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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.'"

110 of 600 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Seriously, why bother? by A+beautiful+mind · · Score: 3, Funny

    Nothing better than to see a historical troll on a quiet sunday afternoon. ;)

    --
    It takes a man to suffer ignorance and smile
    Be yourself no matter what they say
  2. Fully agreed. I mean, why bother? by maynard · · Score: 5, Funny

    I'm sitting here in front of a PDP-11/73 running RSX and trying to copy a 250 block file from this CDC-80 dishwasher 80MB hard drive to an RX08 8" floppy disk. It's taking freak''n forever! DEC addicts, go ahead and flame me, but why do you insist on using this ancient junk? Try something a little more modern. Like an Osborne. Or even a TRS-80. Sheesh!

  3. Poems by Ritz_Just_Ritz · · Score: 5, Funny

    There once was a dude with a Mac
    Who's code he tried to attack
    His grin was short-lived
    When Jobs did not forgive
    And gave him a boot in the sack.

    1. Re:Poems by cyberbian · · Score: 5, Funny

      The dashing young CEO Steve,
      Has a TPM stashed up his sleeve,
      He used it to track,
      All the people that hack,
      Or that's what he'll have you believe.

      --
      if I claimed I was emperor just because some watery tart lobbed a scimitar at me they'd put me away!
    2. Re:Poems by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

      For some reason I go this scary vision of Steve Jobs in a cowboy suit dancing and singing like crazy..

      We'll shut you down with d-m-c-a.
      We'll shut you down with d-m-c-a.

      You can get yourself clean, you can have a good deal,
      But if you don't do what we say ...

      We'll shut you down with d-m-c-a.
      We'll shut you down with d-m-c-a.

      Young man, are you listening to me?
      I said, young man, what do you want to be?
      I said, young man, you can make real my dreams.
      But you got to know this one thing!

      We'll shut you down with d-m-c-a.
      We'll shut you down with d-m-c-a.

    3. Re:Poems by mkiwi · · Score: 3, Interesting
      Really, the poem is a great way for Apple to spread their culture in the hacker community. Just look at Perl poetry: although that is written in Perl, the feeling is the same.

      Rather than brute forcing everyone into accepting their Hardware on their OS, they can instead say "Go for it, but you'll not get any tech support." Apple knows it can't totally contain OS X completely, but they are succeeding in keeping OS X out of the mainstream x86 boxen.

      This is an example of how new ideas get made and how the market progresses in a way that benefits everyone. :)

    4. Re:Poems by AndyboyH · · Score: 3, Funny

      not mine, culled from (iirc) MacRumours but too good not to repost. If it's yours, it's an honour to repost this

      Roses are red
      Aqua is blue
      Don't pirate OSX
      Cause Apple like to sue

      --
      Baka Drew
  4. 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
  5. Apple going overboard? LEGAL security by sreekotay · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Hmm - we do something similar at AOL in terms of the poem (yes, I know - you're SHOCKED that big companies do similar misguided goofy things :P). I had just written about it on my blog given all the Apple press swirl about this.

    But we (AOL) are not really trying to prevent the random developer or user from doing anything - obviously this isn't about being secure TECHNICALLY. We just wanted to prevent giant business partners and competitors and the like profiting from doing things with our software and users we didn't authorize.

    I'd imagine Apple's reasons are similar, though that doesn't really line up with this shutdown order. As I don't think anything like this has gone to court yet, it sounds like either they need to enforce their rights everywhere to keep them, or they're trying to force the precedent, or they've got some zealous/quasi-religious entitlement thing going, between their iPod protectionism, shutting down rumour sites, and now this... Ah, its ok, they're Apple - EVERYBODY loves Apple :)

    --
    graphically speaking
  6. 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 Sepodati · · Score: 2, Interesting

      And Apple doesn't want to have to support you when the OS craps out because of some crazy hardware setup you've got.

      That being said, though, why don't they throw it out there for cheap with NO support. You buy it, you install it, you figure it out, on your own. Or you pay extra for support? They still make some money on a product already developed (which is what businesses need to do in order to survive) and the do-it-yourself type gets something to play with and hopefully enjoy.

      We'll see...

      ---John Holmes...

    2. 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 :)

    3. Re:Apple please listen...... by dwater · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Kind of funny when there's many of us who want their hardware, but don't want their OS :)

      --
      Max.
    4. Re:Apple please listen...... by m50d · · Score: 3, Interesting
      When did you get so damn anal?

      That one's easy. When they stopped having Woz.

      --
      I am trolling
    5. 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".

    6. 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?

    7. Re:Apple please listen...... by HowIsMyDriving? · · Score: 2, Informative

      Istalling a HD into a G5 tower does not void the Apple Warranty, since Apple itself states that Memory, PCI cards, and Hard drives are user servicable. Many places do have outragous prices on hardware upgrades, but your son was pretty dumb to go along with Apple for this.

      --
      Welcome to the Entropy Bar, may I take your order?
    8. 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.

    9. 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.

    10. Re:Apple please listen...... by morgan_greywolf · · Score: 2, Insightful

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

      --
      My blog
    11. Re:Apple please listen...... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      And this is different from any other store how? "Gee we have this product here for $XXX, but you should go down the street and buy it there because it is cheaper and my employer does not need to make money to pay me to be here to tell the people to go somewhere else." Meet cluestick. Teach you children better and stop blaming the store.

    12. Re:Apple please listen...... by alienw · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Well, the whole trick to business is knowing which customers should get the finger. The whole "the customer is always right" BS will get you bankrupt in a hurry. Let's see, apple can make $1500 off a few million people if they sell computers. Or they can make $20 off of a few thousand geeks if they sell Mac OS by itself. Which do you think they will choose?

    13. 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!)

