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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.
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.
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.
Or Apple's reputation of "just working" will go down the tubes because they no longer have total control over the hardware.
If Apple starts trying to support every combination of 3rd party hardware out there, OSX will start having reliability problems just like Windows does.
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?
Everybody will win: more folks will run a more secure OS than Windows and Apple will still get all the OS sales.
Uhh. OSX is not very secure. IIRC a month or so back a windows, an OSX and a Linux machine were set up and the OSX machine went down first. Even before the Windows machine. OSX is secure cause nobody attacks it. As soon as more people run it you will see its shortcommings.
Why is it so hard to only have politicians for a few years, then have them go away?
More choice = better. Simple, really.
[Citation needed]
I don't like choice WRT Ethernet cables, or WIFI standards, or inter net protocols. I'm happy with IP having the monopoly of the internet.
Aside from that, Apple has no right to say what other manufacturer can build.
Of course, they can refuse to support OSX outside of Apple computers, that's their business choice.
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.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
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.
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.
which clearly people love as compared to other "smart" phones.
I have never met a single iPhone user who has had extensive use of a smart phone. Most iPhone users probably couldn't even come up with a somewhat accurate definition of a smart phone. Most probably know nothing about PalmOS or WindowsCE. Your remark is FUD, at best.
Does this qualify as fanboy bullshit? Why?
Because what you're saying really isn't "If you don't approve, you don't have to buy their stuff." What you're really saying is "When Apple can no longer control the hardware OSX will be another Vista." This may be true but that still doesn't hold water if it's legal. If a Mac is so superior that it is worth the money involved than people will not buy the clones and they will go under due to the alleged high standards of Apple. Otherwise it's just a bunch of lip service and deserves to wither on the vine.
Dedicated Cthulhu Cultist since 4523 BC.
Why is it insightful to stereotype Mac users (or even specifically the fanboys) as whiny, shallow, pseudo-intellectual, metrosexual, idiotic, and gay?
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.
Yep...and the big loser was IBM, who was trying to dominate the PC market with their hardware and an OS that they had neglected to control because they did not understand the importance of software. When people figured out that you did not have to buy a box from IBM to run DOS (or later, Windows), the PC became a mere commodity, prices dropped, and we all benefited (except for IBM, of course).
Apple saw this, and avoided IBM's fate by tying its OS closely to it hardware: Macs were built on Motorola CPUs, and had a proprietary architecture; MacOS would only run on that architecture. Apple had chosen not to go head with Microsoft as a software company, and continued to survive primarily as a hardware company. When someone tried to clone that hardware without permission (and permission wasn't forthcoming expect for a short interval when Apple flirted with licensing), Apple went after them for patent infringement.
However, all that changed when Apple adopted what is essentially the generic Wintel hardware architecture: now the only thing that prevents people from building boxes that run Apple's OS is the EULA under which the OS is sold. That is a much weaker position than Apple was in previously. You don't have to break any patent laws to build a "Mac Clone"—there's nothing proprietary about the hardware platform any more. (You do have to be careful to include only hardware that the OS supports, of course.) As others have pointed out, tying software to a particular brand of hardware may very well be in violation of US anti-trust law.
It also seems to me that the morality of Apple's position has been undermined. There is nothing special or innovative about today's Macs, except maybe the stylish cases. Yet, Apple sells these boxes for a considerable mark-up—and insists that we can only run their OS on boxes that carry their logo. In the PC business, at least, Apple has ceased being an innovator and is merely capitalizing on their historic prestige and slick marketing.
Question: I understand there are some provisions in the Apple OS that keep it from running on a generic PC platform. Can someone tell me exactly what those provisions are, and what has to be done to circumvent them? —No, I'm not planning to build myself a Mac, I'm just curious if getting around Apple's safeguards involves actions that might themselves break laws, for example re-writing any part of the OS could conceivably be a copyright infringement, right?
Great men are almost always bad men--Lord Acton's Corollary
OS X supports quite nearly as much hardware as Windows. It's a matter of getting good drivers written.
There's a conflicting statement if I ever saw one. It supports nearly as much hardware as Windows, but the drivers don't exist. That would imply that it doesn't support the hardware.
If what they are selling works as a full version, that's kind of like saying "you can't use this freezer we're selling you to store meat, just to make ice cubes." Once the hardware leaves Apples hands, why do they have any right to say what can and cannot be done with it? They don't own it. Now if Apple just LEASED all their hardware, that'd be a completely different story.
Apple doesn't get special privileges because it "only" holds a smaller percentage of the hundreds of millions of computer sales out there. Their computers are overpriced and they need competition.
I am confused. You state that Apple has a small market share, but doesn't have enough competition. It would seem to me that the other 85% of the market might provide it some competition. For example, there's this OS called windows, perhaps you've heard of it? I've heard it's pretty popular, and some people apparently choose it instead of OS X.
I love how on newegg, etc, "Apple" hard drives are a separate section, and they cost a LOT more
Can you post some links? I just checked the "External Harddrives" and "Mac Harddrives" listings, filtering for Western Digital, and all the they didn't have any of the same models in both categories. The notable difference is that most of the non-Mac drives had just USB 2.0, whereas most of the Mac drives had USB 2.0, 1394a, 1394b, and eSATA. So if you can find a drive listed under both the "Mac Harddrives" and "External Harddrives" sections and is more expensive in the Mac listing, I'm sure I'm not the only one who'd like to see it.
