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Psystar Will Countersue Apple
An anonymous reader sends us to CNet for news that Apple clone maker Pystar plans to countersue Apple. We discussed Apple's suit last month. "Mac clone maker Psystar plans to file its answer to Apple's copyright infringement lawsuit Tuesday as well as a countersuit of its own, alleging that Apple engages in anticompetitive business practices. Miami-based Psystar... will sue Apple under two federal laws designed to discourage monopolies and cartels, the Sherman Antitrust Act and the Clayton Antitrust Act, saying Apple's tying of the Mac OS to Apple-labeled hardware is 'an anticompetitive restraint of trade,' according to [an] attorney... Psystar is requesting that the court find Apple's EULA void, and is asking for unspecified damages."
/popcorn.
I really hope Psystar wins this one. Apple (and they aren't the only one, just the subject on hand at the moment) really needs to get told where to stick their monopolistic behavior. If you release a product to the market, then you have no business telling people what they can and can't do with it once they've bought it.
"16MB (fuck off, MiB fascists)" - The Mighty Buzzard
The argument by Apple is going to be made that they are an appliance manufacturer and that they sell the OS and support the OS only for the appliances they sell. They offer it for sale as an upgrade to their appliance for those who do not wish to purchase a new appliance and as a convenience to their consumers.
So they are not a monopoly by any means but they cannot argue that a third party cannot support that software as long as it does not imply support or cause any damage to existing company.
This is my sig. There are many like it but this one is mine.
Too bad this case will take several years before anything is decided and appealed. Then an another year for any beneficent for consumers if ruled in favor of competition, that is if any competitors are still left in business.
are doomed to repeat it.
Apple has been successfully shutting down clone makers for 25 years. Some immediately, some after several months, but always successfully. Psystar will choke on the stack of precedents.
"I may be synthetic, but I'm not stupid." -- Bishop 341-B
I agree. Apple's tactics are pretty horrid, yet they seem to get a pass from the fan-boys for some reason just because their products are shiny.
It amazes me how often on Slashdot I read that Google is evil, and Apple is great. Apparently people aren't paying attention to their actual business practices in either case.
http://blindscribblings.com - Tasty pop-culture in conceptual fashion.
Seems the private business haters on /. got queued awful fast.
Apple is not being monopolistic and they have every right to prevent a 3rd party from selling their product.. If I have a restaurant, I have the right to REFUSE TO SERVE you. If I make a product, I have the right to refuse to allow you to sell it at your store.
The EULA is intended for individuals, and while they might strike parts of it down, the judge should side with Apple's right not to allow a 3rd party to manufacture a product containing Apples' products.
However, any restriction on the end user from running OS X should be removed. Apple should just not warrantee the OS on non-Apple hardware. So if you don't have a Mac and you have a problem with your copy of OS X, Apple can just say "Tough Shit".
Yes, I would be Awesome for people to tell me how to run my company even thought I am not a monopoly.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
I think the apple-is-evil camp is pretty represented here on slashdot. I bought myself a large ipod, thinking it would double as a nice portable harddrive. Seriously, the hardware is great -- but the software and its restrictions are infuriating. I want to use it how I choose. I want to use it to give my friend music. I don't want to be forced to use itunes.
And the whole control-freak attitude is in every apple product. I'll never buy another thing from apple, and feel incredibly stupid and regretful for recommending someone get a Mac instead of Vista.
These days, I use OpenSUSE (and dabble in freebsd). And recommend XP as operating system of choice. As for devices, I strongly recommend people stay away from apple. Their attitude sucks, and I don't think they realize how much it will continue to hurt them. Only a certain percent of the population are masochists
As for google is evil, I don't think they're evil (in fact, I think they're an awesome company). But just the other day, I realized how scary the amount of data is. I gave my best friend some of my account details (root access to my machine, msn etc.) but I wouldn't even consider giving my google account - just cause there's wayyy too much shit in it. Look at my inbox: [i]You are currently using 868 MB (12%) of your 7071 MB.[/i] It might not sound like much but that's a FUCK LOAD of personal information. I'm considering deleting it all - but it's so damn handing having it all archived for me.