    14. Re:Apple please listen...... by asdfghjklqwertyuiop · · Score: 3, Informative

      "you're not selling me exactly what I want so you leave me no choice but to steal/copyright infinge your products."


      Nobody was violating Apple's copyright. Apple is (ab)using the DMCA to shut these guys down.

    15. 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.

    16. Re:Apple please listen...... by larkost · · Score: 2, Informative

      The driver API is open to everyone. You can go to develop.apple.com and read all you want about it. They don't include the startup routines, or how to write the bootup KEXT's, but you can do anything you would like post-boot.

    17. Re:Apple please listen...... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      There's nothing tailored about Mac hardware for compatibility. It's standard hardware, in proprietary enclosures. The operating system then has support developed for the hardware by Apple or the IHV responsible for it. This is an marginal expense because the hardware in Macs rarely changes in a manner that requires driver modifications outside of GPUs. Apple is like Dell if Dell designed its own software, instead of reselling Microsoft's. If you look at Apple's financials it makes a huge effing shitload of money off of its software.

    18. Re:Apple please listen...... by Znork · · Score: 2, Insightful

      "badly running OSX on the crappiest hardware on earth"

      Frankly, I dont think Apple cares about people running OSX on crap hardware at all.

      What Apple is worried about is people successfully running OSX on better and cheaper hardware without any problems. What Apple is worried about is getting a repeat of the old Mac clone days with associated collapse of profit margins.

      The image works to keep the current margin up for as long as people see the products as distinct and irreplaceable, but if consumers are suddenly able to, for all intents and purposes, get a 'cheaper, shinier and better "Mac"', the percieved extra value will alter.

      And that spells even worse shit.

    19. Re:Apple please listen...... by CastrTroy · · Score: 2, Interesting

      How come Apple has no problem with you buying a Mac and running Linux on it, but seems to have a problem with people buying Mac OSX and running it on other hardware? I'm sure the number of people who will actually run Mac OSX on a Dell machine are about the same number of people who would run Linux on a Mac. In the end, it really only helps them to get a few more bucks, from people who will buy the OS just to tinker on it. I'm sure there's a lot of web development shops who would love to run OSX just to test out their websites, but don't beacuse it requires buying an entire computer.

      --

      Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
    20. 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.
    21. 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.
    22. Re:Apple please listen...... by jafac · · Score: 2, Funny

      We here on Slashdot know what "no support" means.

      No wait-on-hold-time for an answer that's utterly useless?

      --

      These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
    23. Re:Apple please listen...... by localman · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Huh? How is his use of custom hardware to run software that he buys dictating their business? If I buy a hairdryer and I use it to dry paint, am I dictating their business? What if I buy Excel and use the install CD as a frisbee? What gives?

      I can deal with businesses having ridiculous ideas about how the world should work: that they should control things after they've sold them. Businesses are always ridiculous. As long as they stay out of my house they can say and think whatever they want. But when individuals like yourself start siding with these draconian business ideas, I worry.

      BTW, I paid for my Powerbook G4, and for the latest boxed version of OSX. And I would say that anyone planning to run OSX on Intel should do the same. This is not about stealing. This is about personal choice, creativity, and exploration. Let's not lose sight of that.

      Cheers.

    24. Re:Apple please listen...... by asdfghjklqwertyuiop · · Score: 2, Insightful

      What? Did you even read the article? This is about people making OS X available for download. Of course Apple's copyright was violated. The OSx86 people do not have the right to redistribute the product to others.


      Yes, I did. Did YOU even read the article? I don't see anything at all about the projects making OS X available for download anywhere... please quote the relevant portions that say that.

      If they were, it would be simple copyright violation, no need for a DMCA threat.

  7. Mmm...tastes like insurrection... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    The Digital Millennium Copyright Act: Making it Easy to Be "Guilty until Proven Innocent" for Over 8 Years.

  8. 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

    1. Re:Bad link by whoop · · Score: 2, Informative

      WTF you need a link for? Nobody here is interested in any "article" when we can gather what we should think right from the official Slashdot descriptions!

    2. Re:Bad link by anothy · · Score: 2

      um, why?

      so you have to register. big friggin' deal. if it bothers you, plug in bogus data like most of the rest of the world. there's well-known technical work-arounds, like BugMeNot, as well. personally, i'm glad to have people posting links to sources like the NYT and Washington Post, rather than some random blog, where quality of writing is important (hey, that's not to say they uniformly achieve it, but it's a goal there, at least). what annoys me is the stupid disclaimer that every NYT link gets after it. just point me at the info!

      --

      i speak for myself and those who like what i say.
    3. Re:Bad link by Reality+Master+101 · · Score: 4, Interesting
      IF YOU CAN'T POST AN OPEN, PUBLIC LINK TO THE STORY, THEN DON'T POST IT AT ALL

      Screw you. Who the fuck are you to decide that I should only view links that don't require a subscription? If you don't like it, don't look at the story. I'll decide for myself whether I want to view it, thank you.

      --
      Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
  9. One wonders... by hummassa · · Score: 2, Insightful

    How a company that is profiting exactly with "I want to buy and not just copy" (iTMS) fails to understand that.

    --
    It's better to be the foot on the boot than the face on the pavement. ~~ tkx Kadin2048
  10. 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 nexcomlink · · Score: 2, Insightful
      Here is the difference.

      Sony installs a rootkit, they want to charge more, they are saying either put out or shut it.

      Microsoft while it tries to stop users from downloading there OS and from keeping it pirated there efforts fail. But again you don't see a site like "microsoftOSforfree.com" giving you accurate detail. You will need to find and hunt down the files.

      Apple while it just entered the arena want's to secure there OS but instead of suing the living shit out of you it's being reasonable by at least giving you a chance to remove those links. While other companies would rather just stick the lawyers on your ass drop down your site, and lock you up while there at it.

