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Psystar Antitrust Claim Against Apple Dismissed
CNet has a report that a federal judge has dismissed Psystar's antitrust suit against Apple. Observers had said that the counter-suit embodied the Mac clone-maker's best chance of prevailing and staying in business. We've been following Psystar and the dueling lawsuits since the beginning.
This is probably the proper legal ruling.
Though I disagree with Apple profitting off OSS which they did not initially create. They might as well be Linspire, in that regard.
Enlightenment is the elimination of that which is unnecessary.
You see, whether or not you agree or disagree with the legal standing of this EULA, or that EULA... whether or not you have a position on all this stuff, whether or not you agree that the law needs to be codified more properly for modern times, changed to fit the needs of the public... whatever you think there are just simply weaker cases which need to be tested first.
These guys marched straight into the castle stronghold without a hope in hell, and pissed on the kings chips.
We all stood back watching, saying to ourselves... well, this won't go anywhere. This was stupid. These guys are going to get slaughtered.
And lo! It was stupid, it didn't go anywhere, and they just got it handed to them.
wtf!!! stop using subject as part of the post. you see, there is the subject, which is, you know, the subject, as in "what you are going to talk about", and then the post, the place to write down your idea. stop fucking with data and metadata.
Re:If these guys couldn't bounce back
- Raynet --> .
This would be akin to Microsoft having said Windows only on Intel, using another processor violates the EULA
Except that Microsoft does say that with the Xbox and Xbox 360. They have 2 different platforms with 2 different lisencing strategies for their hardware. Windows is lisenced to anyone and everyone for an exorbinant fee, while the Xbox OS is not lisenced to anyone and used only for running hardware assembled and sold by Microsoft. Apple doesn't have any obligation to market it's computer OS the same way that MS does, and unless you have a problem with MS, Sony, or Nintendo marketing their OS the same way Apple does I fail to see validity of the "Apple is the next MS" argument you are using here unless you plan to apply it to the other game station manufacturers as well.
Your whole second paragraph is self contradictory. Apple is suing Pystar for selling hardware with a "Hacked version of Apples OS" they are not suing Pystar for the computers they've sold with windows or linux installed, only those with OS X. If you want to go take the open source compnents of Apple's OS and recreate the closed source code yourself, and then sell computers with it you are free to do so. However, you'll quickly find that even with mooching Apple contributions to open source you won't be able to maintain profitability sell this OS for the same price Apple does their updates. They are a way to generate some income off of major OS updates from people that have already purchased Apple hardware. They are not sold at a profit by themselves, so Apple is free to restrict the sales to whomever they want in the EULA.
Would I like cheeper Mac's, of course, but that doesn't mean I advocate hamstringing their ability to decide the direction of their own products.
Bureaucracy expands to meet the needs of the expanding bureaucracy.-Oscar Wilde
This would be akin to Microsoft having...
Judge actually ruled that this is pretty much the exact opposite of 'This would be akin to Microsoft...'
This particular ruling isn't about the EULA aspect of the case, it's about the (alleged) monopoly abuse. Psystar's argument was that Apple had a monopoly in the market for computers running OS X, and therefore had to abide by the much stricter laws on what a company can and cannot do if it gets into a monopoly position. The judge said that 'computers running OS X' isn't the applicable 'market' in this case, he defined the applicable market as 'computers running any OS', therefore Apple only have a minority of the market, and Psystar is wrong. In that market, Microsoft do have a big enough OS market share to be defined as a monopoly.
A pizza of radius z and thickness a has a volume of pi z z a
Psystar is not modifying the OS. Check the details! They are not running a cracked or modified version of OSX on their systems. What they have done is created the EFI backbone so that will allow the OS will install run nativly on it. This is no different from when IBM made their machines, and people reverse-engineered the bios to make clones.
All apple has to get them on is that the OSX license stipulates that it MUST BE INSTALLED ON APPLE HARDWARE. This is EXACTLY the same if Microsoft turned around and said that windows can only be used on specific intel motherboard and cpu, and that only microsoft can decree what hardware is allowed to be used with it.
These guys are going to have a rough time of it, but I home that they succeed. Apple should not be the only hardware manufacturer allowed to run OS-X, no more than microsoft should be allowed to decree that windows is not allowed to run on AMD and Gigabyte.
We should be allowed a choice!
Security updates are free, but if I wanted fancy multiple desktops I'd have to pay to update to 10.5, and that doesn't sound very free to me. I was living okay without multiple desktops sure, but with Ubuntu I got them for free, and I am now in fact using them.
The OSX security updates also were usually quite tardy as Mr AC points out just above me. Took them months to get a patch out for that big DNS bug a few months ago for example.
Ubuntu has become a fairly polished OS. If I had an nVidia graphics card then it would be almost perfect on this laptop. Canonical have done an awesome job. Linux is pretty much ready for any n00b to come along and use it for everything but the latest commercial games (which is often the main problem with OSX too).
which is totally what she said
Apple's hardware is fairly priced, so even if you want to install Linux, you are no worse off than buying x other brand.
