a handful of tech savy users that want OS X on generic hardware are irrelevant. All Apple needs to do is prevent someone with the skills of an average user from being able to get Mac OS X working reliably on generic hardware. The generic PCs running Mac OS X will be novelties, more conversation pieces than serious work environments. There will not be a robust set of drivers, merely what ships on geniune Apple hardware. Apple can break the hack used to get it to work every system software update. It will be a somewhat unreliable machine, unavailable for days at a time while hackers reverse engineer and workaround the latest software update. Will they do so, sure, but it will be irrelevant to mainstream users.
Why?
Why should Apple release OS X for generic PCs?
Remember - to Apple OS X is the crown jewels. Releasing it to the wild would be exposing them to an enormous amount of risk. It may pay off, or it may be that it gets pirated out of existence.
What justification is there to force Apple to expose itself like this?
Fuck you, you stupid faggot. I hope you get a powerbook shoved up your ass.
McDonalds
I have a lot of opinions about Cyborgs and Architects
If I recall correctly, at first people were buying ROMs from Apple parts dealers, and Apple got angry about this and made it so the ROMs were no longer available, and they may have even threatened to sue, although I can't remember.
.
When I was in school, some asshat Amigan would go around to the labs and steal all of the ROM SIMMs out of the Macs. (And not the expensive RAM or CPUs.) And Apple was a total bitch about replacing them -- IIRC we had to send the Macs back to the factory so they could install a SIMM.
Business. Numbers. Money. People. Computer World.
From what I remember the royalty IBM was asking for micro channel was a couple of cents per board. If you have any old Byte mags lying around from the 80's you can search through them or the article. It was a superior architecture.
The company was Data General. The lawsuit was brought in the 1980s by unlicensed cloners of Data General hardware who claimed that refusing to sell software except to purchasers of hardware was "tying" as prohibited by the Sherman and Clayton Acts. In 1983 the courts agreed that it was.
Apple is just being control freaks, as usual
No, Apple is being a hardware company, as usual. Not that they aren't also control freaks. What so many people on Slashdot fail to realize is that Mac OS X is the draw for the proprietary hardware. Were Apple to allow Mac OS X to run on generic hardware the computer hardware side of their business would rapidly disintegrate, it would kill the computer division. Doing so nearly did kill Apple when they allowed Mac clones, and that was with Apple receiving a royalty on each clone system.
Actually, I think Half-Life's major innovation was putting a girl in the game that didn't have blatantly polygonal boobies. The storyline itself was almost entirely missing -- "Gordon. Good to see you. Now go somewhere else ... but take the back way!" in front of a standard post-apocolyptic backdrop.
Business. Numbers. Money. People. Computer World.
If that's the case, it sounds a lot like the garage door opener and Lexmark ink cartrige arguements, both rejected.
No, Apple is selling you a license to use copyrighted software. There are terms in the license. Retail Mac OS X boxes may also be considered upgrades, not first time sales.
It is not against the DMCA to reverse engineer software for the purpose of compatibility. Also Apple will NOT win a court case if someone is trying to put their LEGALLY purchased copy of OS X on any hardware.
Individuals are irrelevant. All that matters is that Apple can sue anyone trying to sell systems or parts (HD with OS X pre-installed, etc).
The grandfather post said nothing about monopolies, just binding software to specific hardware. Two different things. It seems to me that the point was that if you buy a piece of software, you buy a right to run it on whatever you want. Hence, emulators are not illegal, but roms are.
Perhaps you should read a post before posting a hysterical comeback with eugenic overtones. I'll go play in the shallow end, you and ESR can do what you please in the patio section.
I have freaks! I did something right...
Here's the rest of the story. The hardware that goes into personal computers built by Dell, Lenovo, etc. is dirt cheap, and the profit margins are ultra-thin. Meanwhile the x86 Macs command a price premium because Apple builds them. If everyone could run the new Mac OS on an regular PC, who would want to buy the x86 Macs?
But the real story is the one that nobody seems to notice, for the last 15 years Microsoft has made all the profits that the computer resellers should have been making. Their large bulk is entirely made up of the razor-thin margins everybody else accepts for them. Bill Gates brags about brining the PC "ecosystem" to the world, cheap commodity computers that you can throw together and whip out of almost anything. What he doesn't mention is that he planned the whole thing back when Microsoft first sold DOS to IBM... we'll profit from everybody else's hard work. Everytime you see a hardware manufacturer go out of business, it's just a few hundred million MS got instead of them. The world was suckered in by them, if we had kept the old model of different companies making different operating systems the world could have been much nicer these days and the internet would definitely be more standardized. Imagine if MS hadn't killed BE... instead of Intel and MS ruling the desktop market for so long and forcing single threaded high-Megahurtz toaster oven computers on the world, we could have had BeOS 7 systems with Quad PPC chips with 4 cores on each by now. Imagine if Amiga could have stayed profitable... this whole stupid soap-opera episode of D'oh! Finally making the Pentium M could have been avoided. There's be a lot more nice OS' out there and some great hardware choices but... commodity won, and so did Bill. I really hope Apple can get people to think about quality once again.
Cwm, fjord-bank glyphs vext quiz
Microsoft never sold a PC in its life and its market capitalization is four times that of Apple.
You grossly misrepresent MS' success, it was due to hardware sales, IBM's hardware sales. MS' products were bundled. PC-DOS became the defacto standard, IBM clones appeared, only then was MS able to leverage the network effect and sell their substitute good (MS-DOS).
When is Apple going to wake up and realize they could grow a lot bigger if they got over their obsession with selling high-margin computers and licensed an even higher margin OS to PC makers.
Again, you misrepresent. The Apple / IBM war predated the Mac. Apple II's were used in business (some Apple DOS and some CP/M based), were significantly less expensive, but were rolled over by IBM. That specialized niche market you speak of was not Apple's goal, that was what they were left with.
Slight correction: current Mac OS X prices are $129. Period. That's for the full OS on disc; there is no "upgrade" per se. We would probably see the introduction of a cheaper upgrade option rather than a more expensive "full" version.
> Are there extradition agreements between Mongolia and the USA?
7 692
No, not as of 2002 anyway.
http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=2
vi ~/.emacs # I'm probably going to Hell for this.
As all Macs came/come with MacOs or OSX any copy of OSX you buy separately is to upgrade your existing OS.
Bad analogies are like waxing a monkey with a rainbow.
I read that last week on digg.com... :S
Be or ben't
They use the same:
* Processors (Intel x86)
* Internal peripherals busses (PCI and AGP)
* External peripherals interfaces (USB and BlueTooth)
* Hard drive interface (SATA)
Just about the only thing non-commodity is the Apple Display Connector (ADC), which is basically DVI and USB bundled onto one cable, to make it easy to put USB ports on the monitor.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
IANAL, however I'm pretty sure the following is correct.
