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OSx86 Shutdown Rumors Explained

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the needle-in-a-command-stack dept.

n.e.watson writes "The AP has run an article that addresses recent rumors on the internet about Apple Legal shutting down the OSx86 Project, with a statement from an OSx86 administrator. From the article: 'The OSx86 Project Web site stated Apple had served it with a notice on Thursday citing violations of the 1998 Digital Millennium Copyright Act, and the site was reviewing all of its discussion forum postings as a result. The site has always aimed to adhere to copyright laws and is working with Apple to ensure no violations exist, according to a statement by the site administrator.'"

24 of 600 comments (clear)

  1. Kind of Ironic... by sagefire.org · · Score: 5, Insightful

    ...for the company that named one of it's System Beeps Sosumi (pronounced "So Sue Me") when Apple Records tried to shut them down a while back.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sosumi
  2. Apple please listen...... by pstreck · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I don't want to steal your beautiful OS, I truly don't. I am more than willing to pay for it. I've owned Macs in the past, I loved my power book and my iMac, and i'll probably eventually by another power book. But truth be told I like building my own PCs and having the extra options that goes along with that. Don't your get that? A company that has its roots in a garage, you were born out of the hacker mentalitiy. When did you get so damn anal? Please apple, please wake up. We will pay, lots of us will. But I don't want your desktop hardware.

    --

    Later,
    Phil
    1. Re:Apple please listen...... by brainnolo · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Unfortunately, selling platforms is Apple's main activity, they do not sell hardware and/or software. The Mac is a platform composed of Mac OS X and hardware tailored to make it run without glitches, this is what they offer, the fact you don't like it does not authorize you to use a component of their platforms with different hardware. Buying a copy of the OS is not enough even (because they do not make huge profits out of it, they mostly cover R&D costs), yet is probably is enough to shut that little voice saying "don't steal" up :)

    2. Re:Apple please listen...... by SoTuA · · Score: 4, Insightful

      why don't they throw it out there for cheap with NO support;

      Because, even with no support, disclaimers, and all, badly running OSX on the crappiest hardware on earth is still bad publicity for Apple. For a company that's as image-driven as Apple, that spells "bad shit".

    3. Re:Apple please listen...... by Yahweh+Doesn't+Exist · · Score: 4, Insightful

      >But I don't want your desktop hardware.

      And Apple doesn't want your custom.

      Why do so many people think they have a right to dictate the terms of other people's businesses?

    4. Re:Apple please listen...... by CynicTheHedgehog · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Haven't we been over this? Apple sells a computing experience. The only way that they can guarantee a stable, secure, and performant environment is to assert control over their hardware. They can't write drivers for everything, and if they opened up a driver API for third party vendors the result would be chaos, and then everyone would complain about instability and speed issues for the next ten years until all of the major third party vendors got their drivers sorted out. This is the same reason you can't buy XBox firmware for a Sony Playstation. Like videogame consoles, Apple computers are platforms consisting of hand-picked, thoroughly-tested sets hardware, firmware, and software. That is one of the primary factors in their reliability, and it isn't going to change any time soon.

      The experience is more than the software, and therefore costs more. If it is truly worth it to you, you will buy a mac. If not, enjoy the alternatives. Regardless, theft is theft and I believe Apple is perfectly within their rights, not only as it relates directly to profits but also with respect to their reputation. OS X is not going to run as well on random x86 chipsets and peripherals, and the resulting quirky behavior will be damaging to their image.

    5. Re:Apple please listen...... by PetiePooo · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Why do so many people think they have a right to dictate the terms of other people's businesses?

      That's easy. Those people have the checkbooks!

      Seriously, why do so many businesses think they can cram whatever garbage they want down our throats? I'm not saying Macs are garbage; I personally like them better than Windows boxen. However, many businesses, MS and Apple included, assume they know what's best for me. I disagree. And, since they don't have my checkbook, I get to take it elsewhere.

    6. Re:Apple please listen...... by ebuck · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Companies grow up, they move away from their roots and strain the friendships they fostered. Apple extended to many people years of hacking fun, fostering an environment of computer understanding and comraderie. In return, that community extended it's friendship and remained vehementally loyal. A good friend is hard to find, hard to lose, and hard to forget.