Apple may not be allowed that option. Remember they are challenging Apple on Monopoly grounds. If they win Apple can be mandated to do or not do certain things that wouldn't apply to normal companies.
Except that the product that is supposed to be a "monopoly" is an operating system, and Psystar has at least two other choices of operating systems: The one from the market leader, Microsoft, with 90 percent or more market share, and the other one Linux, which they can even distribute without license fees.
You can install Windows on a Mac. And that's fine. But install OSX on a PC and Apple throws a hissy fit... Am I missing something here?
The game.
Part of what makes OS X a great OS is that Apple controls the hardware side. "Everything just works" is a broad overstatement, but it mostly applies to Apple hardware and OS X. Being able to buy a boxed copy of OS X for any generic x86 PC would lead to a lot of Linux-type scenarios: *most everything* just works, but a patch here, or a trip to apt-get there, and a little bit of geeky knowledge is needed to get things working.
Most of us here at Slashdot, myself included, would be fine with that. But OS X would not be the roaring success it is if people said things like "you may need to download fwcutter to get your WiFi card working" or "you need that SSE2 emulation BIOS patch to get it to boot." It is a success because Apple--for better or worse--has tightly intertwined the hardware and software experience so that the geeky *nix parts are only there if you want to play with it, not because you have to.
The only way Apple could reasonably sell OS X for generic x86 or x86_64 hardware is to have a huge list of requirements similar to the "Vista Capable" debacle. And it would cost a lot more than the $129 it costs now. Prices would be similar to what you pay for the latest boxed version of Windows, because currently OS X is subsidized by the premium you paid on Apple's hardware to run it in the first place.
I love Macs, I love OS X, and I love Linux. I think all this effort to get OS X running on generic hardware would be better spent on getting Ubuntu (or some other distro) up to the same level of reliability and usability of OS X on Apple hardware.
:q!
Ok. Let me get this straight. Apple makes an operating system and the license agreement that comes with it states that you have to run it on Apple branded hardware. When you get an Apple labeled computer and run the Apple labeled operating system on it, it works like a mortal luser would expect it to. For damn nearly the entire population of Apple computer users, it does what they need it to do and they run around spouting, "Macs rock! PCs suck!"
Ok, now imagine what would happen if every computer company out there decided to provide Mac OS X with their computers instead of Windoze Vista or whatever they're installing on garbage prebuilt computers nowadays. Suddenly OS X won't be quite as great anymore because it will have all kinds of subtle failures and stuff. First, the hardware can induce failures that are no fault of the software. Further, if the hardware is fine but operates somehow differently from Apple hardware, bugs in OS X which don't manifest themselves on a Mac will crop up. Some would argue that this is good as it helps to find and fix those bugs. But do you honestly think Apple will achieve what it does if its engineers suddenly spend their time making OS X work around the characteristics of hardware they have no control over? Do you think Apple has the time to go testing OS X on every five dollar garbage motherboard that some cheapskate company decided to put in a computer?
What will happen to Apple's brand if that happened? Oh! Suddenly people will go around saying how much OS X is the suxx0rz because it crashes and it deletes data and it locks up and all this shit, EVEN IF IT'S NO FAULT OF THE SOFTWARE! Because the lusers don't know what comes from software and what comes from hardware. Hey, it locked up, OS X is the suxx0rz. And Apple's brand is down the tubes.
It is Apple's right and responsibility as a business to protect its brand by making sure its products are high quality and by making sure that others, for any reason, don't tarnish that brand.
Psystar wants to make a Mac clone? Fine! Download Darwin. Download Afterstep. Download every graphics toolkit out there. Start modifying. Apple worked hard and invested tremendous amounts to make their software.