You have a monopoly on a market if you are the only entity provide that product, and there is nothing in the law against being the sole provider of a product. In fact, that is one of the best ways to win at business, to invent and then be the only provider of a new product. If you invented purple carrots, you'd have a monopoly on the purple carrot market, and nobody is going to have a problem with you being a monopolist of the purple carrot market.
It would be pretty silly to expect a new company, who is going to introduce a new, never-existed-before product to the market to have wait until they have a competitor before they can bring their product to market. In fact, patents are a government endorsed tool to preserve a monopoly for a period, to make sure the inventing entity is rewarded for their significant investments and time in furthering the "state of the art." (Abuse of the patent system, and the granting frivilous patents is the issue, not the fundamental purpose they are supposed to serve). Why would you spend time and money inventing something new, only to have somebody else take the invention and make money with it without having to cover the costs of inventing ?
What is usually against the law is using your monopoly position to either (a) force your customers to continue to buy from you i.e. lock them in unfairly, or (b) use your monopoly power to drive your potential competitors out of business, the later being the primary thing that Microsoft has done. That is an "illegal monopoly".
Apple is a monopoly when it comes to providing Apple compatible computers and software. They just don't leverage that monopoly for illegal purposes.
The Internet's nature is peer to peer - 20050301_cs_profs.pdf
You are so right.
Buy predictable hardware and install an OS that's designed to work on it.
Dell and HP and other PC manufacturers are in a race to the bottom. Meanwhile Apple's hardware will fill a need for people who just want to get work done. For myself, I hope it's possible to dual- or triple- boot the machines, but even if stays OSX only, I'll likely get one when my iBook wears out.
"No, ISA was under a government-mandated Reasonable And Non-Discrimatory hardware license program which dated from the minicomputer wars of the 1970s."
e cture (Marketshare Issues):
I'll just disagree in a friendly way with you.
When MCA came out it was covered with dozens of patents and it had to be licensed. However, a condition of licensing was that you had to agree to pay back royalties on ISA on every PC you ever shipped. I recall that for the most part, IBM was simply looking for other companies to acknowledge that ISA was owned by IBM and didn't in fact look for back royalties.
As a result, nobody licensed MCA with two exceptions... one was Tandy, the other one escapes my mind at the moment.
In fact Wikipedia seems to agree with me (for what it's worth):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Micro_Channel_archit
"A final problem was that IBM had lost control of the hardware market for PCs. Anyone could create an ISA card and plug it into any ISA bus-equiped computer. While it was thought that by creating a new standard, IBM would regain control via the required licencing. As patents can take 3 years or more, only those relating to ISA could be licensed when MCA announced. Patents on important Micro Channel features, such as Plug and Play automatic configuration, were not granted to IBM until after PCI had replaced MCA in the marketplace."
You were mistaken. Which is odd, since memory shouldn't be a problem for you
The ISA architecture was published for general use. That's what kicked off the whole IBM compatible hardware aftermarket. MCA was an attempt to take back control of the bus architecture, the industry anwers were first EISA and then PCI.
All they have to do is make it so that the time it takes to crack is longer than the time between important updates. They seem to have managed this with iTunes...hymn/jhymn has been broken with iTunes 6 for quite a while now. With iTunes, if you are using jhymn, and an Apple updates breaks it, all you lose is the ability to remove the DRM from newly purchased songs. All your old stuff keeps working. Minor hassle, at most.
With the OS, though, updates will probably make cracked copies stop working. So, if you are running a cracked copy, it will go like this: install update, OS breaks, wait days, weeks, or months for new crack. That won't be acceptable to many people. (Of course, you can avoid installing updates until you know there is a crack for them).
Apple: shutup while we fuck you
adoring fans: Ooo, Can you piss on us too?
Here's the rest of the story. The hardware that goes into personal computers built by Dell, Lenovo, etc. is dirt cheap, and the profit margins are ultra-thin. Meanwhile the x86 Macs command a price premium because Apple builds them.
I call bullshit.
Apple "builds" them? Builds what? It's an Intel CPU, it's an Intel northbridge/southbridge, it's an ATI GPU, it's someone's LCD module that is definately not manufactured and assembled by Apple, it's got bog standard USB and firewire ports (bye-bye, 800Mbit)... do you know for a fact that Apple builds the motherboard? Even the chassis?
It's an Apple design. It could be a Dell design. Whichever, it is almost certainly built from components manufactured and assembled in the far east (note: this is not intended to be a slam on the far east). If you believe that the performance and/or reliability of Apple hardware is going to be shockingly better than the first tier BIY parts on the market, then you need to stop drinking the coolaid. Apple will pay for specs and QA/QC that meet industry standards, which will make them better than the Walmart Linux boxes, but there's no magic dust that makes that hardware better than Dells, unless Dell has fallen way down the satisfaction survey rankings when I haven't been looking.
Apparently, the only thing that this has to do with "hackers" is that it is only (supposedly) included with the Intel-native version of 10.4.4, and only on the not-yet-released MacBook Pro. The text itself says nothing about running the OS on non-Apple hardware.
Apples hardware is no different then Dells or any other pc manufacturer. They all buy their hardware from 3rd party manufactures how is Apples hardware any superior? excluding the huge hike in prices that falsely leads mac owners to feel like they're getting better hardware.
The human race is artificial intelligence created using object orientated programming.
I'm sorry, what WAS the story? I seem to have missed it, all I saw was a short blurb about something that's already been reported, and no expounding on it. What qualifies a story nowadays?
Except IBM was already extracting small ISA royalties from most PC companies. I always though the issue was that they wanted OEMs to buy expensive MCA licenses for ISA PCs that they had already sold.
Also, that Wikipedia article is rather incoherent in tone, so I wouldn't take anything in there as factual proof of anything.
Business. Numbers. Money. People. Computer World.
I'm too busy trying to figure out who managed to get a MacBook Pro before the "we claim Feburary" ship date. A developer? A Soon To Be Unemployed Apple Employee?
And YES, I saw that it came from "a source", but how did "the source" get a MacBook Pro?
Please help metamoderate.
Well ya know they could just define the market so small that Apple is the only competitor in it. Like they did in the Microsoft trial :)
How we know is more important than what we know.
But what about Apple's monopoly on COOL? What about THAT huh!
I say those damn monopolists should be forced to redesign the entire product lines of other manufacturers!
Then we'd ALL be better off.
"seineeW erA setariP X SOcaM"
"Destroy science and religion. Science would re-emerge exactly the same; but not religion." - Penn Jillette, paraphrased
"Also, that Wikipedia article is rather incoherent in tone, so I wouldn't take anything in there as factual proof of anything."
Fair enough, and that's why I was recalling more on my readings at the time.
I have all the Byte's on CD ROM around here...I should probably dig them out. If I get ambitious I'll look through them.
