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Psystar Wins a Round Against Apple
Daengbo writes "'A federal judge last week ruled that Psystar Corp. can continue its countersuit against Apple Inc., giving the Mac clone maker a rare win in its seven-month-old battle with Apple.
He also hinted that if Psystar proves its allegations, others may then be free to sell computers with Mac OS X already installed.'
Apple is currently suing Psystar over its sale of Mac clones."
This is great news for everyone who believes in fair competition in the marketplace. Kudos to that judge, and I hope the countersuit goes well!
"16MB (fuck off, MiB fascists)" - The Mighty Buzzard
If Pystar can win on OSX, the same argument could, in principle, be made for other operating systems. I suspect, though, that the impact would be pretty minimal. HP-UX only runs on PA-RISC or Itanium, so the wild world of x86 whiteboxes isn't going to happen unless HP wants it to. Further, HP-UX is the sort of thing that(with the limited exceptions of a few hobbyists, and people looking for HP-UX experience on the cheap) would only be run by outfits that care about Big Serious Enterprise Features(tm) and support contracts and stuff. All HP has to do is say that HP-UX, and anything you run on it, is only supported on HP hardware and most of the value dries up. OSX, by contrast, is frequently run in the desktop area, where support is a fairly minimal consideration.
Citation?
Some hardware manufacturers don't employ devs who code for Linux. It's a shame, but hey, that's an extra cost. Linux doesn't yet have the market share to warrant employing dedicated devs to write drivers for Linux (please bare in mind the many, many distros, dependencies, package types, kernel revisions which drivers would need to be developed for. Source code is great, but I don't want the hassle of compiling it thanks).
It's an infinite regression paradox. Devs need to code for existing hardware to increase uptake, which then need support from vendors with newer versions. More uptake is needed to increase the viability of dev time... The trouble is nobody wants to go first.
Finally had enough. Come see us over at https://soylentnews.org/
Disclaimer: My primary home computer is a Mac (which you probably guessed from my sig).
If Pystar wins their lawsuit, it will be terrible for not just Apple, but OS X users too.
Apple is still a small company with limited programming resources. One of the reasons OS X evolved so quickly is that Apple could channel its limited programming and QA resources into improving the features and stability of the operating system, while supporting only a very small limited subset of the available hardware in the PC market.
One of the reasons Microsoft has so many problems is that Windows needs to support every hardware configuration imaginable. If Windows fails to do so, as it did with Vista, Microsoft bears the brunt of the criticism (not the hardware or driver maker), and essentially has to take the lead in solving the problem.
If OS X has to support every hardware imaginable, OS X releases will be delayed further and the end products will no longer be as stable. Look at what support for both Intel and PowerPC did to Leopard, and its associated QA and development process. The end product was not as stable or reliable as quickly as previous OS X releases.
What's more, Apple nearly went bankrupt after licensing Mac OS to third party clone makers. Clone sales undercut Mac sales far more than Apple received licensing fees for Mac OS.
For OS X to continue as a high quality operating system, Pystar must lose.
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If Pystar wins, OS X will no longer be sold retail. New versions will only be available via a paid online update.
Apple will then assert that it's impossible to install it on commodity hardware without stealing the source code outright.
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When you copyright something and make it available to the public, in exchange for the protection of copyright, you loose some control over your work.
If I read a newspaper, when I am done, I can pass it to someone else if I wish. That is legal and there's nothing a newspaper can do about it. Even if the newspaper says "non-transferable," they may wish that to be true, but it is not. We have rights and we need to fight back and challenge entities that make claims that are not true.
The argument that it "belongs to them" doesn't work because they are making it public under copyright law. Copyright law protects their content AND allows fair use of it.
Software is copyrighted. A license agreement does not limit your rights under "copyright law," it enhances your rights beyond copyright law. Software vendors will argue otherwise, but more and more court cases are upholding copyright over EULAs.
If I purchase software, the ISV can not control what I do with it. I have a valid right to use the material, obtained legally and under the financial terms agreed upon by the copyright owner. When I am finished with it, I have a court confirmed right of first sale. I'm sure the court will confirm what we all know, that I can do with it as I please. As long as I do not make and distribute copies of it, I'm legit.
For instance, I can buy a painting from a painter. He may say, "under no circumstances are you to destroy this paining or sell it to anyone else," but once he sells it to me, I can do with it as I please. I can spray paint it, burn it, or sell it.
Apple does NOT have a monopoly. Saying that Apple has a monopoly on selling Macs is like saying Ford has a monopoly on selling Mustangs. The market in question is personal computers, not Personal computers that run OS X software.
That BeOS, OS/2, and NEXTSTEP enjoyed. The fate of technically superior, generically compatible, for-profit alternative operating systems is pretty well established.
There are three ways to build a successful OS:
- Legacy monopoly position
- Free (libre)
- Make your money on hardware
Selling a "premium" OS for generic hardware is a surefire path to irrellevance.
Mustangs don't typically require buying a specific brand of gasoline that won't work with the Chevy Malibu. Using a Mac requires buying different software. The scope of the investment is not directly comparable to any other device except possibly the iPod and iTunes Store music compatibility.
The purpose for antitrust laws is protecting consumers, not protecting businesses. The same problems occur whether someone is locked in because no competitors exist or because they merely can't buy a competitor's product for compatibility reasons. That's why certain types of tying are violation of antitrust laws in spite of competition existing.
Is tying Mac OS X to Mac hardware a clear antitrust violation? No. Is it clearly not an antitrust violation? Also no. There are plenty of case law precedents on either side of this issue, and the way a court rules is likely to depend more on how the argument is worded and which judge hears the case than on its fundamental merits. It's a very grey area.
I'll turn your argument around: let's say I am a car manufacturer, new to the market. I sell the RemmeltCar and have exclusive contracts with dealerships. Spare parts can only be had through them or directly from me.
Would you buy my car based on this information?
Judging buy your post, you probably wouldn't. If you still would want to drive a car, would there be anywhere else you could go for buying one?
My point: Apple doesn't have a monopoly on computers. They have a monopoly (if you want to call it that) on their parts, but so do Dell, Compaq, Acer, Asus, etc. If you want to buy a computer, there are lots of places you can go.
If your argument is that you want to buy a computer with OSX on it, well, I'd have to let a judge decide that one. Which is how we come back to the topic at hand ;)
The market in question is personal computers, not Personal computers that run OS X software.
I'm sorry, but in this instance, it very much is personal computers that run OS X. The whole point of all this is because Apple want to be the only company that supplies computers with OS X preinstalled. Let me run that by you one more time. The only company that supplies computers with OS X preinstalled. If that isn't the definition of a monopoly, please do tell me what is.