You want a computer that works? Either get a Mac or build a *BSD or Linux box yourself.
McCain/Palin '08. Now THAT's hope and change!
Methinks this was their plan to begin with (counter sue). I can't imagine they just "happened" to come up with this defense and lawfirm all of a sudden.
How much do you want to bet Paystar has the same "donation"?
Erm, a million, billion dollars ?
You are smoking crack. Apple is not the same threat to MS that Linux is. MS profits from Apple!
MS's margins on (legitimate) sales to Mac users have higher average margins than average sales to typical PC users:
Firstly, there's no such thing as an OEM version of XP or Vista for Mac. Most OS sales in the PC world are low margin OEM bundles with HW.
A Mac user must purchase a full retail price version of Windows to install on their Mac.
Most unit sales of Office for the Mac are, again, individual sales. Most unit sales of Office for Windows are Corporate.
Then we can go into the famous $150m "donation" that MS made to Apple, and the patent cross licensing agreement between the two companies...
Sure you can blast a company for doing something and be OK with another company doing it. If you sign up with company A because they promise to keep your data private and then find them selling your data you are mad at them. If you sign up with company B under the understanding that they resell customer information as part of their business you are going to get a lot of funny looks if you rail against their violation of your privacy.
Apple escapes a lot of the bashing because they are upfront about what they are doing. You buy an Apple you know (or at least should) what to expect, both good and bad. That is not to say that everything they do is sunshine and rainbows, but that is a known part of doing business with them and as such a cost already accepted.
When a company sells you something on the condition that it only be installed on their hardware it is hard for mot people to work up much sympathy when you complain that they will only let you install it on their hardware. The fact that other businesses do it differently does not matter. You were free to buy from them instead.
In this same situation Microsoft would catch a lot of flack because they explicitly sell their product to run on anything that meets the hardware requirements. People have entered into a different contract with them and thus have different expectations and different reactions to the same actions.
Everyone was pissed off at Sony because they broke the social contract. People were sold a CD with the reasonable expectation that it would NOT install a virus on their computer. Fewer people complain about Apple's iTunes DRM because it is an upfront part of the purchase. You know what you are getting and can purchase appropriately to your own tastes.
Don't confuse Apple with its lawyers. Apple gets sued regularly over frivolous bullshit like Paystar's, so the the company's legal team is a ravenous bunch of sharks.
The Wired sensationalism about lawyers' overstated legalese asking not to get unsolicited idea submissions outside of the "sign away your rights" web form for feedback is to prevent a case where somebody sends in an idea Apple is already working on, sort of like sending the violated IP to a clean room team. Of course they don't want to get sued, and lawyers overreact to protect their assets.
Microsoft isn't "evil" for bundling software, it violated its consent decree (its agreement with the judge in a legal case) in order to destroy competition. Apple has no consent decree to violate, and has not been charged by the US with anti-competitive behaviors. So you're grasping at straws.
Jobs does not own the RIAA's music, so he can only do what they allow him to do. He replaced strong Windows Media DRM from Microsoft with FairPlay DRM that end users can strip off themselves using iTunes burn function. So again, you are being ridiculous.
Apple does not have a moral obligation to hand its IP over to Microsoft just because it did once already in the mid 80s. The "little guy" you are rooting for here is a convicted monopolist. It's like you're complaining about Bernhard Goetz being criminal.
Apple never "forced the installation of Safari," it presented it as a software update. Microsoft presents new versions of its own browser as a software update, on both the Mac (when it did) and Windows. Again, you are being wildly disingenuous.
Linking to Leander Kahney's wildly problematic rant/ad for his book doesn't help your case, because Kahney has a loose grasp of reality and contradicts himself repeatedly.
As John Gruber noted (and thank God, as it spared me from explaining exactly why Kahney is so full of himself):
"Kahney's central premise, insofar as there is a premise, is that Apple has succeeded either despite or because it operates in ways that are contrary to conventional wisdom. [... Kahney says Apple is] "Irredeemably evilâ. Because they're secretive and develop closed platforms. Think about that."