You were mistaken. Which is odd, since memory shouldn't be a problem for you
(Just a minor nitpick) ADC also brings power to the display too. It was a very nice solution for reducing the amount of cables on your desk.
All editorial writers ever do is come down from the hill after the battle is over and shoot the wounded.
Random usenet post on the topic: http://groups.google.com/group/comp.os.os2.misc/br owse_thread/thread/633e4924d742f30c/53092a6a33e797 ff?lnk=st콤a6a33e797ff
Business. Numbers. Money. People. Computer World.
Hmm, I guess you've never tried to install Linux on an ASUS notebook. Today, three years later it might be an easier experience but believe me it used to be a royal pain. Wicked broken bioses that wouldn't sleep the machine when the lid closed, nasty bugs that would lock up the gfx hw so badly to require a cold restart, crappy P'n'P that wouldn't enumerate the attached hardware and make linux struggle when looking for it and stinky bioses that wouldn't properly shut down the PIC (or perhaps jitter some "lid open" signal, but that's not sw, it's plain bad hw) and wake windows 2000 when the laptop was sleeping... and presumably inside a bag.
I had to choose between a vertical solution where the same company designed both hardware and software and quickly nailed every single darn bug (not only security gaping maws) or a chaos of different hardwares only loosely following specs and hoping to fix 'em in software workarounds.
I bought an external firewire enclosure; it used to work fine but the damn chipset firmware decided to quit claiming it's fw id as by spec. Os X would refuse to sense the device unless, once in a while the signals would be stable enough to get the firmware to follow procedures. I had to wait for an xp64 fix that incidentally added the necessary firmware workarounds (IE increasing wait states during power up) to get the thing reliable on the mac. Hmm, and that was an add-on... imagine that multiplied for all peripherials in a regular pc. Apple takes the chore out of computing.
Apple is turn key. I bought a bluetooth thingie and the guy at the shop said: "hmm, I don't know, this device is a bit fussy I struggled a weekend and failed on a couple of XPs". I plugged it in, waited for Os X to bring the bluetooth portion alive and synced my address book within 5 minutes. The guy at the counter was close to tears; I was happy to have bought an Apple Powerbook with Os X.
Ok, I could choose a dell, run windows home and follow the program, but I'd be struggling with viruses, spywarez and surrendering 1 GHz and a RAM stick to Norton to get my job done. Or I could run Linux and curse the damn manufacturer for making cheap broken hardware and only provide software fixes for windows.
I still long for open, fully spec'd platforms, properly designed hardware modules and combinations and timely updates to fix deviations from the agreed standard. Today, by a bad approximation, that means using windows. Today, I won't run windows and I will happily pay 100for the privilege of better software bundled to neatly ironed hardware (where linux, btw, is a champ)
Mi domando chi à il mandante di tutte le cazzate che faccio - Altan
Sounds like an old Apple approach to address piracy directly - but with a slightly different attitude now. Here's the old approach from the original Mac BIOS: http://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?project=Macin tosh&story=Stolen_From_Apple.txt&showcomments=1
Now they're just asking folks not to steal their stuff...
Then again, there are many slashdot folk who are from either place that would disagree with you. Though these are probably the people that you would ever hear from, since they tend not to bitch about each other's differences. They just recognize the differences and go on with life.
How is commodity Intel hardware in an Apple box superior? What it boils down to is Apple having a few set hardware platforms to work with. They don't have to support a grab bag of chipsets, bios CPUs and manufactures that produce buggy and unstable motherboards. That is what might make the apple slightly more stable, less hardware to support. The PPC systems were more expensive to produce because of the low volume and unique chips.
To me the Apple Intel systems shouldn't be much more expensive then an equivalent Dell machine.
I didn't know someone "created" IP. Perhaps you could offer me the name of this brilliant man.
The concept of granting a time-limited exclusive right to the author of a work began with the British Copyright Act of 1709, commonly called the Statute of Anne. The rationale of this "Act for the Encouragement of Learning, by vesting the Copies of Printed Books in the Authors or purchasers of such Copies, during the Times therein mentioned" would appear to have influenced the copyright clause of the U.S. Constitution.
I remember waaay back when, if you looked at the ROM in a hex dump, very plainly in the middle of all the code was the string "Stolen From Apple Computer". The magic, I was told, is that the code was actually functional and if you took it out, the OS would crash.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
So unless Dell backwards engineers Apple's tech
I have not seen a EULA on any software or software-bearing hardware lately that does NOT include the restriction saying you agree to not reverse engineer their product. Often times, "interoperability" is considered a justifiable reason to break that restriction though.
I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
That's the argument for "Intellectual Property". If you're for IP then you're for the complete control over a work by the owner of that work. If that's not your position, if you can imagine just one situation where the owner of the work should not have complete control over that work then, please, don't use the term.
As with copyright, the exclusive rights granted to the owner of real property are subject to fair use. This would seem to support rather than undermine the "intellectual property" analogy.
Already the idea that officials should have the right to invade our homes to ensure we are abiding by licensing agreements is considered reasonable to most people.
Reasonable? A law enforcement officer who can show probable cause has had every right to perform reasonable searches of private real property in the United States for at least two centuries.
When are you stupid Apple-worshiping fucks going to realize this? They market the most closed systems -- hardware and software -- in the desktop market. They're the antithesis of what open source is all about, but you nitwits make excuses for them and slobber about how wonderful they are. At least Windows runs on an OPEN HARDWARE PLATFORM.
Has anyone seen the comments in the sidebar to the MacBook Pro page?
Old school unix hacking.
If that isn't a message to hackers I don't know what is..
Complete bullshit. You can use a retail OS X disc to install a fresh OS on a blank hard disk.
Exactly. I would love to buy a copy of OS X for x86 on my PC, even if it cost me $400 to do so. It is worth the price, IMO. I will kill for an operating system on plain vanilla x86 machines that is almost perfect. Windows is insecure and needs to be scrapped, and Linux is just too hard to use for an everyday user. OS X is the perfect operating system. It is easy to use for both regular users and is great for computer science majors and other people who need Unix. But, as I see it, Apple will never give in and sell Mac OS X to people with vanilla x86 boxes, or collaborate with Dell and HP and bundle OS X with their machines. Once that happens, we can kiss Apple and OS X goodbye.
