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Psystar "Definitely Still Shipping" Mac Clones
Preedit writes "Continuing its defiance of Apple, Psystar is reassuring customers that it is "definitely still shipping" its line of Mac clones. And, in a further nose-thumbing at Steve Jobs, Psystar this week said it's now making Leopard restore disks available to its customers, even as Apple insists that Mac clones sold to date be recalled.
In its story on the latest developments, Infoweek is reporting that tiny Psystar apparently has no intention of backing down in its legal dispute with the much larger Apple."
...is what I say. It's nice to see the little guy stand up against big buisiness muscle. Apple is beginning to look more and more Microsoft-esque by the week.
Its easy. DONT GO TO COURT.
Hide in a corner doing whatever they do is their best option, and when the legal hounds come a'knockin they be a runnin.
I don't think any sane company will break Apple's agreements, licenses on USA soil.
Remember the company shipped "Apple G6 Desktop" and got sued big time? It wasn't based at USA and they weren't trying that hard to get sued. Some media guy browsing Alibaba found the machine, that is all.
For some reason we can't know, Pystar looks like they will be very, very happy if Apple sues them further or this thing becomes more complex.
Would you dare to mess with a gigantic company who even tried to sue State of New York for "Apple" logo? If you dare, would you start your business in USA? Some very big promises/guarantees by very big corporate powers must be given to Pystar. Don't get surprised if there is real IT media left and uncovers it.
I for one am tired of Apple's Monopolistic business practices on their Mac range.
Isn't that like saying you're tired of Slashdot's monopolistic business practices on its Slashdot brand? By default, every company has a monopoly on its own products.
Want to improve your Karma? Instead of "Post Anonymously", try the "Post Humously" option.
Two options: 1) Psystar backs down and stops producing Mac clones. Psystar goes out of business. Creditors lose out. 2) Psystar fights the good fight, gaining plenty of free publicity (Slashdot included) for taking on Goliath. If they lose, same scenario as 1. If they win, they (hopefully) have a larger customer base. Insolvency law usually ensures that the people taking the fall from a company's demise are the unsecured creditors. It is considerably easier to gamble with the money of others.
Apple is stuck retrying a case it won in 1984. Clone makers copying its OS. Apple probably spends 5 times as much on software development as hardware, while the clone makers spend 0.
Intron: the portion of DNA which expresses nothing useful.
If PsyStar were limiting themselves to shipping hardware and bundled unmodified OS X 10.5 retail disks, I really think why would have no legal issues at all. However, by the sound of it, not only are the PsyStar systems running a modified variant of the OS X operating system (including some modifications to get the system running on generic hardware, just like OSX86), but they intend to ship 'Restore disks' that sound suspiciously like modified OS X 10.5 install sets.
That's going to be their downfall in this - the derivative work.
Wrong! I can read /. on Firefox or any other browser.
GP is right! Just that Apple fanbois will never see the wrong in it.
This is a VERY interesting case. Who is Psystar?
Seriously, out of nowhere, a tiny company starts to sell mac clones. It was so sketchy, we on slashdot originally called it a hoax.
Now, they got the guys who beat Apple once before representing them in the fight.
Curiouser and curiouser. It may be an intentionally staged dispute by various oems to create a Mac market for themselves. Vista is not moving boxes, but Mac compatible motherboards may be profitable.
The objective may be Apple's refusal to allow MacOS on non-Mac hardware. If they win, and Apple is not able to enforce this restriction, I can see a whole bunch of clones flooding the market.
It can't be a surprise to Pystar that Apple reacted this way. They must have expected this from the start, and got a legal opionion that they were satisfied with. They must have had their defence strategy planned before Apple even knew they existed.
Compaq did a clean-room implementation of the IBM BIOS. Psystar didn't do a clean-room implementation of OS X.
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
Apple has always held a tight grip on their hardware and software standards. If you don't approve, you don't have to buy their stuff. That is what ~95% (though rapidly decreasing) of people choose to do.
But it is precisely that total control that lets Apple deliver such a relatively high quality product. I'll admit that Leopard is not up to Apple standards... but overall, their products are vastly superior to Windows, despite the huge resources and community working on the Windows environment compared to the Mac world.
The control of hardware and software allows Apple to not have to adapt to the whims of a thousand hardware makers, and it lets them produce a computer like the iPhone (which is mostly just a little Mac), which clearly people love as compared to other "smart" phones. Why do people love it? Because the crushing grip Apple keeps on their standards results in a relatively easy experience for the end-user.