IIRC a month or so back a windows, an OSX and a Linux machine were set up and the OSX machine went down first. Even before the Windows machine. OSX is secure cause nobody attacks it. As soon as more people run it you will see its shortcommings.
Not to burst your bubble, but that was when the attackers had physical access... As far as I'm concerned, if someone has physical access to your box, you're already screwed.
The real litigious bastards...
I guess Mac fanboys just regurgitate anything Mac commercials present to them as "fact".
Are these Mac commercials?
http://news.google.com/news?q=vista%20adoption
I'll just list those in order as I see them now:
Red Hat's Window of Opportunity Arises from Slow Vista Adoption Rates
Report Finds Dip in Microsoft's Browser Share
180 Million Vista Licenses Mean What?
Enterprise Adoption of Vista at 'Single Digits,' Report Says
More and More IT Pros are Ignoring Vista. Where's the Wow Now?
Vista Adoption Stymied Despite SP1
and so on and so on and so on and so on...
And on what basis do you say that the $130 Mac OS X costs more than the $340 Vista? Are you talking about the price of the PC (despite that not being what I was talking about)? Are you aware that pretty much every study of cost of ownership has shown Macs to cost less than Windows PCs (and usually less than any other PC)? And since Apple has gone to Intel hardware, most breakdowns of the cost of their machines show that they are priced inline with other major manufacturers. So the OS costs less, the cost of ownership is less, and the hardware is average-priced. Macs cost more how?
The Mac is a vastly superior user experience. A lot of people may have different opinions on this, but the majority tends to agree. Read any hardcore PC magazine (eg ComputerWorld, eWeek, etc.) when they review a new model of Mac. The primary reasons for using Windows are always that it has such a high adoption rate, or derivative arguments from that, such as your "more games" concept. I play tons of games on my Mac and haven't noticed anything missing from my life. But if I wanted to, I could shell out the fat chunk of change for Windows, boot my Mac into it, and play the same thousands of indistinguishable, lookalike games that you can.
I'm tired of companies selling me shit and then telling me I'm just licensing it and have no rights to use it.
But you were just defending Windows. Get your story straight. Apple has an EULA, but they don't even require a serial number to install OS X.
P.S. When you say that your computer plays the same songs... what software is it that most people use to play their songs?
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.
Weren't about 30% of Vista crashes in 2007 due to nVidia drivers? Looks like almost 50% when you add in Intel and Ati. source
you still have a choice of wifi manufacturers, ethernet cable manufacturers and implementors of internet protocols, I think you are confusing standardization and monopolization, they're two entirely unrelated concepts.
MP3 Search Engine
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.
You have a deliberately narrow experience, you implicitly insult everyone who would buy an iPhone, and yet Slashdot readers think you're insightful.
So you're saying that the majority of all iPhone users have extensive experience with a smart phone? If not than your statement is false. Period.
I neither insulted people who buy an iPhone in general nor did I say that no one with an iPhone has this experience. It's great to see people post their experience with both sets of phones, for those who have it, but the majority of the current iPhone user base is people who have known Motorola Razors, some unknown model of Nokia or LG and the iPhone. You can not tell me you don't think this is the case.
And how do you know the scope of my experience? Talk about insulting.
This is exactly what will happen. I own a number of real Apple Macs, but I also own a fancy quad-core 8GB Hackintosh. I can attest that even the most modern Hacktintosh creation (like mine, running an unmolested retail copy of Leopard) is most definitely not as seamless an experience as a real Mac is. I'm not going to get rid of the Hackintosh, but I can say with some authority that the experience is sufficiently inferior to owning a real Mac that I wouldn't put up with it if I didn't enjoy tinkering with PC's.
That's fair but according to what I've read here the PC in question from the third party isn't coming with vanilla OS X. I agree that the experience is likely to be different but I would hope that even you would agree that it has the potential to be vastly different than your own. Psystar could certainly be fly-by-night but there is also a good chance that they have the talent on their side to create something that offers a robust experience.
From what you're saying it's like saying the user experience of every Vista user who isn't using a Vista badged machine should be disqualified from having their opinions known. There are tons of people, mostly amateurs from the get go, who are trying to put Vista on 8 year old hardware and having a bad time with it. Maybe OSX can do this seamlessly, I don't know but from the aspects of Linux I've also found that running the latest Ubuntu on one of my 8 year old PCs to be a painful (to say the least) experience. Should I hold this against Unbuntu or Linux in general? IMHO, not really. While fanbois will rave about how their pet OSs work fine "out of the box" the truth seems to be a bit different.
Dedicated Cthulhu Cultist since 4523 BC.
PsyStar might be able to argue that, but it'd be a technicality. It might work for the copies PsyStar has already bought, but Apple would overcome it by issuing all new retail upgrades with "Upgrade Only" all over the box, disks, and manuals.
The "to be installed on Apple-branded computers only" line means it really is just an upgrade license, because those Apple-branded computers already have some earlier versions of the OS licensed. The PsyStar boxes don't.
Now, there's also the illegal tying route that PsyStar might argue, and a few other things probably as well.
I kind of hope Apple loses this one, but I wouldn't at all put money on that outcome.