      The situation I believe is that of course Apple does not want to see it's OS being ran on other hardware but frankly most of us will not care even a Mac supporter like me would love to run it on my AMD Duron box at home. Of course though if you hack the OS they won't mind if you keep it for yourself and provide instructions I suppose just don't provide a fully modified version with the files that belongs to Apple.

    3. 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
    4. 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. Re:Disgusting. by webweave · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Your argument contains one small point of contention that really bothers me. The word "buy" implies ownership. When you buy something you can take it home and do as you will. Would you buy a car that required you to only go to one gas station? Would that be moral or even legal? That's the point but the problem here is the law which is not always moral, (remember slave ownership was legal)

      So you are buying something you don't own? That sounds like deceptive tactics to me but they have been getting away with this for years. When you rent a car you sign a very long form a number of times and explicitly agree that you don't own the car and will bring it back undisturbed. This sounds a lot like what Apple wants but without the contract. Who is immoral?

      The big problem here is the lousy law called the DMCA. The software companies have a law that gives them more powers that even that rental car contract allows for and you haven't even signed anything? That is a huge stick that is bound to be abused. If you want to be a good American and show the rest of the world how much you value freedom of the individual get rid of that law and any other law that treats people like cattle.

      The real reason I followed this thread is because I'm following the linux on mac/intel progress. Running linux on quality hardware has interested me since linux first ran on alpha. OSX on cheap PCs, is that a double negative? ;-)

    6. Re:Disgusting. by Lars+T. · · Score: 2, Informative

      Bad news, Buster.

      --

      Lars T.

      To the guy who modded me down from perfect to terrible Karma - Apple haters still suck

  11. Re:Seriously, why bother? by iezhy · · Score: 4, Interesting

    form OSx86 site:

    "Apple is certainly well within their rights to protect their OS and we have always supported them in this effort. Our first-class moderating staff has helped ensure that direct links to any patches are not allowed. We have in the past linked to the homepage of Maxxuss - but not to the offending 10.4.4 patches - in the interest of news, but we've removed those links just in case."

    funny thing, they removed links to supposedly infriging site, but put name of this site on the front page - using it as google keyword will lead you to the same site from the first hit :)))

  12. SLAPP by maynard · · Score: 4, Interesting

    OK, after reading TFA, this strikes me as more a SLAPP (Strategic lawsuit against public participation) lawsuit by Apple than any government intervention. It appears that Apple served their ISP with notice of a possible DMCA violation, and so the ISP (or the site administrators) shut the site down in order to verify the claims made by Apple. No judge has filed an order, however.

    So: are links to remote sites which convey possibly nonviolent criminal information worth squelching in the public interest? And should a private entity have the inherent right to enforce their interest without a court order (as appears to be the case here)? Because that's what misuse of SLAPP is all about.

    1. Re:SLAPP by maynard · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Oh, I read it. From TFA:

      "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."

      They were served with a notice, meaning threat of legal action. While a lawsuit may or may not have been filed, certainly Apple's lawyers are threatening legal action. If you read the article on SLAPP, you'll see that since the goal is to squelch public participation, expensive court proceedings are a final option. Often SLAPP suits fail in court for the corporate entity, because most hinge on specious legal grounds. Spend your opponent into oblivion and make specious legal claims in the press... that's the weapon of choice for corporate lawyers.

  13. Speccy issues (PPC 603e seriously) by Burning+Plastic · · Score: 2, Funny

    You know, I was trying to copy a 10k file from one tape to another on my ZX spectrum 16k and it took like half an hour...

    Now, a little more seriously, my main machine was a Powerbook 2400 for a few years and copying a few hundred MB of a CD image never seemed to take more than a couple of minutes...

    I'm wondering what else you're running to cause this slowdown (603e with 80MB on a Powerbook 2400).

    Which apps are causing you problems? (Which versions are you running)?

    --
    [All Your Fish Are Belong To Us]
    1. Re:Speccy issues (PPC 603e seriously) by Jerry+Smith · · Score: 2, Funny

      Ow shit... same moderator, I presume?

      --
      All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain. Time to die.
  14. Well, I am sitting in front of... by MeatFlap3 · · Score: 5, Funny

    a Sun Enterprise 450, with four processors, 4 GBytes of memory and 10 SCSI drives... This is my HOME computer and I don't see that kind of poor performance. Maybe it is time for you to try Ultrix instead of RSX-11, at least you won't have the real-time interrupts bothering you... However, I do like my TRS-80 running NEWDOS-80!

  15. Oh yeah? Well vector you! by maynard · · Score: 5, Funny

    I like my instruction/data fetch cycle on 16 bit word boundaries, thank you! So you think you're fancy 64 bit address range is all that. With your Sun Enterprise this, and your CG3 megapixel sbus card that. Well, when I need to access memory out of its 32KW boundary I have to set an offset vector. And I like it that way! So my RK05 only stores 2.5MB per removable pack. And it consumes more than 1 KW. And my house lights dim every time it spins up. Well, I like it that way!

    What, I'm supposed to run some pansy Macintosh 8600 with all its fancy pictures of a dekstop with flippy disks and overlapping windows, and dialog boxes, and a mouse with only one button? BAH!

    1. Re:Oh yeah? Well vector you! by maynard · · Score: 2, Interesting

      The RK05 drive would take more than 1KW alone. But let's be honest here, we could go all the way back to ENIAC, each step finding systems which consumed more power then the last. Hell, at work we just dumped an AlphaServer 8600 which fit into several cabinets and took three phase into the back of the unit. Weeee!!!

  16. outsource it by scenestar · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Everytime i wonder when i see a valuable project taken down for DMCA violations i wonder: "why dont they just continue the job overseas where legislation is more reasonable?"