      But Apple hasn't been true to it's garage hacking roots for many, many years. Some of their devices are specifically built to be hack unfriendly. Their audience isn't the same makeup and composition of the old "old-timers", and when you tell a new mac addict about building your own paddles / joystick for the II+, they sort of look at you and say "That's neat, I have a Sidewinder joystick". They're buying the mac for good reasons; security, ease of maintenance, (more) consistent UI design, etc. But, in the end, they are more likele to be consumers of the technology, and only possibly consumers of the few hacks that get created for those platforms.

      As a company, Apple has decided to cater to that crowd, and finiancially they may not have a choice. Their computers (and other devices) are coming pre-packaged in slick boxes with all of the image gimmicks that are usually reserved for high end perfumes. It's becoming even more about image than before. The image market will always have hordes of people who will be happy with knock-offs and pirated copies of the Mac OS, as it feeds into the "keeping up with the Jones'" mentality.

      Much of the Macintosh's product image is in the software, and Apple has decided that CPU and hardware details aren't vital to that formula. Losing control of the software means losing control of the Mac market.

      Things may change; the pendulum may swing back. These sites may go online again. People can find a happy medium. But human nature is not dismissable, and I'm sure a few people are thinking along the lines of this quote:

      "I think that if your friends don't like that you think a little different than they do, then maybe you shouldn't want them as friends. And, you should consider the loss of friendship their loss, not yours." --Chelsey Collinsdale

      I don't think Apple deserves to be demonized over this, but I hope they don't play their hand too strongly. Perhaps it is best not to befriend a company, as they "are always constant, except in (their) affections." -- Oscar Wilde (taken out of context, of course!)

    7. Re:Apple please listen...... by CyberDave · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I think that's a miscalculation. People know what "no support" means. It wouldn't hurt Apple at all, and would probably help, with the free publicity from the "gotta build my own box" set.

      No, that's pretty mcuh dead on.

      We here on Slashdot know what "no support" means. And we're fine throwing OS X onto a spare partition in a box that already multiboots between XP, 2K, Gentoo, and NetBSD. And we like to brag about the challenges we had to go through to get it all to work ("I spent the afternoon recompiling my Xserver to use "march=pentium4" instead of "mcpu=pentium4" in my make.conf blah blah blah").

      But we here on Slashdot are not normal people (and a great many of our kin don't seem to understand that). What is easy and cool for us is difficult and scary for everyone else. We can deal with looking at system requirements and buying compatible hardware to use with our unsupport copy of OS X, but my parent's can't, and neither can the folks who walk into Best Buy and ask if 802.11b is compatible with 802.11g (and neither can the salesman there who answers that they don't work together).

      Joe Sixpack will hear from his friend that he can use OS X on a non-Apple PC. Even if the friend is very specifc about the details, most of those details are going to go in one of Joe's ears and out the other (much like I have no clue what most of the medical terminology means on House, M.D. or Grey's Anatomy). But they're still going to have "non-apple PC" and "OS X" stuck in their head, and then they'll try it and it won't work properly, and then they'll be one of the vocal minority of people who have problems, and post on every message board they can find that "Apple sux", etc., etc., and generally do a bad thing to Apple's image.

      Bottom line, what's great about the Mac is that it's more than just an OS, it's an entire platform that is guaranteed (well, almost guaranteed) to JUST WORK. And at this point in time, Apple is not going to do ANYTHING to jeopardize that, no matter how many people on Slashdot wish they would.

      I hope this post made some sense...running on very little sleep right now. I think I had some larger point to make, but it seems to have escaped me.

    8. Re:Apple please listen...... by IntlHarvester · · Score: 4, Insightful

      then they'll be one of the vocal minority of people who have problems, and post on every message board they can find that "Apple sux", etc., etc., and generally do a bad thing to Apple's image.

      One reason Apple has such a positive image and "brand value" is not just because of the design of their products, but because of the price/exclusivity factors. The Mac world is something one have to Buy Into, and once someone has made a commitment they are far less likely to start complaining about it.