[...]
"One can argue (as I would) that Apple's product secrecy is worth tens of millions of dollars in publicity every year. Or, one can argue that Apple spitefully pissed away even more valuable publicity by shutting down Think Secret. (You'd be wrong, but you can reasonably argue that.) But Kahney, in the course of seven paragraphs in a single article, argues both."
[...]
"So this is the sort of logic, research, and insight that passes for a Wired cover story today. Does anyone at Wired even read this shit before publishing it?"
Perhaps you should base your world view on facts rather than emotional tirades from Apple's critics to somehow defend why it is that Apple owes you its technology in a subsidized PC in addition to the subsidized iPhone you can already get.
How Leander Kahney Got Everything Wrong by Being an Irredeemable Jackass
Is Apple's MobileMe Secure?
The problem is that Paystar is modifying and reselling software it has neither a license nor any copyright to modify and resell. It also lacks any right to even to distribute Apple's software against the terms of its license.
You don't normally need one. If I buy a Harry Potter book, and then resell it, I don't need a license to do this.
If I buy a Harry Potter book, write my name on it, and then resell it (modified by me), I don't need a license to do that either.
It's no different than selling software that is licensed as NFR, or selling Windows OEM without hardware, or any number of other uncontested legal mechanisms.
NFR has been successfully challenged in court (not a supreme court precedent or anything, but still...)
Selling 'OEM without qualifying hardware' is another interesting case, because the legal conundrum falls not on the seller but on the buyer, because it states that the license isn't "valid" unless it was sold with qualifying hardware. Since the seller isn't bound by the license, if he acquires OEM software and resells it there is squat the vendor can do to him. (This has been tested by the courts as well.) Its the end user that has an 'invalid' license (assuming the terms even hold, as they themselves have never been tested.)
But there really isn't much point in going after them individually, now is there?
And Microsoft, for its part hasn't historically cared to go after the end user if they bought OEM windows without hardware. (They have from time to time cracked down on the reseller by taking away their 'preferred Microsoft partner status' or taking away a discount they receive on buying microsoft software... but really that's about all they can do. And as of late they have been very tolerant of OEM software sold bare.)
First off, it wasn't an explicit analogy, was it?
Paystar is claiming it has rights to modify and distribute Apple's software. It clams Apple owes it a free ride to add value to its PC hardware using Apple's work. Paystar's ridiculous claim infers that it has a right to profit from Apple's work, but has no responsibility to follow Apple's license or respect Apple's copyright.
Copyright gives Apple, not Paystar, the right to decide how to use, sell or distribute its own work.
SCO demanded that it owned the copyright for work done by others, simply because it wanted to charge money for work it had not done. It sued IBM for "interfering with a legitimate business practice" of shaking down Linux users.
Both SCO and Paystar are demanding to profit from work done by others that they have no right to demand.
An analogy would be if I said Paystar is like a car that wants to park on your lawn, and sues to for being upset about it.
Road to Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard: 64-Bits
Buy a Ford engine. Put in in your Bluebird. No lawsuit from Nissan. No lawsuit from Ford. (The mechanic will likely sue for mental anguish.)
Sell your Nissan/Ford unholy monster for profit. Still no lawsuit from Nissan, no lawsuit from Ford. (The mechanic's psychiatrist may sue you for reckless endangerment.)
Sell dozens, hundreds and eventually thousands of Fluebirds. Not only will Nissan and Ford stubbornly persist in their selfish refusal to sue you, they might even offer to make you a retailer or give you wholesale purchase prices. (The mechanics' labor union may come round to visit with torches and pitchforks.)