    --
    perpetually dwelling in the -1 pits
    1. Re:outsource it by Zedrick · · Score: 4, Informative

      Denmark, Sweden, Netherlands. Plenty of options there, starting at about $1.25 euro if you don't need a server to host large files on (=pay extra for bandwidth).

  17. Re:Apple going overboard? LEGAL security by P.+Niss · · Score: 5, Funny

    Ah, its ok, they're Apple - EVERYBODY loves Apple :)

    Not nearly as much as everybody hates AOL :)

  18. Washington Post link worked for me without cookies by antdude · · Score: 2

    As for NYT, just use this. Most likely, it will make a link that doesn't require to log in.

    --
    Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
  19. 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.

    1. Re:Give it a rest by Chanc_Gorkon · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Ok...this is wrong and I will tell you why....

      In the near future, I can go into any store that carries Mac OS X and purchase the Intel version of it. What I do with it after that is my business. Oh sure, I may be "violating" the license by trying to run it on Non-Apple hardware, however am I going to be calling Apple's support line? NO! Am I going to be complaining that it doesn't work on non-apple hardware? Well, yeah I will, but not to Apple. The thing is Apple is the one who CHOSE to use Intel. Intel is a far more open platform then the PowerPC platform is. Most PowerPC companies have thier own deal preventing other OS's running on thier hardware and the different Linux projects have worked arounf this. IBM has ROS on the pSeries and Apple has OpenFirmware. Intel simply doesn't have this kind of limitation. Apple is just one of the first companies to take advantage of EFI and other companies will follow. Why? Apple does not OWN EFI and EFI is destined to replace BIOS. As soon as EFI becomes more popular, it's going to be even EASIER to run Mac OSX on any hardware and even easier to get Windows to run on Apple hardware.

      Apple's fighting a battle they cannot win. Just because this site is shutdown does not mean there will not be another to pop up and replace it.

      Yes we deserve to run Mac OS X on anything we want....we just won't get support from Apple and a large majority of the people who want to do this probably don't need support from them anyway. Besides, this is a way to transition to Apple hardware in the first place. I think there's a large contingent of people who would LOVE to try it, but want to be sure that they can do what they want to do on it before spending a bunch of dollars on new hardware. After they get it running on a regular Intel box and they find out this stuff is great thier next PC may just come from Apple. This project isn't costing Apple money.

      I think that one of the most important things that any project that replaces it needs to make clear is that you must purchase a license from Apple. Right now, this requires you to buy a MacBook Pro or a iMac. In the future, when 10.5 is out, you can just buy that. That way the only thing Apple loses in the near term(after 10.5 is out) is a hardware sale. The project should not condone piracy. In the long term, Apple stands to make that money back on future hardware and software purchases.

      --

      Gorkman

    2. Re:Give it a rest by tyahand · · Score: 2, Insightful

      What if Apple only ships upgrade CDs for 10.5 retail, and the only full 10.5 installer is the restore CDs from 10.5-era Macs? Are you then entitled to pirate 10.4 or someone's 10.5 restore CD because "it's your business" and "Apple's fighting a battle they cannot win" in your opinion? Inquiring minds would like to better understand this logic.

    3. Re:Give it a rest by lubricated · · Score: 2, Informative

      >> Good god, these "I deserve to run OS X any way I like" arguments are tiresome.

      How about the I can put whatever link on my page I want thread. Apple force a site to take down LINKS!!!

      --
      It has been statistically shown that helmets increase the risk of head injury.
    4. Re:Give it a rest by admo · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Pity the modern computer user....stuck with using only Microsoft or Apple products! If only there was some Other Software Solution....!

    5. Re:Give it a rest by Oliver+Defacszio · · Score: 2, Interesting
      Oh sure, I may be "violating" the license by trying to run it on Non-Apple hardware, however am I going to be calling Apple's support line? NO!

      Awesome! Then, I guess you'd have no concerns with me completely ignoring the GPL as I see fit if I have no intention of ever using OSS "support?"

      It's funny that a group who causes it to rain at the mere hint of a license violation that works against its own political agenda is able to essentially laugh the same thing off when it works in the group's favour. There's a word for that, but I can't remember what it is. Hypacro... No. Uh, hipocra... closer, but no.

      Meh, it will come to me.

      --

      -
      Inventor of the term 'pardon my French'.
    6. Re:Give it a rest by Logger · · Score: 2, Informative

      EULAs have nothing to do with copyright law. Zip Zero Zilch. Copyright law mearly says who can copy (reproduce) it. EULAs on the other hand are a contract. Within certain limits which we fight out in congress and court that can contain whatever terms they want. Apple could just as legally say "Thou shalt only run this on Apple hardware and nothing else." and include no authetication mechanism what-so-ever. You would still be just as (legally) guilty of violating the EULA as if they did include a protection scheme.

      In all actuality the only reason to include a protection mechanism in the software is because it is cheaper (VASTLY) than chasing down every possible EULA violator. The protection scheme (theoretically) will reduce the violators down to a number that is small enough that you can chase down the successful remainder with lawsuits.

      INAL, but up until DMCA, all EULA violations purely civil contract matters, not criminal cases. What DMCA has done is taken a subset of all the possible EULA contract violations and made them into a criminal offense as well a civil one. So for as much as everyone complains about DMCA, even without it Apple could sue your ass off for violating the EULA. The only difference is without DMCA the penalty can only be financial, with it it can also include jail time.

  20. why not... by wormnet.org · · Score: 5, Funny

    Roses are red,
    Violets are blue.
    If you hack my code,
    I'm going to kill you!