      That's the main reason Apple products have good reputations even whey they suck. (Early slow/crashy versions of OSX were herlded; People had to fight Apple over the iBook motherboard issues and still are true blue customers, etc) People have a huge $$$ incentive to not talk down their own 'investment'.

      On top of that, consider that most computer users have *heard* of Macs, 90% of them have never sat down in front of one and used it. So you have a product with a huge word-of-mouth reputation, but only the true-blue loyalists have any hands-on experience with them.

      Now, you lower the cost of entry to $120 or $0, and the Mac is exposed to the masses. What happens? Do they all become Mac Believers? Or do they look at it soberly and come to a very different conclusion?

      When you get right down to it, what exactly is so great about the Mac? The herlded UI is flashy, but mainly just different than Windows, not really significantly better or worse. The included software is nothing all that special. A lot of people are going to (rationally) say "I tried the Mac, it's really not all that special." This attitude starts to percalate back to the loyal Mac purchsers, who start asking the same questions. (This happened in the Win95 era, when many loyal Mac buyers just changed their mind and walked.) The mystique is gone.

      --
      Business. Numbers. Money. People. Computer World.
    9. Re:Apple please listen...... by thesandtiger · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I think that's a miscalculation. People know what "no support" means. It wouldn't hurt Apple at all, and would probably help, with the free publicity from the "gotta build my own box" set.

      And anyway, without some hacking, Mac OS X would require an EFI logic board to boot out of the box - it wouldn't work on crappy old hardware, only new legacy-free stuff.

      And I think even Joe Sixpack knows that if you have to get a third party hack to make your OS boot, the company is not going to support you.

      That's a pretty naive assessment, frankly.

      I used to do support for a company that sold children's educational software to home users. This software had nothing to do with the Internet, our company name bore no relation what-so-ever to any ISP that I'm aware of, and our phone number was not, as far as I know, similar to any ISP's phone number.

      Yet, for some strange reason, at least 50% of our call volume was from people who wanted us to help them connect to the Internet (or, less freqently, wanted us to give them a quick phone tutorial on how to format stuff in Word or write formulas in Excel). When we explained that we didn't have *anything* to do with the Internet or MS Office, that we wouldn't even know where to begin, and that they really should just contact their ISP for help, the response was usually along the lines of "Fuck you! I'll tell everyone I know to stay away from your shitty company!"

      Expecting Joseph Pack, IV to be a reasonable person when it comes to this stuff is not a wise idea. He'll try to install the software, it won't work, he'll beat his head against the wall for hours and hours, and then tell everyone he knows that Apple is shitty. How do I know this? Because I can point out that the exact same thing happens with Linux... How many people have you met who think Linux is a steaming pile of shit because whatever distro they tried didn't install easily? How many people have you met who think Linux is a company with a shitty "free" product?

      Apple releasing OSX for anything other than their very specific hardware selection would be a catastrophic mistake - it isn't designed to work with "just anything" and I don't care how many disclaimers one puts on the box, people won't read them, they'll try to get it to work on stuff that specifically isn't supported, and then they'll bitch and moan to all and sundry that Apple sucks.

      --
      Since I can't tell them apart, I treat all ACs as the same person.
  3. Bad link by The+Cisco+Kid · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I see the /. editors have a new whore, I guess they got tired of the NYT and now hang with the W post.

    For the cheap seats this time:

    IF YOU CAN'T POST AN OPEN, PUBLIC LINK TO THE STORY, THEN DON'T POST IT AT ALL

  4. Disgusting. by tpgp · · Score: 4, Insightful
    just days after they featured links to information on how to hack the software and run it on non-Apple PCs[emphasis mine]
    Links?

    It's immoral when large companies like Microsft, Sony & now Apple try trying to limit our right to do whatever the hell we like with legally purchased goods.

    But to issue a takedown over a link is just disgusting. Apple needs to take a good look at the ethics of other compapnies that do this sort of thing and ask itself - is this really where I want to go?
    --
    My pics.
    1. Re:Disgusting. by Yahweh+Doesn't+Exist · · Score: 3, Insightful

      It's immoral when you buy a product agreeing to certain conditions, then decide you don't like them so ignore them.