If you try to sell Bluebirds with Ford engines, representing yourself as a retailer for Nissan, then you will taste the awful wrath of a swarm of lawyers. Only then do you have an accurate analogy of the issue at hand. Apple can claim that Psystar is selling a product as an Apple product, thus infringing on their right to protect their goo*cough*
that is to say slandering their guugh*choke*
their good *spasm* *sputter* *wheeze* name.
Of course, Psystar can retort that they are in fact selling Psystar computers designed to be capable of running OSX and are even installing OSX, legally purchased, on their computers for a reasonable fee. Apple may then point out that "you can't buy our software to do that" in which case Psystar can retort that "already did" and they can then commence with the slap fest. A cool headed judge could gently dissuade the two from arguing with a fire hose and explain that that forbidding people to use a product they legally purchase in such a way as to prevent competition might be considered "anticompetitive practices" and point out an interesting statute or two to the dripping Apple lawyer swarm. I'm sure the Apple lawyer swarm will accept this with the same good grace you'd expect from a bull rhino with a terrible case of hemorrhoids who was just dumped by his rhino girlfriend for a larger meaner bull rhino who has decided to make it a threesome. (This is known as the no bloody way triple analogy.)
B) Eliminate all the stupid users. This is frowned upon by society.
Don't confuse Apple with its lawyers. Apple gets sued regularly over frivolous bullshit like Paystar's, so the the company's legal team is a ravenous bunch of sharks.
Whoa, what?
1) Apple hired and pays its lawyers. There have been way too many aggressive suits from Apple for it to be some rogue employee or rogue department. Apple is very systematic in the way it sues people who publish rumors and such. It's basically corporate policy.
2) If by "Paystar" you mean "Psystar" (Googling Apple Paystar gives a Psystar article the 1st, 3rd, and 5th hit, irrelevant articles for 2nd and 4th), the "frivolous bullshit" that it is filing against Apple is a countersuit brought about in response to one of Apple BS aggressive lawsuits.
This is biased by reading /., but the only entity that I know of that I think is worse than Apple in terms of filing BS lawsuits is the RIAA (and even that is a close contest as I am much less against strong IP laws than most of /. seems to be).
I agree they will try, but they will lose that lawsuit. You can't really force a company to sell a product. It is honestly a double edged sword for Apple though. Because eliminating your retail sales of OS X upgrades is a hit in revenues.
That the clone Mac were competitive is really more an indicator of Apple's mid 90s lack on innovation.
Not exactly. But you aren't totally out in left field either. The clones were supposedly free-riding on Apple's R&D for mother board designs etc. Apple later figured out they weren't recouping the costs from licensing and the clone makers sold cheaper/faster hardware than Apple because they didn't have to reinvent the wheel. (Remember, this was when Apple was the holy grail of "Not Invented Here")
Read up some more on "Mac clones nearly killed Apple" at wikipedia.
Once you start despising the jerks, you become one.
The irony is that one of the reasons Microsoft was so successful is that, in the climate that they emerged in, they were actually fairly open.
I feel old discussing this, but when the PC revolution started, Apple and IBM were dominant players. At the time, the argument was always that Microsoft was the way to go because you could always buy an "IBM clone," slap DOS or Windows on it, and have a system as good as IBM or Apple. Apple was one of the restrictive companies, and Microsoft was a free, opening agent.
Microsoft let you buy the hardware you wanted.
You're right, that Apple's business practices are far worse than MS's, and that is at the core of why Microsoft is where it is today.
You don't need to wonder if Apple ever would come to be regarded as evil as Microsoft: the fact is, Microsoft came to be regarded as evil as Apple.
By that argument, a Britney Spears album is a good substitute for a Mozart symphony. They're both music, right?
Apple doesn't have a monopoly on "operating systems," but that's irrelevant because the issue is that Apple has a monopoly on computers running OS X, which is relevant because OS X has no reasonable substitute (where a "reasonable substitute" is defined as an OS capable of running OS X software).
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
Really? You believe that a company be forced to support its product on hardware it was never intended to run on?