    --
    Nam et ipsa scientia potestas est - Sir Francis Bacon
  21. MOD THIS STATEMENT UP UP UP!!! by Khyber · · Score: 2

    And he makes the most valid point. WTF is the point of putting a story up without publically accessible links so we can digest the whole thing? My English teacher would be appalled at this restricted source, and would be doubly so if this were an actual paper about Apple. Way to follow your basic high-school education, editors.

    --
    Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
  22. Apple appears not to want anyone to link to Maxxus by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    If you look at the OSX86project.org site you might notice that the only real change is that there are no longer any links to the patches at http://maxxuss.hotbox.ru/. So don't post a link and you should be fine.

  23. Irony by squidguy · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Let's be fair here, fellow /.'ers... if this was MSFT we were talking about, the flames and castigations would be vociferous and widespread. Apple is doing some of the same bullying activity that we all dislike Microsoft for here. Where are the shills?

  24. Is this really illegal? by thisislee · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Funny. I thought talking about crimes wasn't illegal in this country. There have been what I think is legal information about how to do things that are completely illegal for as long as I can remember. While you should never act on this information, it is only information.

    While The Anarchist Cookbook is legally available in the United States, it is unlawful in many other countries. The information contained in the book includes instructions that, if followed, may be against the law (see felony for more details). Anarchist Cookbook

  25. 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

    1. Re:Mark my words.... by phillymjs · · Score: 4, Informative

      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.

      No they aren't, you idiot. The IBM PC BIOS was examined and its specs were written up by a team of engineers. Those specs were then given to a second team of engineers who were very carefully selected for their lack of exposure to the IBM BIOS ("virgins", in industry parlance), so IBM would be unable to claim that their work was tainted by that. The second team was them tasked with developing a BIOS that behaved just like the genuine IBM BIOS according to the specifications the first team divined from it, but without ever being in the same room as the genuine article.

      THAT is how legally-defensible reverse-engineering works, or at least did back then. The guys cracking OS X so it runs on generic PCs are just patching Apple's code to fool/circumvent the checks it does to make sure it's running on genuine Apple hardware. That's not even close to legitimate reverse-engineering. I don't even think they'll be able to hide behind the "interoperability" provisions of the DMCA that allow some limited reverse-engineering.

      Oh, by the way, a Mac can be bought for $500 that will use your existing display and (USB) keyboard-- it always cracks me up when you guys try to prop up your anti-Apple arguments by bitching about the price of their top-of-the-line hardware while conveniently ignoring their low-end machines.

      ~Philly

    2. Re:Mark my words.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      One MAJOR problem with your argument...

      They copied IBM's hardware. Apple owns the hardware and the software! When you bought an IBM you purchased the hardware and someone else licensed an OS to you (someone more than happy to sell it to ANYONE). The second you open that nifty copy of OS X software you are trying to hack (you did actually go buy the OS right?) you agreed to the terms of the License Agreement.

      I'll admit I never actually read that thing but I'm looking at it now and the very first term is going to pretty much start killing this argument.

      1. General. The software ... are licensed, not sold, to you by Apple Computer, Inc. ("Apple") for use only under the terms of the License, and Apple reserves all right not expressly granted to you. ... You own the media on which the Apple Software is recorded but Apple and/or Apple licensor(s) retain ownership of the Apple Software itself.

      2. This License allows you to install and use one copy of the Apple Software on a single Apple-labeled computer at a time.

      These nifty two clauses mean you can't do anything with this software because you agreed not to when you opened it.

      Also, a lot of people seem to be comparing this to MSFT. There is a big difference. Microsoft makes money by selling its OS to anyone. If you can make it work they'll sell it to you. Apple makes money by selling hardware and an experience.

    3. Re:Mark my words.... by phillymjs · · Score: 2, Funny

      I did read what he posted, moron, and he tried to equate Compaq's two-team, clean-room reverse-engineering technique to one guy patching Apple's own code and posting his patches-- the lamest argument I've ever seen made in support of the OS X hackers.

      Also, it's "you're" not "your". I suggest you look into some remedial English classes. Concentrate on homonyms and reading comprehension.

      ~Philly

  26. Re:Apple going overboard? LEGAL security by ebuck · · Score: 4, Funny

    Maybe a compilation could be assembled:

    Poems from My Childhood

    1.To Heathkit
    2.The fall of Dr. Norton
    3.Shadows of UUNET
    4.Borland, stop hurting youself
    5.Have you seen my Atari today?
    6.An Amiga I can't afford
    7.Memories of a text adventure game
    8.My talk with Hays (compatible)
    9.He's not just my penguin anymore

  27. 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.

    1. Re:Apple can do no wrong by Vellmont · · Score: 2, Funny

      Other companies don't rabid fanatical followers, or a CEO that has his own personal reality distortion field.

      Mod me down Apple fanboys, but somewhere in that warped brain of yours you know it's true.

      --
      AccountKiller
  28. Re:Run Linux by Professor_UNIX · · Score: 2, Insightful
    The real answer here is to run a real BSD or Linux. New Hampshire has it right, live free or die.

    Well, if the choice is between running an open source operating system or running a pirated operating system then the correct answer is to run the open source operating system. Just because you're too cheap to buy a Mac to run MacOS X doesn't give you the right to try to pirate it onto another X86 box. You could always run Darwin if you really want the BSD UNIX underneath the Aqua interface, but you'll be stuck using X11 apps if you want a GUI.

  29. Build My Own by CSHARP123 · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I dont buy computers, I build my own, I've been doing this for the past 7 to 8 years. With all the restrictions that apple puts in place for OSX I will never be able to try it. There could be lots of geeks who do this, may be they are minority which do not make any business sense for apple to sell OSX sans their hardware. Really, folks if a company do not want you to use their software on any of the custom machines you build why even BUY their software. This is nothing but ego clash between Apple and hackers. I think apple has every right to shut these people down. If you dont like their hardware DONT FUCKING BUY THEIR SOFTWARE EITHER

  30. Yawn.... by Savage-Rabbit · · Score: 4, Informative

    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.