The time is ripe for a brand new operating system on the x86 platform. I would love to see something with the architecture and/or the ideas of Plan 9 or something like the L4 microkernel, the compatibility of *nix and Windows (via Wine) so that way we don't all have to start from scratch, the security of OpenBSD, a kick-butt windowing system like Aqua (except better), radical new ideas for user interfaces, rapid software development, and overall just knocks the socks off of everything else that we have seen so far. It will be much like NeXTSTEP back in the day or Mac OS X is currently. I would love to see an operating system that solves nearly all of the technical problems, security issues, and usability issues that we face today. Mac OS X does well in all of these regards, but it isn't available for everybody. Imagine if we had an operating system that was not only better than OS X is, but is also available for all computers that can handle it. Regular users who desperately want to leave Windows must either shell out $$$ for a Macintosh (which requires that they buy a new computer), or endure the learning curve that switching to Linux entails. My ideal OS will have no restrictive licensing that tells me that I can only install it on a Pear x86 box, and no DRM that sends the helicopters flying over my house when I install PearPC OS on my vanilla x86 box. Any volunteers?
Of course, nobody's actually going to sell computers that require virtualization
IBM mainframes have used virtualization since VM/CMS. VM was a rawther sophisticated hypervisor, and CMS was a relatively simple single-user operating system. The Xbox 360 video game console, with an IBM CPU, uses an IBM hypervisor as well.
I have a right ...
no
it is my DUTY to give away software.
ffffuck you bill geate$$$$
I am 95% sure that I will not buy an intel mac of any sort, simply because they contain TPM. TPM is a showstopper for me. Apple, you listening? I love OS X but I have no problems using Linux instead. Freedom is more important than convenience.
The reason Apple will not release OS X is that they have come to a sad, sad conclusion: Microsoft won the first round, so now, in a desperate attempt to regain some ground, Apple will copy Microsoft's tactics of shutting out all competition. Of course, the difference is that Microsoft is actually in a position to shut out competition, as they have attained the critical mass necessary to do so, whereas Apple has not. Apple does not have enough ISV support to engage in these tactics -- which is why so much OS X software comes either from Apple or is open source.
Oh, yeah, and there is price. Apparently, they believe that their machines merit prices that rival high-end SGI workstations.
The other was a little company named "Reply", if I recall correctly. I used to own one of these.
Stephen L. Palmer
How hard is it to understand? I see that now many blank PC owners saw such a beauty and screamed at once "I WANT TO 0WN IT!" and started to modify and hack it. But who cares? There won't be official support for other platforms and propably Apple EULA will include that you can use it on Mac - for sake of support.
And in fact, OS X is not without its own share of serious problems, so it is "ooo shinny" mental factor workin here on geeks. Poor guys... For me OS X is just to get my work done, at work I better off with GNU/Linux.
user@ubuntubox:~$ stfu This server is going down for shutdown NOW!
My, my. Seems like SOMEONE hasn't had his daily dosage of Steve Job worship.
Yay, I have a sig.
No Mac since 1998 has had a ROM. It started with the first iMac. MacOS 8.1 was the first system to use a "software ROM", and OSX has used nothing but a "software ROM". On that OSX install CD is a "software ROM" that OF ("Open Firmware" found on PPC Macs) or EFI ("Extensible Firmware Interface" found on POS, err... Intel Macs) looks for during boot-up. It's installed as part of the system, and it's what makes your system a "blessed" system (that is, one that's bootable). In OSX, the "Startup Disk" preference pane keeps track of these and allows you to choose the default one for the next boot sequence.
When you buy the MacOS X CD/DVD, you buy the "ROM" and anything you can make it do. It's as if you had just paid Apple for a bare, old-skool Mac ROM chip, except it came with a whole OS, it's on a shiny plastic disk, and it's a lot easier to install. If you can get lilo or grub to recognize and track that "ROM" (a fairly simple task, I would guess), you can boot on any PC. If you can get a PC mainboard manufacturer to use EFI instead of a BIOS, it's probably even easier, especially if you can get your hands on Apple's bootloader (which is custom, and probably resides within their implementation of EFI).
Just for reference, Windows has a similar file, known to most as "ntldr". I'm sure there are other similar files for other OS'es.
At least for the next ten years, as MS is always that far behind copying Apple.
"Eat Popcorn, Drink Coca-Cola"
Maybe I'm missing something, but I don't see how this message to not steal OS X would be a message to not run it on a non-Apple x86 box? Assuming that a legal copy was purchased and only installed on one computer, the software was not stolen no matter what type of computer the user tries to install it on.
SIGFAULT
.....since the OS was capable for running on other hardware......
That is the big IF it will run on other hardware. I doubt that any court would force Apple to support all those millions of PCs out there. If some manufacturer were to make a clone PC that could run OSX and not run afoul of any of Apple's IP, then Apple might not have such a strong case. However, if that manufacturer had to buy a copy of OSX at retail cost from Apple, they would be at a strong disadvantage to compete with Apple. MS sells their software at substantial discounts to OEM computer makers. It is not likely that any court would force Apple to give anybody a discount on their software.
All theory is gray
In my middle school days, I decided to open up the Mac OS "System" file with a text editor one day (not even a hex editor), and saw, after a bunch of binary code misinterpreted as ASCII, the hidden message:
"Help! Help! We're being held prisoner in a system software factory!"
A Google search verifies that plenty of other people remember this too.
An Apple a day keeps PC tech support away?
"Beware of he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart he dreams himself your master."
.....Apple management will fail in its attempts to thwart the hackers. The hackers are clever......
I don't think Apple will care much if a few hackers manage to run OSX on the cheap Dell or other no-name beige box. These hackers will also have to supply the missing drivers for all the myriad of different PC boxes. If Windows will also run well on the new Macs, very few ordinary people will care whether their old boxes can be made to run OSX. Hackers will get satisfaction out of getting to run OSX on whatever box they happen to have, but Apple will likely consider that as part of the noise for now.
All theory is gray
I won't deny there is a fair amount of pirating in the Mac community, but on the whole Mac users actually pay real money for the software they use. Is that so bad? You don't normally steal food, beer, gas or clothes, so why steal software? Do you have the right to do so, simply because you can?
The TPM is used only to make sure it's OK to run OSX on that box...
Apple has publically stated they do not care if you run anything else (like Windows or Linux) on an Apple Intel box.
TPM you see, is a tool. And like any tool it can be used for good or for ill. Now while it's an open question of weather you having to work around it to run OS X on a non-Apple Intel box is for good or ill, it's certainly less annoying than if Apple had used TPM to lock the box down so that ONLY OS X could run on it.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
In my country (Belgium) there is a law against forced bundling or locking in. Apple will be walking a really thin line here.
You can be certain the day that apple will introduce the intel macs the consumerorganisations will make noise about it.
Then again forced bundling and locking in sucks.
Yes, but the machine that this blank hard drive is in wil have shipped with a license for Mac OS, no?
Touch everywhere, even when inappropriate.
Either NEC or NCR released PCs with MicroChannel.
Look, Apple doesn't have a 'hardware business'. Nor does it have a 'software business'. Apple is in the business of selling a service called 'vertical integration'. It controls a techology stack that starts down at the level of board design, then moves up through firmware, OS, middleware and userland applications, all the way up to tethered peripherals and network services.
