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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."
Where are Psystar getting the money from for all this? Because defending a case of this nature is going to be damn expensive and if they're such a small startup the last thing they want to be doing is spending all their money on legal bills.
I have to say that I admire their gall. They're paying a rather dangerous game*. Unless they have some really kick ass lawyers who can convince a judge of the unenforcability of Apple's licensing terms, I don't see anything happening except Psystar getting smacked down HARD. As in, take all their assets + punitive damages hard.
Of course, this could be a situation like General Computer Corporation. (The Namco & Atari partner who created Ms. Pac Man.) They were just a bunch of college kids having fun, and they didn't have money anyway. When they got sued, their reaction was: "Cool, we get to go to court!" Sometimes it's nice not having anything to lose.;-)
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
While it may be shaky grounds to sell these machines as Mac Clones. There should be no reason not to sell those machines with a Linux Equivalent. The nice thing is that you -could- buy a Leopard disk and load it, that is your own choice.
This is no different as my Intel PC that runs Ubuntu, but -could- run Vista if I wanted to.
Load New Commander (Y/N)?
Pystar is distributing them with a purchased license. It's not just a warez copy they're chunking in. The whole crux of the issue is whether the clause that OS X can only be installed on an Apple machine is legally enforceable. Despite having a metric shit-ton of money to throw at this trial, previous legal decisions don't look good for Apple in this case. They're free to sell any software they develop. They're free to sell any hardware as well. To try and artificially lock one to the other when there is no techincal reason to do so just might not fly.
If Toyota developer "SUPERGAS" that got 125 MPG in the new Camry but only sold it at Toyota dealerships and only to Toyota owners (with the explicit instructions that it not be sold to Ford owners), then they'd have a hell of a time legally claiming that somebody couldn't buy it from them and then sell it to owners of modified Mustangs to use. Doesn't matter that they developed the new gas with their cars in mind. Doesn't matter if they claim that you're not allowed to resell it to others. They couldn't legally restrict you from reselling it and using it as you see fit.
"People who think they know everything are very annoying to those of us who do."-Mark Twain
"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."
You have a deliberately narrow experience, you implicitly insult everyone who would buy an iPhone, and yet Slashdot readers think you're insightful.
"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."
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.