    I have had this discussion with half a dozen people who are looking forward to being able to use OS.X on their low-end noname PC boxes and laptops with all the stability that it would run on a Mac. Running OS.X on regular PC systems will be possilbe, but it is also going to degenerate into a war between the Apple team working on the locking scheme and whatever crackers there are trying to make OS.X work on their PC boxes. Even if the crackers succeed keeping the OS running most of the time, OS.X on non Apple hardware will never be all that stable, I know that from experience having seen cracked OS.X installations in action (and this on a high end PC laptop, not some cheap-ass noname crapware). Furthermore even if you can run OS.X on your cheapo PC system you will not be able to patch it without worrying about your computer not booting because Apple has shipped a new counter patch to the latest hack with it's newest patch cluster. Basically you would be better off using Linux, yes you will still have to spend a few hours recompiling your kernel and tweaking drivers to get your WIFI to work and you will always have minor issues but at least you won't have to worry about your computer not booting after installing a patch cluster. I would trust my data to Linux long before I would entrust it to a hacked OS.X version running on a Dell laptop.

    --
    Only to idiots, are orders laws.
    -- Henning von Tresckow
  31. Re:Seriously, why bother? by guildsolutions · · Score: 2, Informative

    Having 3 PC's and 2 macs in my house, I can say that the macs preform much, much better under stress than the PC's do.

    System Stats
    optiplex G1 p450 512mb ram, 40 gig hdd
    homebuilt AMD XP 2400+, 1 gig ram, 2x160gig hdds, geforce 6800
    homebuilt AMD sempron 3200, 1 gig ram, 1x 34 gig raptor 10krpm hdd, 1x300gig sata2 hdd.
    Mac Powerbook G4 1.67ghz, 1.5gig ram, 80gig 7200rpm hdd, radeon 9700
    Mac Mini 1.54ghz, 1 gig ram, 80 gig 5400rpm hdd

    I can say that for the past 9 months that I have used the powerbook exclusively for web design and program, that it has worked utterly flawlessly while I often sit and wait on my PC's to do something, I am busy working and being productive with my mac.

    Anyone such as yourself can compare two machines that are completely off balanced and get bad results.

    For one, the machine you are 'testing' on does not run OS X, which is the main point of this entire thread. Secondly, OS 8,which you are probably running, and OS X are worlds, galaxies apart in performance and stability.

    In some 8 months I haven't ever once had to switch off the power to my macs because they locked up due to a system problem. I do it quite frequently on my PC's. This alone speaks volumes about the stability.

    From your own statements are you about as clueless as most politicians are on real life issues facing their jurisdictions.

    Not to mention that on most windows machines a vast portion of the resources is devoted to security and virus scanning, where as on an OS X system the vast majority of resources is devoted to .... doing whatever you please to do with the computer.

  32. Plain and Simple.. Apple SLA for OSX by Saevio · · Score: 2, Informative

    2. Permitted License Uses and Restrictions.
    A. This License allows you to install and use one copy of the Apple Software on a single Apple-labeled computer at a time.

    http://www.apple.com/legal/sla/macosx104.html

    While I think this is crap from an "exploration" point of view, this is completely legit from a business/legal point of view. However I dont see how this could prevent you from running MSFT or other OS on the hardware unless it is stated as an EULA on the box/manuals.

    Although, when I get my new MacBook I am really interested in Dual Booting MSFT for ease of having both OS's on one machine, and the power of the Apple hardware. I would think they would champion this advancement not run from it. Bad Move Apple! BAD MOVE!

  33. Re:Seriously, why bother? by Mesinjah · · Score: 2, Funny

    8600? Are you insane? Maybe you should drive nails in to your forehead, it would be less painful then either your ancient Mac or your ancient PC. Try a dual core G5 or a P4 3Ghz or something from the later half of the 20th century.

  34. Re:wiki is INCORRECT... the sound resource is from by Some+Bitch · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Not according to the guy who made the sounds for Apple.

    http://www.boingboing.net/2005/03/24/early_apple_s ound_de.html

  35. Re:Apple going overboard? LEGAL irony by geobeck · · Score: 3, Informative
    ...prevent giant business partners and competitors and the like profiting from doing things with our software and users we didn't authorize.

    The ironic part of this is how the Mac became popular. When Apple's Mac team started to market the Mac, they figured there were three programs any home user would want: word processor, spreadsheet, and database. So that's all they marketed. Sales were mediocre at best, despite what was arguably one of the world's best TV commercials.

    The Mac really took off when a little company called Aldus wrote a desktop publishing program called PageMaker.

    Source: Keynote speech by Guy Kawasaki, former 'evangelist' for Macintosh.

    --
    Find environmentally and socially responsible products on http://buy-right.net
  36. 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.

  37. Information wants to be free by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    I've seen quite a few posts on this but here are few links in particular that I found to be good. I will finish up by saying that Apple cannot win this battle. The x86 market is far too large for people not to tinker.

    1. OSX 10.4.4 Works on AMD and SSE2 CPUs Check out the "related posts" entries for more info.
    2. After OSX86 Project recieved it's DMCA shut down notice, people are moving discussion to the OSX86 China Forums
    3. For immediate questions, IRC Channel is availabe.
    4. To search old posts go to the 360 Online Forums
    5. 10.4.4 restore disc has already been released on bittorrent

    1. Re:Information wants to be free by Savantissimo · · Score: 4, Funny

      "After OSX86 Project recieved it's DMCA shut down notice, people are moving discussion to the OSX86 China Forums"

      Ahhh...the irony! Moving out of the oppressive USA to China, where speech is free!