Go match a Dell to a Mac Pro, or a Sony Vaio laptop to a MacBook, you will see they are all competitive.
Well you can get all the sources here:
http://www.macosforge.org/
And especially zfs and launchd could be interesting to Linux and BSD. But then the Linux community suffers heavily from Not-Invented-Here syndrome.
There is quite a bit of GPL licensed software in Mac OS X. Your can download the sources for that part of OS X here:
http://www.macosforge.org/
The sources to the BSD part of Mac OS X is there as well. And some of Apples own developments on top (launchd - Apples answer to init, cron and inetd - for example). launchd is pretty cool btw.
Apple isn't denying Pystar business by suing them on grounds of copyright violation, they are denying you the right to purchase hardware supported by another vendor to run an operating system of your choosing.
So when it sends reports following crashes where do they go? Apple.
When someone files feedback or some such where does that go? Apple.
When something doesn't work as expected who gets the blame? Apple.
Apple gets bad rep and no financial recompense from Psystar's business model. Why is this something that should be allowed?
You may think me a tired, old, cynic. I'd have to disagree about the tired bit.
he defined the applicable market as 'computers running any OS'
Define "computer".
Sincerely,
The mobile phone business
Though I disagree with Apple profitting off OSS which they did not initially create. They might as well be Linspire, in that regard.
Well, if you're being intellectually consistent in your ethics, then you should be disgreeing with Red Hat, Canonical, TiVo, LinkSys, Microsoft (yes, Microsoft), Sun Microsystems, IBM, HP, and a bunch of other big-name industry companies.
All these companies -- and more -- have profitted (well, okay, Canonical hasn't made a dime, technically ;) from OSS which they did not initially create.
My blog
Apple gets bad rep and no financial recompense from Psystar's business model
Unless you count the $129/sale from the boxed copy of OS X that Pystar include as a financial recompense...
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
doesnt negate the fact that its true. The only product Apple puts out right now thats not really that competitive is the Mini, but otherwise the rest of the line is very competitive. The difference is in buying a Mac you buy things that for some people they dont need or want. But then thats the Apple difference, you know your machine is going to be supported for years (Still running Tiger on 10 year old systems) when some Vista "Capable" models where barely that out of the gate.
"Slashdot, where telling the truth is overrated but lying is insightful."
However, the other part of the Sherman Act (illegal tying) was still not addressed. From
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tying_(commerce)
(emphasis added).
Since you can buy OS X without having to buy an Apple Computer and since OS X will run on non-Apple hardware, it is illegal tying especially since it is a contract only (EULA) that prevents you from running on non-Apple hardware. Whether or not Pystar pursued this line I have no idea.
This is a sig. This is only a sig. Had this been an actual sig you would have been informed where to tune for more sigs.
These could be considered as a form of echo question. Consider the example:
"I ate an entire bowl of thumbtacks."
"You ate an entire bowl of thumbtacks?"
"Yes."
Here the repair that's typically assumed to be part of echo questions is the entire sentence (which would likely be seen a semantically aberrant). There's no structural change to the sentence with the question mark (modulo some theory about hidden movement which I don't feel like working out). You'd probably hear an intonational change in speech.
Because you don't buy the XBox OS but you DO buy the Apple Mac OS X OS.
You don't need a license to install and use software when it is required for the use of said materiel. So that's not the problem.
Apple could just not sell Mac OS X the same way as MS don't sell XBox OS. They don't. So live with the consequences.
And it is some level of financial recompense, but it doesn't address the question of whether it's fair recompense. The $129 number is a price subsidized by the purchase of a Mac. That's essentially the "upgrade" price. We don't know what the fully retail price of OSX would be if Apple were licensing it for use on non-Apple computers, because Apple doesn't offer those licensing terms to anyone.
It may be that, if Apple chose to license OSX for generic PCs, they would charge $500 or $1000 per copy. We don't know.
So in light of that, it's not clear that the $129 is sufficient for Psystar to say, "But we bought copies of OSX fair and square!"
Once they buy it though, THEY OWN THE PRODUCT...
No, they don't because they never bought the software. They licensed the software with the license being null and void if they violate their end of the contract.
...and are free to do with it as they wish.
Just as long as they are willing to live with the potential consequences of their actions. Namely, the potential to be sued by the other party in the contract for violating that contract. No one is forced to enter into the contract with Apple, but if they want to use Apple's software they will be legally obligated to abide by that contract.
Now, I don't believe that software should be licensed instead of sold, but that's the way the cookie crumbles. I'm free to use any other OS on their hardware, or to use completely different hardware if I so choose, just not with their software. Companies are under no obligation to give you as many choices in configuration as you feel entitled to. If you don't like the options provided by Apple, use a different vendor. Whining about it is just juvenile.
Bureaucracy expands to meet the needs of the expanding bureaucracy.-Oscar Wilde
If I'm not mistaken, the person was allowed to sell the AutoCAD on ebay because they were transferring the License to the purchaser along with the installation disks. That meant that the seller was not going to retain an installed copy of the software so no violation of the EULA was taking place.