It might be some nerd's wet dream, but it's legal nonsense. Remember, you're calling for a legal judgement here, and I reckon that the law sees an "Apple branded computer" as different from a PC. That's the first hurdle to overcome, and then comes the biggie - forcing a company to modify its product to install on competing hardware.
Any company is perfectly within its rights to write a product that only functions on some machines and not others. Just like any customer has the right to *not* buy or use that product.
I will accept that I may be wrong on this, provided you can show a precedent. I would be frankly amazed to see it.
They can't be forced to support it, but they could reasonably be forced to allow, if only through inaction, for people to install it on non-Macintosh branded computers.
It really is an issue of to what degree the EULA is enforceable.
No, that's not a sensible way to define a monopoly.
Under your definition, all companies hold a monopoly on their own products. The logical conclusion must be that your definition of "monopoly" is flawed, as it has no use whatsoever. It fails to distinguish between one company and any other.
You go on to say that "OS X has no reasonable substitute" but surely since I can install Windows or Linux on a Mac, it does. I can substitute OS X quite easily.
Yes, that's not what you meant. How about the idea that I can compile well-written OS X code and run it on Linux? Some apps transfer between OSs with a recompile, after all. I've done this several times (before the novelty wore off and I became bored).
Maybe that's not what you meant either. How about this then - under your definition, all OSs have no reasonable substitutes because I can't take a binary and run it on any OS I choose to, even when the hardware is the same. I can install all three OSs onto a Mac, but I can't run (say) FarCry natively on any but Windows. Again, your use of the term makes no meaningful distinction between one OS and another, leading me to think your definition is incorrect.
To sum up - I see that you want Apple to sell you a copy of OS X with no strings attached, however your justifications do not support your case.
Support? no. nobody will force them to provide tech support. But selling the product? You either sell a product or you don't.
My favourite analogy here is the car one.
Would you accept that ford has the ability to tell you that this "Highway" brand car is only licenced for use on the highways and if you want to drive a car in the city you should purchase this "City" brand car?
Do you think that its acceptable for a dealer ship to sell you a car and then say you can only put gas in it from one of their business partners?
Would you be happy if you bought a car and the dealership said you can only ever buy tires from them, and incidentally their tires are all more expensive than generic tires that would work just as well?
All of the above examples are complete bullshit when applied to a car, so why when we talk about an OS is it magically acceptable?
Please show exactly where in my post I wrote the word "support."
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
Apple's business model is that they sell hardware, not operating systems. Their OS is, for a most part, a way for Apple to differentiate their hardware product from other computers in the market.
Microsoft sells software. They are happy to sell you as many copies of Windows as you want. Microsoft would be thrilled if everyone bought a copy of Windows to install on their Mac. It would increase their profits.
The same can't be said about Apple if people bought OS X to install on their beige box. Theoretically they would have reduced profits due to not selling as much of their high margin hardware.
The question is does Apple have the legal right to prevent companies from selling their software in a ways other than Apple wants. I think Apple does have a legal right to restrict access to their own software, that's what a license is about.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
"Its about time someone counter-sued Apple for this monopolistic behavior."
Monopolistic behaviour isn't illegal unless one happens to be a monopoly.
"When Microsoft does it, everyone jumps up their seat"
Because Microsoft has been adjudged to be a monopoly by at least three different legal entities (the US, the EU, and S. Korea), whereas Apple with their 4% or so of the world PC market are obviously not a monopoly. Monopolies are bound by laws that don't apply to other companies.
I'm not going to change your sheets again, Mr. Hastings.
> Really? You believe that a company be forced to support its product on hardware it was never intended to run on?
This has nothing to do with forcing Apple to support anything. Rather, it is just about allowing people to own what they buy.
They'd probably still bundle it in with their Macs. They don't have to over-price it for their own hardware, genius.
Yes, of course they'd still bundle it in with their Macs. That's why I didn't adjust the prices of the Macs. I pulled those numbers straight from Apple's web site.