      --
      "Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery?" - Patrick Henry
  38. Re:Seriously, why bother? by AC-x · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Note to self, find more recent posts to copy

  39. Topic is complete FUD .. it was only the FORUMS ! by Macka · · Score: 4, Informative


    Have any of the 100's of people replying to this actually bothered to visit www.osx86project.org and look for themselves to find out what's been going on? Doesn't bloody seem like it. The Washington Post article was hopelessly wrong and inflammatory, and n.e.watson is a jerk for not checking it out either before making himself look like a complete ass!

    At no time during all of this was the OSX86 Project shutdown, nor was there any chance it was going to. It was THE FORUM only. And only for as long as it took the moderators long enough to find and remove the links to "patches" that violated the DMCA and got Apple's attention.

    I guess some people don't want to know the truth. Too busy lathering at the mouth over how some big bad corporation has stomped over the little guy. When in this case it didn't.

  40. Re:geek please listen by FLEB · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Uhm... folks... Joe Sixpack left two hours ago, when he saw the "WARNING: All data on non-removable disk drive C: will be deleted" message in fdisk. He's out in the back yard with the kids.

    Most folks named Joe and affectionately called "Sixpack" would probably think something along the lines of "why" if you started talking about your modded OSX. I don't think that this would really affect the popularity of the stock Mac experience.

    --
    Information wants to be free.
    Entertainment wants to be paid.
    You just want to be cheap.
  41. Nope, and that's exactly the point. by hummassa · · Score: 2, Interesting

    They would have much more clients on iTMS if they just offered FairPlay or whatchmacallit to the other manufacturers... They already profit big, and they could be profiting bigger -- and they are blind for not seeing something so obvious.

    --
    It's better to be the foot on the boot than the face on the pavement. ~~ tkx Kadin2048
    1. Re:Nope, and that's exactly the point. by TheGreek · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Apple's margin on iTMS purchases is, for all intents and purposes, zero. Not much profit there.

      Apple's margin on iPods is much, much larger than zero. Lots of profit there.

      Apple knows where the profit is and where the profit isn't.

    2. Re:Nope, and that's exactly the point. by RatPh!nk · · Score: 2, Interesting
      They would have much more clients on iTMS if they just offered FairPlay or whatchmacallit to the other manufacturers... They already profit big, and they could be profiting bigger -- and they are blind for not seeing something so obvious.

      Would they? In may iPod market share was 87.3%. That represents 32+million iPods in 2005 of the total 36.6 million sold. So, Apple is missing out on 4.6 million mp3 player sales. Of those how many people wouldn't buy strictly because it is Apple? How many of those would use the iTMS? Let's say 100% of those 4.6 million people were allowed to use iTMS. How much more money would that leave for Apple?

      ZERO because Apple makes at most .04 So again, let's say Apple makes 0.04*4.6million*10(songs) (saying all of those 4.6 million bought 10 songs over the lifetime of the product). That gives us $1.84M. How does that compare with margins on iPod? Let's do the same comparison. 4.6M*299*0.19 = $261M (this would be the same $$ if Apple convinced just 32.2K of those 4.6M to buy an iPod and buy 0 songs from iTMS. (The latter assumes the avg price for an iPod across the board is $299 and all iPods are selling equally well by %)

      Which would you rather do? Try to increase sales by 32k or try to convince 4.2 million people to buy 10 songs from your store, or 2.1 to buy 20, or 1.05 to by 40 etc.....

      (note: I also did not address the licensing fees Apple may retain because that involves far too much speculation about terms, pricing etc...)
      --
      Argh. The laws of science be a harsh mistress.
    3. Re:Nope, and that's exactly the point. by NiteShaed · · Score: 2, Interesting

      This line of thought always tends to make me think that the alternate way of putting it is, "The iPod isn't really all that great, so we have to push people to buy it for the content". I'm not looking to bash the iPod, but if it's as wonderful as so many people say it is, shouldn't it be able to compete with other devices as a great player, without having to lock out competition by making iTunes content iPod-only [as far as small portable devices go]? Yes, I understand that Apple has a vested interest in selling devices, but the content they're selling (Lost, Battlestar Galactica, etc) is of interest to many people other than Apple fans. I think those content producers should be more interested in widening their potential mobile-audience.

      --
      Some bring out the best in others, some the worst. Some bring out far more.
    4. Re:Nope, and that's exactly the point. by RatPh!nk · · Score: 2, Insightful

      To be honest, I tried to find some data on how many people who have iPods use the iTMS, but to no avail. I would guess that most people with iPods (>50%) don't use the iTMS, nor do they use any music store. My iPod is filled with mostly ripped CD's, and yes some d/l stuff from back in the day. I may have purchased... checks....66 songs (2 albums + single purchases), but to put it in perspective I have about 5k songs in my library.

      I think Apple says the iPod is better, and I think consumers agree (for the most part***). I have never heard anyone say, "Man, if only the RIO had better music store integration I would buy it."

      That said as a user, I think the integration is part of what makes the iPod better. But all in all, the store is mostly a bone to the users (where you can pick up the latest and greatest (or nor so greatest) quick and cheap and fast, immediate gratification, and a compromise to the industry as an answer to the question "where is the music coming from and how can we get a piece of that"

      ***Also, at this stage of the argument, one can also ask are people using the iPod because it is the best or best known? The old Windows analogy of why do you keep using windows, b/c that is what everyone else uses.
      </stream of consciousness>
      --
      Argh. The laws of science be a harsh mistress.
  42. Re:Run Linux by nurb432 · · Score: 2, Insightful

    That works great, until you want the OSX interface, or want to run a commercial application that isnt offered to anything other then OSX and Windows. ( which is most that *businesses* need )

    Sure it would be nice if you could do it, but OSS is no where near offering mainstream business an alternative *desktop*. And by the time it does, PC's will be so locked down that all we will get to run will be force fed us by the 'big players' that have bought in to the DRM control syndicate.