    2. Re:Disgusting. by goldspider · · Score: 4, Insightful

      If you don't like a company's business philosophy, you send a much more pointed to them by simply NOT BUYING THEIR PRODUCT. You aren't shackled to them if you don't do business with them in the first place!

      --
      "Ask not what your country can do for you." --John F. Kennedy
    3. Re:Disgusting. by iCEBaLM · · Score: 4, Insightful

      It's immoral for a company to expect me to adhere to licence agreements that I can't look at before I pay for the product.

      It's immoral for a company to expect the general public to be able to read and fully understand mounds of legalese that most lawyers would cringe at.

  5. Give it a rest by admo · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Good god, these "I deserve to run OS X any way I like" arguments are tiresome. Go do something to make OSS better if you want to tinker. Or hack OS X to run on whatever you want, and then keep it to your damn self and enjoy it! Just for god's sake don't bring up that Apple I motherboards were made in a garage or that Woz futzed around with long distance calls more than 30 years ago - 30 years ago! - as reasons Apple should "chill out" about people using their software in ways they don't like.

  6. Mark my words.... by Chanc_Gorkon · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Apple, this is not something you can stop. Its NOT illegal to do what these folks are doing. The law allows for reverse engineering. IBM LOST this battle and you will too. What is this battle I speak of? Remember way back when all PC's were made by IBM?? IBM tried to sue the pants off of Compaq and others for reverse engineering BIOS. Granted, this is not the same time period or the same thing but case law seems to go in our hands in my humble opinion.

    From Wikipedia:

    Columbia copied the IBM PC and produced the first 'compatible' (i.e., more or less compatible to the IBM PC standard) PC in 1982. Compaq Computer Corp. produced its first IBM PC compatible a few months later in 1982 -- the Compaq Portable. The Compaq was not only the first "sewing machine-sized" portable PC but, even more important, was the first essentially 100% PC-compatible computer. The company could not directly copy the BIOS as a result of the court decision in Apple v. Franklin, but it could reverse-engineer the IBM BIOS and then write its own BIOS using clean room design.

    Franklin and Columbia did the wrong thing but Compaq did a white room reverse-engineering of the BIOS. This is all the OSx86 project is doing too. Hello EFF??? You need to defend these guys.

    In less then 10 years, there will be no Mac's or Apple will just give up preventing anyone from installing thier OS on other machines....can't Apple see that there are lot of people who ALREADY HAVE x86 machines that are perfectly capable of running thier OS but they can't or rather won't justify spending 3 grand on a new Mac. These same people would probably even consider a Mac when they do have the money just because they WANT to run your OS. Helloooo? Apple what are you thinkin?

    --

    Gorkman

  7. Apple can do no wrong by voice+of+unreason · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Not to flamebait, but it always astonishes me how Apple manages to get away with this stuff. Whenever any other company does this sort of thing, they get a lot of grief. When Apple does it, people get mad, but Apple somehow manages to keep an entirely undeserved reputation as nice people. Apple may make a nifty OS and a nice mp3 player, but they do all the bad stuff that Microsoft and company likes to do, but somehow people still think they're heros. Someday people are going to catch on that having less market share doesn't mean you're more ethical.

  8. Hear me, Slashdot! by WhiteWolf666 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Want to see _real_ Apple fanbois?

    Look at the jacknuts in this thread supporting Apple's use of the DMCA. These assholes really are approving of use of the DMCA.

    Back in the day, Compaq built an reverse-engineered BIOS in order to run IBM-DOS on Compaq systems. They won the legal fight, and it opened up a new era in computing.

    In this day and age, the DMCA would prevent that from ever occuring, because you would never be allowed to crack the TPM. And these Apple fanbois are actually supporting them.

    I'm an Apple fan. I have a powerbook, two mac minis, and I was thinking about buying a powermac G5. But I sure as hell don't support any usage of the DMCA.