'Hardware' and 'software' are commodities. Selling commodities is a lousy business strategy in computer technology, because the technologies evolve so quickly. The companies that make money in computer tech sell services:
Operating systems are worthless. People give the darned things away these days. And the hardware/OS/software 'platform' loses relevance as AJAX makes network computing and applications service vendors (there's that 's'-word again) more viable. Sure, there will always be hardware, OSes and software, but as time goes on it make less and less difference what particular kind of hardware, OS, and software you're using.
In the long run, 'hardware' and 'software' are losing business propositions when taken on their own. 'Hardware and software that work well together' is a lucrative and highly sustainable business, OTOH.
From that point of view, there's no reason for Apple to make it easy for people to DIY up their own OSX boxes with off-the-shelf x86 hardware. Yeah, slashdotters are willing to do their own vertical integration, but in doing so, they'd be cutting into Apple's true market.
Of course, that doesn't stop some slashdotters from demanding that Apple simply hand over the technology they aren't capable of building for themselves.
no. afaik, lexmark, HP, et al have a patent on the design of the cartridgezzz. so nobody is allowed to copy them, you can just refill the old ones, build by the original companies. but they make them extra-crappy, so that they won't be usable for too long...
you were allowed to use other cartridges, though (but you won't find any...)
I know this is highly tangential, but I see this phrase all over and it infuriates me...
Ignorance of the law is no excuse, and it never has been.
But it *should* be. It is unjust to hold someone accountable for violations of rules they were unaware of. Modern law is so complex that no one (even people with many years of legal training) can be truly aware of them all - even professional lawyers use comprehensive reference texts regularly. Consequently we have a lot of people being held accountable for violations of esoteric codes they cannot reasonably be expected to know about. This is one of the fundamental problems of pretty much all modern governments, and it's not a very big improvement from the arbitrary rulings of the monarchs and dictators of non-constitutional governments past. I am sure that myself and almost every single person reading this is guilty of something that they are not aware of. This leads to a condition where everyone is a criminal and can always be brought up on charges of *something* if they annoy the powers that be enough - a situation just inviting government abuse of power.
The solution? Simple. Fewer (and simpler) laws, that have logical backing to support them and as such should seem common sense almost universally. Then you can expect people to know the law in full, and can be justified in holding them accountable to it.
Sorry again for the tangent. This subject is a pet peeve of mine.
-Forrest Cameranesi, Geek of all Trades
"I am Sam. Sam I am. I do not like trolls, flames, or spam."
Learn to spell 'tongue', you cunt!
I agree with what your lawyer friends tell you: Apple cannot order users to not use the software they sell on non-Apple hardware. A person can clearly combine two products they've legally purchased together, for their own private use, in any way they damn well please.
What Apple *can* do, however, is disclaim any warranty on their software for platforms they have not conducted quality assurance testing on - i.e. their own hardware. In other words "Sure, you can try to install this on whatever you like, but fat chance getting it to work and don't come crying to us when it doesn't."
-Forrest Cameranesi, Geek of all Trades
"I am Sam. Sam I am. I do not like trolls, flames, or spam."
Take a look at the inside of a Powermac G4 or G5. Take a look at the shell of a Powermac G4 or G5.
Carefully observe its details, try to imagine why an Apple engineer did it so. Realize how many there are...
Now, open a Dell. Does that answer your question?
Mi domando chi à il mandante di tutte le cazzate che faccio - Altan
...then what is Apple afraid of? why don't they release it for generic 80x86 machines? after all, what is valuable today is the software and not the hardware. The hardware comes and goes, and todays hardware is the emulator of tomorrow, but software is here to stay. If Apple has a truly superior O/S, then they must release it to the masses.
'' Slight correction: current Mac OS X prices are $129. Period. That's for the full OS on disc; there is no "upgrade" per se. We would probably see the introduction of a cheaper upgrade option rather than a more expensive "full" version. ''
It is de facto an upgrade. Show me anyone who didn't use it as an upgrade to an existing operating system supplied by Apple.
Running OSX on some non-Apple hardware may be the techno-geeks wet dream, but Apple's customer base is mostly people who just want things to work. They're not going to go through a five page "and then flush the BIOS at 0xfe67e80c and replace it with this EFI hack" manual to get it running on a cheap PC.
The more important question is when will it run Linux? Linux has EFI support, so can I just install Grub on the MacBook Pro and dual-boot? Please, please tell me I can.
Other OSes on the MacBook sounds like a much better investment of time than forcing OSX to run on your toaster.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
Crap hardware is crap hardware, but you usually get what you pay for in that respect. Try linux on a machine with similar price and build quality to the Apple ones.
I am trolling
Is it a misspelled lounge?
Exactly. I would love to buy a copy of OS X for x86 on my PC, even if it cost me $400 to do so. It is worth the price, IMO. I will kill for an operating system on plain vanilla x86 machines that is almost perfect.
Is there some reason you can't just buy a Mac? Why do you insist on Mac OS X on a generic piece of hardware? I mean, if you're willing to shell out $400 you're almost there anyway. You can get a basic Mac mini for $500. When were you planning on buying your next machine?
Try to understand that a big part of the reason Mac OS X "just works" is that it's part of an overall picture, not just a cog in the machine.
Scott Stevenson
Tree House Ideas
To challenge this in court, assuming you've legally purchased the software and have all the receipts and paperwork all should have to do is use "to use on generic hardware" in the right places and make it look like Apple is trying some anti-competition practices.
Let's say for the sake of argument that somebody files and wins such a case and Apple is forced to release the current version of Mac OS X for all Intel hardware. The result is that a bunch of people buy Mac OS X and try to run it on any from decent to horrible hardware.
In at least quite a few cases, the software won't work right and they'll blame Apple. In the process, Mac OS X's primary investment stream (hardware sales) has been compromised. In this reality, you've rewarded the inventor of a great piece of software by demanding to run it on marginal hardware. You've also prevented them from pursuing the business model that enabled Mac OS X in the first place.
In other words, Mac OS X ceases to exist if the hardware sales are cut from the deal. Apple is not like Microsoft -- they make Mac OS X to sell Macs. Think long term. Who wins in this scenario? Is it really so hard to just buy a Mac? It's Apple's creation, they should be able to sell it in whatever form they want. If you don't like it, don't buy it. It's not a personal liberty -- it's a computer product.
NeXT tried to pursue the generic x86 strategy and it failed. Why would Apple bang their head against the wall again?
Scott Stevenson
Tree House Ideas
Who cares? What's in it for us to allow Apple the power to control what we can and can't do with OS X?
Apple can only justify the continued development of Mac OS X if it is tied to the hardware sales. Otherwise, the revenue potential just isn't there and the investors won't stand for money being wasted.
If you don't like it, use another OS. Pretty simple.