    --
    ---- Booth was a patriot ----
  43. Re:Topic is complete FUD .. it was only the FORUMS by lubricated · · Score: 2, Insightful

    >> Too busy lathering at the mouth over how some big bad corporation has stomped over the little guy. When in this case it didn't.

    They forced a site to shutdown it's forums because of a LINK!!!!
    When did a link become illegal? If this isn't a corporation stomping on a little guy, I don't know what is.

    --
    It has been statistically shown that helmets increase the risk of head injury.
  44. 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.
  45. technical battle over by jay2003 · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Apple clearly expects to lose the technical battle to keep OS X from running on non-Apple hardware. Calling out the lawyers means they are accepting defeat, at least for the moment on the locking the software front. In a way, this is good news for those who want to run OS X on non-Apple hardware. The information will migrate to being hosted in country without the absurd DMCA.

  46. 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.

  47. 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.

    1. Re:I don't buy that by IntlHarvester · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Let me ask you something. Do you ever wonder why Apple keeps their OS node-locked to a small handful of carefully positioned computer models? Do you ever wonder why they barely advertise OS X or Mac hardware?

      Don't kid yourself, Apple knows full well what I am saying is 100% correct, and their entire sales strategy is based around it -- there's just very little broader appeal for Macs, so the name of the game is optimizing revenue from the installed base. Steve Jobs even spelled out this strategy in an interview years before he came back to Apple.

      Macs are nice systems, I own them, I use them. But as time goes on, they become more and more oriented towards brainwashed cultists (see all the wierd ACs and their jibberish replys to my posts), and less and less relevant to mainstream computing. Joe Average doesn't want a Mac because Apple simply doesn't want to make Macs relevant to Joe Average.

      --
      Business. Numbers. Money. People. Computer World.
  48. To sum up... by lurch_mojoff · · Score: 2, Insightful

    So, to sum up the sentiments in regard to this news, predominantly people claim that since DMCA is evil and Apple are using it to shut down the forums, where hardworking, freedom loving hackers were trying to liberate Mac OS X for the benefit of all humanity, this makes them evil too.

    However, I did not see anybody considering the possibility, that the all pervasive, all restricting DMCA is simply the easiest, cheapest, most hassle free way for Apple to protect their rights, as opposed to an attempt to harass people or deny them the right of freedom (of speech or of whatever else). I also could not find many people, who understand that Apple protecting their rights is no different than you, an ordinary person, protecting your rights. And before you say it, no, you do not have the right to run Mac OS X on whatever hardware you want, as long as you legally purchased it. Nobody, except Apple, has any right over most of Mac OS X. You get only the rights that Apple decides to give you, no more, no less. That is the whole idea behind proprietary vs. free/open source software. The first is developer centric, while the second is user centric. And as for the open source parts of Mac OS X, Darwin or WebKit/WebCore for example, you can download them for free, with all their source code, and you can modify and install them on whatever hardware you fancy.

    Many people call the guys behind OSx86 project hackers or hobbyists and defend their deeds. I ask, though, if these guys are such good coders/hackers and are motivated solely by their altruism, why don't they employ their skills in a more constructive and beneficial for everybody way. Don't you think that, although being not at all that glamorous, but also no that suspiciously resembling publicity exercise, these guys could partake in the development of, off the top of my head, openstep, KDE 4, GTK+ port of WebKit/WebCore, etc.? These, and a lot more similar projects, can produce a free (and legally so) equivalent of Mac OS X (or Windows, or whatever desktop OS (or part of) you can think of).

    Ultimately, my rant ca be distilled in the following two sentences: You can't justify breaking laws or contractual agreements with your desire to have a cool, flashy OS, nor you can demand or expect a company to change their business model and practices for the same reason. However, you can donate your time and skills or support in some other way a F/OSS project that aspires to give you just that - cool, flashy, but also free OS.

  49. Re:Run Linux by iluvcapra · · Score: 2, Insightful
    No, but if you hold a legitimate license for OSX, you should be able to run it on whatever hardware you choose

    The EULA binds you to only run it on Macintoshes, in the same way the Linux EULA (aka the GPL) binds you from distributing modified copies without the source.

    --
    Don't blame me, I voted for Baltar.
  50. Re:Topic is complete FUD .. it was only the FORUMS by lubricated · · Score: 2, Insightful

    >>> Too busy lathering at the mouth over how some big bad corporation has stomped over the little guy.
    >> They forced a site to shutdown it's forums because of a LINK!!!!
    >> When did a link become illegal? If this isn't a corporation stomping on a little guy, I don't know what is.
    > I agree with you, a link should not be illegal.
    > And what else are they supposed to do? Just sit back and ignore it?

    So you're argument changed from, "this isn't some corporation stopping on a little guy" to
    stomping on a little guy is legal, and profitable. Therefore it's the only thing to do.
    I hope at least you are no longer wondering why having your rights to free speech violated might make someone "lather at the mouth"

    --
    It has been statistically shown that helmets increase the risk of head injury.
  51. Re:OS X on dell will be shitty by Reaperducer · · Score: 2, Informative

    Does your machine not support restarting the Finder? I've been able to give my locked up Finder a three-finger salute and select "relaunch."

    --
    -- I'm old enough to have lived through six different meanings of the word "hacker."
  52. Re:No fucking way by True+Vox · · Score: 4, Informative

    Donno what Apples net profit is, but I'm getting 70 cents a pop for a 99 cent song. And I'm signed up through Tune Core, so it's not like I'm some RIAA shill. 99 - 70 = 29 cents to cover the rest of the bills.

    --
    "Gratuitous complexity is akin to chaos" - True Vox