Does this qualify as fanboy bullshit? Why? I'm just saying if you don't like it, don't use it. But the facts speak for themselves. People hate Vista, the average Joe can't/won't figure out linux, and people generally enjoy the Apple experience.
Even if Psystar somehow manages a court victory that would allow them to purchase and sell copies of OS X installed on generic x86 boxes, all that Apple has to do is stop selling OS X to any retail outlet other than its own. If Psystar can't get legal copies of the software to put on the machines it sells, there isn't any legal way that they can stay in business at that point, other than going to Apple stores and purchasing copies of OS X at full retail price.
We're also heading towards a future of digital distribution. It started with music, has moved to movie rentals, and looks as though it can be expanded to anything in the near future. What's to stop Apple from selling you the newer versions of OS X online? In five years when everyone wants to upgrade to Puma or whatever else they end up calling it, you have the option of downloading the upgrade to your computer instead of having to go out and purchase any physical install media.
Does it really matter if the court rules that Psystar can do whatever they want with a copy of OS X once they already have it if Apple does everything that they possibly can in order to prevent Psystar from ever obtaining a copy of OS X?
I'd have to say you are mislead. Apple is doing much the same thing that many of manufacturers do. So Apple makes computers and the operating system, and doesn't allow that operating system to run on other makes of computers. Let's just change a few things around. Ford makes cars and the operating software for the cars computer and doesn't allow that software to be used on other makes of cars. Would it make sense for ford to sell their cars computer code to say Toyota? Not at all. Toyota also makes cars, and it is possible that the software is compatible, but it isn't in fords interests to make it compatible. Maybe ford is being monopolistic, but I don't think so. That's just good business.
It's an entirely different case. In the case you cited, Formula were distributing a hacked copy of the Apple II software without a license. In the Pystar case, Pystar are buying a copy of OS X from Apple for every computer they sell. Apple are getting their $129 for every sale.
The first case is pure copyright infringement - you can't just take a copy of someone else's copyright work and distribute (modified or unmodified) copies without falling foul of copyright law.
The second case is about violation of the EULA. If copyright law regards installing, modifying, and running a computer program as non-infringing use (which it ought to, since a computer program you can't do any of this with is pretty useless) then a EULA is invalid because you don't need any rights from the copyright holder than copyright law grants. More likely, given the broken state of IP law in the US, it will be found that you do need to agree to a license, but whether the terms imposed by Apple are legal remains to be seen.
In the worst case, Apple will win on the basis that their EULA prevents this. In the best case, Apple will lose because EULAs are not required for computer software and this will set a precedent that no EULA is valid (distribution licenses, like any Free Software license, would be unaffected since these grant you rights beyond what copyright law gives). In the middle case, the validity of EULAs in general will be upheld but the restrictions in question (no installing it on non-Apple hardware) will be deemed unreasonable and unenforceable.
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That's like saying the code that operates my microwave can't operate my refrigerator, what gives? I hope if you ever get in a serious discussion, you don't actually compare an embedded OS in a car to desktop OS.
Apple are getting their $129 for every sale.
But Apple has set that price point with the restriction of "must be run on Apple-branded hardware". Who's to say the price wouldn't be $478 for a non-Apple-hardware license? Think of it as an "upgrade price" for people who already bought something else from the manufacturer.
Apple has chosen not to release a version of the OS without the hardware restriction, and I'm open to debate about whether or not they should, or whether or not the EULA is enforceable. But it's disingenuous to suggest that $129 is fair compensation just because there is some version of the software license available for that price, particularly when the retail price of Windows is more like $250.
Didn't we go through this very sort of thing in the 80's with IBM? Didn't the proliferation of IBM-PC clones create the ultimate dominance of the PC in the marketplace? Apple would do well in this situation to appear all righteously indignated over some upstart company selling Apple clones, but in the end let them get away with it, because ultimately it will increase the demand for genuine Apple products.
Actually, if such software was open sourced, for example, people might be able to come up with new and beneficial uses - not to mention being able to fix problems themselves.
Or do you not remember honda's "Accidental" higher mileage clocking that if people had access to the software, they could fix themselves. http://autos.aol.com/article/general/v2/_a/honda-odometer-problem/20070220091309990002
Also, they use proprietary stuff just to connect to the car that is prohibitive to the consumer (quite intentionally). You don't think those devices actually cost 1000$ or so, do you?
Cars are an example of proprietary gone wrong.