- Scott
Scott Stevenson
Tree House Ideas
If you open up the original iPod firmware in a hex editor with the proper number of columns, the first thing you see is an ASCII-Art stop sign and a scary legal message. This is nothing new.
I used to read Caltizzle. I was a lot cooler than you.
Now that macs are just another Intel whitebox, the only place they can make money is on software. Also, now that they are intel-based, all you really need to have a mac is the s/w.
Seriously, if I wanted an Intel box than ran BSD, I'd put it together myself and install FreeBSD on it. Why should I pay a premium for the same commodity hardware and software I can get for next to free on ebay?
Better yet, try Linux on a Thinkpad. ACPI "just works" with FC4 on my X31. This includes S3, display power-off, etc...
Please?
Exactly, the argument that Apple is overpriced is a false one. Once you start examining the _quality_hardware_ segment, Apple is competitive. I was actually tempted to go Thinkpad, but eventually chose a Powerbook.
Mi domando chi à il mandante di tutte le cazzate che faccio - Altan
I think it comes down to pirated market assault and user based testing. Often people who cannot afford and who do not use professionally a product, would not buy it, but if they have been accustomed to say warezed or in some way illegal copy, once they start to use product for making money, they would legitimize their favorite product , rather then cheaper competition. Warez software is free promotion as well, people educate themselves to use your programs and become often expert users. Question of mindshare is about as important as that of market share. And I think Jobs have just realized that, with his iPod success. Now he is moving onwards to OS market. May the fortunes be with him and his steady asshole hand guide apple to give intel market a good os.
Can I get my hacker protection in a different color? Maybe a nice teal.
Take a look at the inside of a Powerbook or iBook. Carefully observe its details, count the million (superfluous) screws that hold everything in place, pay extra attention to the fact that it's all but impossible to remove the hard drive quickly. Try to imagine why an Apple engineer did it so.
Now, open just about any other notebook. Does that answer your question?
Microsoft. They were taken to court to unbundle their software from OTHER companies' hardware! :)
I suspect this is all part of an elaborate plan by Apple.
1. Port to Intel in secret (NeXTStep/OpenStep ran on Intel and several other architectures) - Project Marklar.
2. Release easily hacked developer releases that can be put on generic Intel systems.
3. Release final iMac Intel and MacBookPro systems shipping with Intel version of MacOSX including a "Do Not Steal OS X" msg via a kernel extension filename.
4. Let the hackers crack it in the coming week or two. Give them a taste of what they are missing.
5. Slowly increase the encryption and DRM techniques.
6. The pirates will eventually fail, give up and go buy a Mac after having used OS X for a while.
7. Increased sales!
...it says, 'Steve is dead; Steve is dead.'
'He who has to break a thing to find out what it is, has left the path of wisdom.' -- Gandalf to Saruman
I did, I upgraded my laptop drive on my own... wasn't at all difficult, although Apple made quite a design effort squeezing a computer in such a THIN (first of it's kind) enclosure. Of course you can buy a Dell, you're free to do whatever you please with your money, it's none of my business. I do think that Apple hardware is better quality, like a BMW is compared to say, a FIAT. You can take the latter, I'd go for the former, thank you.
Mi domando chi à il mandante di tutte le cazzate che faccio - Altan
In any case, if I recall correctly the ROM wasn't even used directly... you could obtain a ROM image on the net if you didn't have one to rip with the card.
I think this is actually a good lead-in to the topic of TFA -- part of the ROM contained a specific string, I think it was "Stolen from Apple Computer" that could be searched for and found in an image. So let's say you make a Mac emulator, and claim that it doesn't contain Apple's intellectual property in any way. A quick search can reveal whether it has the whole ROM image embedded in it somewhere.
There's probably some checksumming I assume to keep you from just removing the "Stolen from Apple Computer" or changing 'Apple Computer' to 'Joe's Computer', but the basic idea is very simple. It's just a little marker that they stuck in their code to make it easier to identify later.
Given that the x86 Macs are basically going to put Apple back in a situation not dissimilar to the one they were in 20 years ago with Amiga hardware (or maybe even the Apple II clones before that), it doesn't surprise me at all that they'd do something like this again. I'm sure they have more modern, sophisticated security measures to keep you from moving the OS easily to commodity hardware as well.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
It's still a painful experience.
You can't really blame it on the Linux developers though, they've really fixed the problems on the software end of the installation difficulties, the real problem is just with the bizarre variety of hardware that's out there, and the utter lack of open documentation or driver support for anything but Windows.
I put Ubuntu relatively painlessly onto a HP Workstation -- this was a machine that was designed from the factory to run Linux (RedHat, granted, but Linux just the same) -- and have no complaints. But when I went down to Best Buy and tried to get a wireless card, I wasn't able to find a single one that was compatible with Linux. I ended up getting some Linksys one and using ndiswrapper drivers that won't change SSIDs without forcing a reboot.
Is this the Ubuntu developers' fault? No way. Is it Linksys'? Probably. Does it matter to me as an end user? Not really -- the point is the experience sucks, and this reflects poorly on the OS, even though it might be outside of the developers' control.
You don't have problems like this on the Mac, because Apple controls the hardware. You want wireless on your Mac? Get an Airport card -- there's only one, this is what it's going to cost you, take it or leave it. It costs 3x as much as a PC wireless card, but it works all the time and without any configuration, or even any user-installed drivers. And this in turn makes the whole operating system seem almost magical: things always "just work."
The whole "Apple experience" is Apple's greatest asset. It's worth more to them than their hardware architecture, Mac OS X, or anything else. Those are just components which work together to produce the net effect. Obviously they're going to guard it jealously, and one of the things that maintains this experience is a rigid control of the hardware.
I wouldn't want Apple to have the kind of marketshare that Microsoft does. (I wouldn't want anyone to have the marketshare that Microsoft does.) But they don't, they have their 10% and they run it as a sort of "benevolent dictatorship." You pay your money and you get your experience.
Apple isn't going to let you easily move their OS to other hardware, because they don't want to have the same problem that Linux has: hardware problems completely outside of their control will reflect poorly on their product.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
The Mac mini is underpowered? Are you nuts? That little thing flies. Oh, and if you're not in the demographic for a Mac, don't complain. Get a nice PC, tweak it out and enjoy. Your whining serves no purpose.
I do have an iBook. Because it was cheaper than everything else. I don't have any illusion about the quality of Apple's computers. There are notebooks out there that are way better than Powerbooks (wrt actual quality and support).
I remember a company that tried that, once ... it was called Be, Inc.
Somebody else can finish the story.
(Anyone? Anyone...? Bueller?)
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
I have had to dd if=firmware.bin of=/dev/disk1s2 more than have had any issues with my other generic hardware. I am running osx dev build 8f1111g with no problems on fully capable sse2 hardware. How ignorrant are we as humans who would request that Steve Jobs _bless_ our hardware?