Today, Psystar's machine costs $555, which includes the price of the OS ($130), and it's still over $200 cheaper than the basic 2 GHz Mac Mini. The point of my comment was that even if you add another $370 to Psystar's price, without increasing Apple's price, it's still a pretty good deal.
Visual IRC: Fast. Powerful. Free.
"Where is NewYorkCountryLawyer when you need him?"
Probably throwing up in a bucket because of stench from all the BS here on Slashdot from people who claim that anti-trust laws apply to Apple because they're the only company who makes Apple products.
I'm not going to change your sheets again, Mr. Hastings.
What monopolistic practices? They're a monopoly because they only make Apple products? I get tired of hearing the same absurd nonsense from people whose knowledge of antitrust laws boils down to "houses are green and hotels are red."
I'd also defy you to find any statement from Apple about them being a hardware company - they sell the complete system, which apparently is a difficult concept for a lot of ./ readers to understand.
Obvious exits are NORTH, SOUTH, and DENNIS.
Apple's business model is...
When the RIAA member companies have a business model based on selling plastic discs with a restrictive license to play the music encoded on that disc, we say, your business model isn't my problem. I want to shift my music to other formats, so I can play it without the plastic disc. Or I don't want all the music on the disc, I just want a few songs and I want to pay a fraction of the full price.
It's nice a company has a business model, but a business model is not a law any other entity need respect or follow. For any company other than Apple, what is the response when lawyers are brought in to enforce a business model? Scorn, ridicule, contempt.
If you don't like the way the market is responsing to your business model, bring in the MBAs and change that model. Don't bring in the JDs and sue your customers.
You're an imbecile. In your first example, the BRAND of diesel doesn't matter. A car running on diesel is comparable to a PC based on a PowerPC chip (if we're sticking with analogies). There's no reason you can't put any OS on it, it's just some OS's will work TECHNICALLY, and others won't. Same with the fuel. The Apple OS technically works on Psystar's machines, otherwise they wouldn't sell it.
Your second example is a great example of hitting a strawman out of the park. Well, kinda... your "example" really doesn't make any sense to a native English speaker. I'm assuming you meant something along the lines of a manufacturer sells expensive wheels, and you expect them to support it running on a cardboard box. That doesn't mean they WON'T work with whatever you want, just that you can't expect the manufacturer to support it. No one is expecting Apple to support OSX running on Psystar's machines. If you do, Apple is perfectly right in telling you to go screw yourself.
This whole debacle is about EULA's, and the assumption that by simply writing one you gain rights over and above what is granted to you by law. Psystar is contesting that, as the EULA can't be entered into legally as a contract due to the way that the product is presented and sold, therefore things should default back to the traditional right of first sale and other principles that have existed for ages.
Get a clue, junior. Don't make noise while the adults are talking ;)
My blog. Good stuff (when I remember to update it). Read it.
Sorry, I didn't realize that. Nonetheless you have to admit their 'Open Computer' is considerably bigger than Apple's Mac Mini. Of course, at that point it's just an aesthetic choice.
It's the difference between "support" and "allow". Your car dealer has no business interfering with your decision to try and diesel-fuel your unleaded car, short of telling you you're a damn fool when you come back expecting free repairs. Likewise, Apple should have no business interfering with your decision to run MacOS on any hardware you want, short of telling you you're a damn fool when you come back expecting free support.
Information wants to be free.
Entertainment wants to be paid.
You just want to be cheap.
Most people don't understand how bad this problem was for Apple. When a clone had a problem the user didn't call the cloner maker. On no. They called Apple. They saw "Mac OS" pop up on the screen when they fired up their clone. In their eyes they had an Apple. It cost Apple a bundle in support costs. It cost them even more in bad PR. If Apple Support turned away a Umax owner telling them to call Umax then that user saw that as a bad experience with Apple. Clones were a lose/lose situation for Apple.