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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.
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.
What's the problem with Apple making money using FOSS? Its not like they don't write their own code or contribute very strongly back to the community?
Though I disagree with Apple profiting off OSS which they did not initially create
Why not? Most tech companies do this in some way.
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 --> .
They're not profiting off the Free & Open Source Software that they did not initially create. You can download that bit for free, no profit for Apple. Free of charge, completely.
What they're profiting from is the non-OSS part that they did create (or bought the rights to, in the case of the NeXT created segment) and the integration of the F/OSS that they use with their OS. That's their work and not covered by F/OSS licenses.
Adding a question mark to any sentence makes it a question?
yes but free as in freedom not free as in beer.
btw i take it you new here.
Other than that I do not think they have ever done anything other than what the licences were meant to allow them to do.
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!
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.
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
your MS Xbox analogy fails.
No it doesn't. they are both Operating Systems for running specific hardware designs. Their is only one Xbox 360 design, but if I were to go out and purchase all of the parts necessary, assemble the system, and get my hands on a copy of the OS from some hacker I could conceivably install the Xbox 360 OS on reference hardware and do the equivalent of what Pystar is doing. It would be no less illegal based on the EULA and copywrite law as it is written and enforced at the moment. That it would be more difficult to procure a copy of the installable OS doesn't invalidate my analogy.
If anything your "Bad Car Analogy" is worse than the one I used because tires are sold and not licensed as software is. I don't particularly like that software is licensed instead of sold but that's the state of things at the moment.
Bureaucracy expands to meet the needs of the expanding bureaucracy.-Oscar Wilde
They started with BSD code. Which is released under a BSD license which expressly allows this. What's the problem? You are free to make money off that stuff too if you like.
You can do that with Apache stuff too. Some OSS licenses expressly allow you to use their stuff as a basis for your own stuff. This is a good thing.
Cheers
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
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!"
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.