This type of control structure was predicted in the Holy Bible as the anti-Christ. We will thank Steve Jobs for blessing hardware with his wonderful chips to confuse us and keep us in the dark as he destroys mankind.
This blessing is a disguise for the truth that older (unprofitable) hardware is being pulled from the shelves of the retail channel.
For example, can anyone walk out of a store with a hard drive that is less than $100 bucks or smaller than 80 gigs.
Apple hardware has been sheltered from the real world of bit-thrashing that has been occurring for the last decade, therefore it is more likely to fail once it is exposed to this environment. Good luck apple and your blind followers, you will need it...
Imagine if MS hadn't killed BE... instead of Intel and MS ruling the desktop market for so long and forcing single threaded high-Megahurtz toaster oven computers on the world, we could have had BeOS 7 systems with Quad PPC chips with 4 cores on each by now.
Actually, whilst MS' unfair practices put a final end to Be, on x86, I think it's fair to say that it was Apple who put an end to BeOS on PPC.
I suspect a large secondary market would open up to support OSX hacks (umm, Linux, anyone?). It could be the best of both worlds: a professionally managed & developed OS on a reliable (but limited) hardware platform; yet if you want to trick it out, you can, and optionally take on 3rd party support.
We all live in a state of ambitious poverty. -- Decimus Junius Juvenalis
Apple agreed not to let Mac OS run on regular PCs for the same duration. As long as they keep it tied to their hardware, Microsoft really has no worries about a Windows competitor.
You've got this very wrong. MS has a desktop OS monopoly. Believe it or not, but the pre-installed OS market is the only one that matters. Unlike Slashdot, the rest of the world does not ever install a new OS on their machines. The market for non-preinstalled OS is basically non-existent. Since all OEMs that don't have their own OS to ship with are wholly dependent upon MS, and MS has different prices with each one, MS can kill any PC maker that does something like selling OS X pre-installed. I doubt, then, that they made a deal with Apple to keep Apple from selling to OEMs. They don't need Apple's agreement to do this. In fact the only way any other OS can really gain market share is if they find or are a hardware maker that exclusively sells their own OS. Right now, that is Apple. Should they grab a significant market share (say 20%) another OEM might be willing to bet the company on switching to OS X. Until that time, however, MS does not need to worry.
I would surmise the deal that is keeping MS making office is either the threat of a new anti-trust lawsuit (that is what made this same deal last time) or Apple agreeing not to ship a competitor to Office. It probably did not take too much on the table since MS would be in hard position as a convicted monopolist killing a very profitable product that works on their largest competitors platform. It would be a slam dunk lawsuit against them.
You make the point. At this point I wouldn't be surprised if RedHat or Novell followed the same route and entered the hw market. RedHat computers, not mere hw compatibility lists but real stuff designed in house, kernel modules included, and manufactured by the usual Lenovo, Asustek, whatever. The inescapable closed source parts (nVIDIA, wifi radios) would be managed by the corporate entity that would at this point have a circumscribed platform to develop upon.
Would that completely betray the philosophy of Linux or rather provide a decent compromise to the current deadlock? After all it's what IBM is doing on the lower tier servers and what no established hw manufacturer would ever dare to do for fear of Microsoft's retaliation
Mi domando chi à il mandante di tutte le cazzate che faccio - Altan
There are notebooks out there that are way better than Powerbooks (wrt actual quality and support).
Such as? IBM, and...Mi domando chi à il mandante di tutte le cazzate che faccio - Altan
Can you give an example of a good use of TPM from the consumer point of view? I thought not.
No but that is irrelvant.
If I order a vegetable plate at a restauraunt I may not like some of the things on the platter. But I eat what I like and ignore the rest.
It is only when TPM FORCES you to eat the undesireable vegetables that it becomes an issue (as it might with some future WIndows boxes). Otherwise it's simple a questionable use of resources on Apple's part - but again if it does not affect me (able to run whatever I like on a MacBook Pro including Linux) then what is the problem?
Similarily when Blu-Ray comes out, I will be happy to use it - as a backup medium. I could really care less how many layers of DRM they embed in movies to make the users cry, because I'll be using it at a cross-purpose with my own needs met and no DRM effect whatsoever. I can laugh at the waste of the movie studios money in trying to strengthen DRM even as I reap the pure technological benefits of the new format.
But then I guess mine is a practical approach, one that does not lead me to a live of living in a dirt hut because nothing on this world is pure enough for my sensitve soul.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Do the two or three times I used a retail box of 10.3 to clean install onto a blank hard drive count? Just because it gets used as an upgrade doesn't mean it only works as one; more importantly, the license is a fresh and new entire license. When you purchase a box of 10.x, your old operating system doesn't magically become the base for the current one.
That spelling was lifted from the linked site.
Oh, say does that Star-Spangled Banner entwine / The myrtle of Venus with Bacchus's vine?
Apples hardware is no different then Dells or any other pc manufacturer. They all buy their hardware from 3rd party manufactures
Even if it is crappy hardware, making software work on one, well-known, piece of crappy hardware is much easier than making software work on every piece of crappy hardware on the market. :)
"No, ISA was under a government-mandated Reasonable And Non-Discrimatory hardware license program which dated from the minicomputer wars of the 1970s."
I'll just disagree in a friendly way with you.
That would be the friendly way in which one avoids looking at easily and publically available court documents saying "yes, this court did exactly what you just pretended didn't happen," right?
There's nothing friendly about lying with a smile on your face and a pleasant tone.
StoneCypher is Full of BS
If you run Linux on a Mac, why buy one in the first place?
A really nice laptop with backlit keys? The sense of satisfaction you get with using something new?
Personally I am content to run X11 under OS X and use a few Linux apps that way. But if you are Linux all the way the Macbook Pro is still a damn fine laptop.
Now it's just a quation of how soon driver support would be there for some of the newer features, or video card...
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Exactly what part of "TPM is not useful for all end-users" is (a) wrong and (b) not understandable ?
Pointless and covered.
Besides, if you demand every feature included is "useful for all users" does that mean you'd also strip out VI AND Emacs from OSX? Why I hear a million voices crying out in pain!
To refute the above assertion you have to provide an example where
Since as I noted your assertion is irrelevant, I need do no such thing - besides if you'd read earlier responses to your post there were two good answers right there man! Have you forgotten so soon? Sensing a probem here...
Your action is in fact an excellent example where TPM is harmful, to you in particular, since you have to go through the trouble of wiping the O/S on your machine so that its hardware works for you.
Not if I want to use OSX! Then TPM is not harming me in the least. In the case I want to use Linux, you are saying that Apple not offering Linux as an install option has ANYTHING to do with TPM? Come on, get a grip.