    --
    WhiteWolf666 an exBush supporter. All you new-school,compassionate,save the children Republicans can rot in hell
    1. Re:Hear me, Slashdot! by kwerle · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Back in the day, Compaq built an reverse-engineered BIOS in order to run IBM-DOS on Compaq systems. They won the legal fight, and it opened up a new era in computing.

      http://www.jmusheneaux.com/01.htm#1

      They also took the legal approach: 2 team cleanroom engineering. Legal then, and probably legal today. While I have not looked at the OSX hack sites, I doubt that's what they're doing. They're probably taking the OS, disasembling it, patching it, and releasing the patches.

      The correct approach would be to start from scratch and write an OS that could load and execute OSX programs (which would be similar to the WINE project, I imagine), or load the whole OS without modifying it.

  9. Re:Apple appears not to want anyone to link to Max by slavemowgli · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Good point - I'd better make sure I never accidentally link to http://maxxuss.hotbox.ru/ . After all, Apple might not like it if I link to http://maxxuss.hotbox.ru/ , because then people could go to http://maxxuss.hotbox.ru/ and find information on how to use the software they paid for.

    Obviously, we can't have that, so I'll make sure not to link to http://maxxuss.hotbox.ru/ . Thanks for reminding me that http://maxxuss.hotbox.ru/ is bad voodoo - I'll make sure that none of my websites contains a link to http://maxxuss.hotbox.ru/ , too! :)

    --
    quidquid latine dictum sit altum videtur.
  10. Treating the OS like firmware by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Like it or not, OSX86 and OSX are not precisely the same operating system. A license to one is not a license to the other. Rosetta, for example, is a new piece of software.

    You cannot currently buy OSX86. If you have a PPC Mac or you've bought retail OSX, you do not have a license or ownership in any form of the Rosetta software. The only people who currently have any kind of fair-use standing to bitch about this are people who have purchased an Intel Mac. Even they only have the license to run one copy of the software.

    So if you've purchased an Intel iMac, installed Linux on it, and you would now like to install OSX on a commodity PC... have at it. Yell at Apple all you like. I somehow doubt that even one individual is in precisely that position right now. All this complaining is hypothetical.

    People are ready to be pissed off when retail OSX86 is available for sale but restricted from running on PCs. Well, who knows? Maybe Apple will stop selling OSX retail. That's a valid approach to this situation... they could just sell it with the hardware, and _give it away_ to people who have the hardware. Buying a Mac could be a license to use whatever the newest version of OSX is on your Mac as long as your model is still supported. This isn't unusual. It's the way firmware IP works. It might be the only way for them to grow on x86 hardware.

    For now, nobody has the legal standing to run x86 on commodity hardware without first taking it off of a nicer, genuine Apple first. This is true even if you believe in every variant of fair use any forum fanboy can imagine.

  11. I don't buy that by ThousandStars · · Score: 5, Insightful
    Early slow/crashy versions of OSX were herlded (sic)

    Early versions of OS X were heralded because they showed such extraordinary potential. At last, a company showed an operating system simple enough for novices while retaining its complexity for masters. A company wedded the *nix experience with a slick GUI. The same machine could easily run MS Office, Adobe programs and a myriad of open source code. Decent developer tools came free in every box. Even if the beta and 10.0 releases of OS X were slow and crashed frequently, a lot of people looked at them and saw the future. That vision was even more radical because Macs in the 90's were so horrendous by comparison.

    Prior to OS X, Apple did not have a good reputation. People legitimately predicted their death. If they were mentioned on tech sites at all, it was with appropriate derision. Although some Mac users display the kind of religious zealotry you describe, your argument is still a straw man. There is no "mystique" for most of us. In the Win95 era, Apple had a crappy operating system and so did Microsoft, so a lot of new computer buyers bought Windows systems. More people still do. But Apple now offers a compelling line up. That's why they get respect on Slashdot. The company is far from saintly, as their DMCA threats show, but they are better than Microsoft and easier to use, particularly for laptops, than Linux. OS X turned the company around. It's a good operating system. That's why people use it. That's why people saw the early versions and said "wow."

    It's not coincidence that I type this from a PowerBook that originally ran 10.3.