I don't know if the AutoCAD EULA contained prohibitions against re-selling the license. If they did, then that portion of the EULA would have been invalidated by the decision. However, that doesn't mean that the rest of the EULA was invalidated as well.
Bureaucracy expands to meet the needs of the expanding bureaucracy.-Oscar Wilde
That was a really fancy way of saying Apple's hardware is way overpriced (perhaps to offset the high marketing costs??)
Change is inevitable, except from a vending machine -- Robert C. Gallagher
It is my understanding that the contractual tying arrangements would only be a problem if Pystar were successful in convincing the judge that "Computers running the Mac OS" are a separate market from that of computers running windows/linux/other flavors of unix.
Since the judge hasn't bought their argument, the Clayton Act doesn't apply, no matter how much any of us may want it to.
Bureaucracy expands to meet the needs of the expanding bureaucracy.-Oscar Wilde
There is no problem with Apple tying its hardware to its OS sales.
The court has ruled that Apple does not dominate the market; therefore it has no monopoly position to abuse by means of a tying arrangement.
The point of prohibiting tying arrangements is that companies in dominating market position could not force sale of an undesirable good by tying it to a desirable good for which there is no meaningful competition.
So before you run around saying that no one is catching te tying arrangement, perhaps you should RTFA and learn that the judge has ruled that Apple's market is not the 'market for Apple's OS' but instead, the 'market for all OS's'.
No monopoly == no abuse of monopoly via tying arrangement
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
If Microsoft released Windows 7 and only allowed it to be installed and run on Microsoft branded machines, how long would that last? About ten seconds, yes?
Yes.
Then why the hell can Apple get away with it?
Because Microsoft has a monopoly and is subject to anti-trust laws while Apple doesn't and isn't.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not an Apple fanboy--in fact, I tend towards mild dislike, and own none of their products--and I'm not even quite sure who I'm rooting for in this case (which is far from done), but I still have to admit that talking about a monopoly "in OS/X" is stretching things too far. I'd rather see PyStar lose this argument and then end up winning the whole case based on the doctrine of first sale or something similar. But I also admit that it's not necessarily quite that simple, and Apple may indeed have a valid case. I hope they lose, but I can understand why they might win, and don't think it would be the end of the world, unlike the look-and-feel cases back in the eighties, where I think it might actually have been the end of the world, or at least, the end of creative freedom, if they'd won (fortunately, they lost those ones).
Apple may be dicks (I think there's a pretty strong case to be made for that proposition), but they're not monopolists (although I tend to think they'd be even scarier than MS if they were).
There is also this web site:
http://developer.apple.com/opensource/
Apple may not always be timely, but they do eventually get it out. Remember Although there is GPL stuff in there, there is also BSD stuff in there. With a BSD license they aren't required to give back, but Apple does. If you complain about Apple being late with the source, remember that in this regards their first priority is being a profitable business and the being a good open source citizen.
Jumpstart the tartan drive.
Labelling the packages "Upgrade" but not enforcing any kind of technical measure against clean installs is called lying.
Nonsense. If so, selling a music CD with a copyright notice but no DRM to stop you ripping and uploading it is also "lying". I don't think so. Before product activation became commonplace most commercial software did nothing to enforce its license. Lots of publishers sell software "for educational use only" at a discount - the license says you can't use it for commercial purposes, but there's nothing to enforce it.
(See also "Internet Explorer is an integral part of Windows" [cnet.com].)
MS were accused of monopoly abuse by bundling IE with windows, and trying to claim that it was technically impossible to remove it. How do you get from there to "you can't impose a license condition without backing it up with a technological measure"?
Anyway, Microsoft has a near-monopoly in personal computer operating system market - so anti-trust law allows the courts to poke their nose into what they sell to who and for how much.
TFA was all about Psystar being laughed out of court for trying to argue that Apple were a monopoly - because only Apple made Apple products - and could therefore be told what they had to sell to whom and for how much. Apple don't have a monopoly. The reason that it sometimes seems that there is one law for MS and another law for Apple is because there is.
In a survey of 100 programmers, 111111 thought that duck-typing was a good idea.
You quoted only part of the text, and missed the critical bit.
Certain tying arrangements are illegal in the United States under both the Sherman Antitrust Act, and Section 3 of the Clayton Act. A tying arrangement is defined as "an agreement by a party to sell one product but only on the condition that the buyer also purchases a different (or tied) product, or at least agrees he will not purchase the product from any other supplier." Tying may be the action of several companies as well as the work of just one firm. Success on a tying claim typically requires proof of four elements:
(1) two separate products or services are involved;
(2) the purchase of the tying product is conditioned on the additional purchase of the tied product;
(3) the seller has sufficient market power in the market for the tying product;
(4) a not insubstantial amount of interstate commerce in the tied product market is affected.
Look at point 3 - "sufficient market power."
Apple do *not* have sufficient market power (which is usually triggered by monopoly status) and therefore are not subject to laws against tying.
Monopoly status (or 'sufficient market power') triggers a whole raft of conditions which are not an issue before that point.