In your very word, TPM is used for "limitations". This is my whole point, Thanks. Skirting around the issue is not defeating it nor rendering it irrelevant.
Aha! You fell right into that one, your response is as pathetic as it was predicable. TPM is used for lmitations IN OSX. If you have no desire to use OSX, you thus have NO LIMITATION in the use of the MacBook Pro. Which once again makes your misguided zelotry in not buying one for Linux use pathetic and really whack.
I believe, as an example, that Dual-Layer DVDs are not becoming as easily available or cheap as they should because makers are afraid they are going to run into trouble with content producers...
OMFG, break out the Tinfoil Hat. I asked how Dual-Layer DVD's were limited - you answer they are more expensive than they should be due to "The Man" which has nothing to do with storage capacity.
As I have no time to argue with an idiot, a lunatic, or a troll and you are absolutly one or more of all three - I'll graciously conset to let you have the last words on the whole topic. I'm sure Slashdot readers will get a chuckle, though I'll personally have to bow out of reading whatever wild misdirections you post next in vain attempts to support your point - I simply cannt risk aquiring what you have as I wish to lead a productive, healty, only moderatley paranoid existance. Good luck with life man, you're going to need quite a lot!
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
"That would be the friendly way in which one avoids looking at easily and publically available court documents "
b uses.txt
s pec5.html
I went down to the court house and they said they didn't have them.
Anyway, I can't find any internet reference to ISA bus licensing.
This link:
http://www.ecst.csuchico.edu/~dranch/HARDWARE/pc-
Suggests that IBM developed the MCA bus because nobody paid licensing fees for ISA.
This link:
http://www.aaxnet.com/info/glocomp.html
Matches my recollection with this quote:
"Not only did IBM demand stiff royalties for its use [MCA], they also demanded back royalties for all computers built using the ISA bus before they would license it. NCR suckered for this deal but nobody else did."
This link from IBM:
http://www-128.ibm.com/developerworks/library/pa-
Makes no mention of ISA licensing. Maybe IBM was ashamed.
Now seriously, you might be right. But I can't find a reference on the Internet, which suggests it's not so easily available. Perhaps you could send a link?
Ah yes, I've read about that here. (It's got to be authentic, because nobody would think to fake that printout from an ImageWriter with a faded ribbon!)
If letting PCs run OSX (original or pirated) is going to increase the installed base by wooing users like me (who have never owned a Mac) to actually try and learn OSX, so be it!
Once the OS gets momentum, by stealing some market on the linux side (because not all of us are smart enough to learn terminal lingo, but still trust on unix), and some on the PC side (because most of us are sick of M$), they can launch OS XI, and get a little more demanding on hardware requirements (what? your PC doesnt handle superHDTV with 18 sound channels?)
Sure a OSX PC will be less stable, and/or less capable than the real deal. Some of us will choose to go high end, and buy Apple's hardware, others will choose to stay on the cheap side, and deal some glitches. The market will do an auto-segmentation!
Caffeine is definitely not your friend...
Sorry, I couldn't find any references to this mandated licensing for ISA anywhere. Could you post a link?
You were mistaken. Which is odd, since memory shouldn't be a problem for you
I agree, it seems like it would be logical for a company with a vested interest in Linux on the desktop to either start manufacturing/rubberstamping hardware under a brand name ... and the fact that we don't see that I think is indicative of the fact that there really isn't any company with a big interest in seeing Linux on the desktop. At least not that has the resources to do something like that. (Except perhaps Novell/SuSE, but they're pretty occupied with their merger right now.)
You're right, the US based companies won't touch Linux except as an afterthought for fear of provoking Microsoft and effectively being driven out of business if they had their discounts terminated. Plus, I'm not sure there's really demand in the States for Linux desktops yet; it's probably ready as an OS for corporate-desktop use (limited number of applications, tech people on call) but companies are afraid of being un-interoperable, and it's perceived as being too complicated and "different" by most home users.
I think the biggest possibility is Lenovo -- they have strong ties to IBM, a big Linux proponent (I recall IBM at one point was going to dump Windows for Linux, but then backed away from it) and are Chinese, where they could potentially get a lot of government support for a solution that doesn't pay a tithe to Redmond. If some Chinese corporation came to them and said it wanted to equip itself with new Lenovo laptops running RedHat, it would be pretty easy for them to put it together -- since a RedHat based IBM Linux distro already exists for ThinkPads. (I don't know what its Chinese language support is like, but I'd bet it's probably pretty good.) From there, they could put together a whole line of Linux-compatible hardware and accessories to support their customers with. It just depends on whether there's any demand/interest in a non-Windows corporate/governmental solution for the desktop.
It always has disappointed me that IBM didn't carry through on their threat (or proposal, whatever you want to call it) to dump Windows as their desktop client and switch to RedHat. They came really close, as close as any large US organization has come (that I've seen), but they stepped back. If they had, it would have been huge -- 300,000+ employees, many client-facing, each running "IBM Desktop Linux" (or whatever it was called)? The increased demand for Linux-supported hardware alone would have been huge, not to mention the exposure to a lot of powerful people.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
It's been a while since I read that story. I guess I had forgotten the details, but that sounds like the same thing. It makes sense if it's an image as opposed to a string, and especially a compressed one, it's a lot harder to find.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
Who in their right mind wants to support it?
It would be unfair and shitty to make Apple allow Mac OS X on all Intel-ish hardware. They would have to write drivers for ALL of the Taiwanese garbage equipment out there? c'mon and be realistic. That's not a good or desirable idea by anyone. Windows doesn't even work smoothly on some of these new clone chip-sets.
Don't give me some speech about how this clone PC is just as good, but costs less crap. That's not the point. Standardization of drivers, quality control, and management of the platform is what gives it extraordinary benefit to developers. It keeps Apple's costs down and allows them to add features to the O/S and not just bolster support. Microsoft has been caught up in the support nightmare. They'd lock down the PC platform in an instant... if they could.
I know everybody with a $499 Dell PC wants to run OS X. I want a LS2 engine inside my shitty Ford. Neither are good ideas from an engineering perspective. The shorter PC manufacturing cycle introduces errata that MUST be compensated for. Apple has it too. Manufacturers can't update the operating system and support libraries and keep up with the rest of the industry! There's something to be said about only supporting yourself.
There are niceties I'm not willing to trade so that others can run OS X. I'd *HATE* to need to assume that vectorization support might be missing from some Intel Macs, because SOME of them use AMD or even VIA processors. FUCK THAT.
This isn't about race, but the x86 isn't pure. I think of it as a collection of pseudo-standards that play well together. Intel code is neither optimized nor completely portable to AMD CPU, and vice-versa. Memory controllers are varied. Even the IDE controllers can be different... something as standard as an IDE controller!
I hope Apple never opens it up. That is the day that innovation dies and support begins.