The law should not care about apple's (or anyone else's) buiseness model. It should just care about providing a framework for a competitive market.
In my opinion, any license provision which enforces vertical integration should be unenforcable. I have not read TFA (hey, this is slashdot!), so I'll make a generic example. Let's say apple sells an operating system. It also sells computers with the os preinstalled. Let's say somebody else starts buying the operating system from apple, buying hardware from somewhere else, and selling the hardware with the operating system preinstalled. First sale doctrine should allow this. The assertion that the software is licensed rather than sold shouldn't in my non-lawyer opinion hold in court, since there are no recurring payments.
This is good for competition because it would force apple to have their hardware be competitively priced. Of course, if their hardware has a high cool factor (like the macbook air, or the iphone) and people are willing to pay extra for that, that doesn't mean it has to be cheap.
From their website: "This utility will allow your Open Computer to boot from the native Leopard installation DVD" - Pystar Restore disk That "utility" sounds like EFI emulation. Can I get an amen?
Mod me up, mod me down, do your worst you modding clown.
It's fair compensation because it's what Apple charges.
If they want more money, they should charge more.
A seller's intent does not enter into it. My local grocery store sells peaches for about 50 cents each, intending that they be eaten. If I buy a peach for 50 cents and instead use that peach in some mysterious way to create an invention which makes me millions of dollars, that in no way entitles the local grocery store to any more than their original 50 cents, nor does it make the situation in any way unfair to them.
Apple sets their price with the assumption that buyers will be using the product on Apple hardware. If that assumption gets broken, that's Apple's problem for making it, not the buyer's fault for breaking it.
If you mod me Overrated, you are admitting that you have no penis.
However, MS only makes a release of Windows every 5 years, so they charge a lot for it. Apple on the other hand, has a new version of OSX every 2 years. So, in order to make it more enticing for buyers to buy new versions so frequently, they made it cost less per version.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
I ride a motorbike (really, I do!), it doesn't matter what make or model it is. Like most these days it has a black box driving the ponies inside the shiny motor thing, it also manages a myriad of other crap from timing through to the seat warming my arse along cold mountain rides.
Now I can buy myself an after market black box which functions perfectly fine on the bike, but it also happens to plug in to my off the shelf network switch using a bog standard bit of cat 5 with a couple of RJ-45 plugs on either end. It talks DHCP and whatever.
Does it matter that someone purchased the actual black box from the manufacturer, opened it up, did a little tinkering of their own, shoved a web based front end on it, then repackaged and rebranded as something else which I then purchased? This 'new black box' allows me to tweak things the manufacturer never intended. So what.
It might piss off the manufacturer such that it matters to them a great deal, maybe they miss out on the revenue. Such things sure as hell don't matter to me, and that is what actually matters at the end of the day.
I have no idea what my point is, just that I guess I'm a little old school, I figure when you sell something, it's not yours anymore.
"Would you dare to ship "Windows Vista" on a no name CDR and sell it on street next to police station?"
This is utterly different to that situation, there is no copyright infrginrmrnt going on here, they are paying for the OS.
If you can't take an OS you have PAID FOR and install it on almost identical non-apple hardware, then the law is an ass.
"Apple wouldn't exist if their hardware/software combination magic didn't work."
Bullshit. Apple have sold their image to the masses. Psystar are pretty irrelevant to the apple market at the moment. They might eat into microsoft's though.
Really? Because I can't help but suspect you would scream bloody murder at a company that was modifying and redistributing GPL software for money and not following the terms of the license. After all, they paid the requested price ($0) and now they should be able to do what they want with it, right? No, because the price was actually $0 + agreement to the terms of the license. Apple is not charging $130 for OSX. They are charging $130 + agreement to the terms of the license.
If you are not happy with the restrictions of the GPL license you are free to contact the copyright holder and, if they are agreeable, negotiate a different license. And if they are not agreeable you are SOL.
If you are not happy with the restrictions of the Apple license you are free to contact the copyright holder and, if they are agreeable, negotiate a different license. And if they are not agreeable you are SOL.
Why does Apple do things this way?
Why not? Their business is very profitable in a difficult market/economy. Why would they want to split their business into software and hardware when they've already found a good way to stay competitive against both the OEMs and Microsoft by combining both software and hardware to produce seamless products?
The GPL is not a license for how you can use the software, but rather a license for how you can further distribute the software. The law says you can't distribute copies without permission. The GPL is that permission. It's a completely different thing, despite the superficial similarities.
If you mod me Overrated, you are admitting that you have no penis.