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Mac OS X 10.6.2 Will Block Atom Processors
Archeopteryx writes "According to Wired's 'Gadget Lab' blog, Snow Leopard's next update, OS X 10.6.2, will block the Atom processor and will disable many 'Hackintosh' netbooks. It is indeed true that OS X will run just fine on some netbooks if you install the right drivers and ktexts, but Apple's EULA has always specified that the license was applicable only to Apple hardware. There have always been processor types specified in OS X and that have to be worked around now for those who want to use an Atom or similar non-Apple-adopted processor, so this is likely no more than a hiccup on the road for the OSX86 crowd. But, it raises the question: is it time for Apple to sell a license for non-Apple hardware — priced accordingly of course — for those people who want OS X on platform types Apple has not yet adopted, like the netbook? The only reason OS X is not on my Eee is that I want to comply with the licensing terms. I could just pay for a license to use it."
You can buy an OS X license retail... you know... Never did... Won't do... Not a Mac user, nor a Hackintosh user. I'm fine with Debian, thank you very much.
Ahhh...the great dumpster continuum. Many a free computer will be found there. -- sowth (748135)
Licensing aside, they never supported the Atom. As far as I know, they never planned or pledged to support it. Although you may be a customer, you were not an intended one if you installed OS X on an Atom. Apple does not sell anything with an Atom.
Choosing the lesser of two evils is a choice for evil.
The GPL is a distribution license, not a EULA, and explicitly states that it places NO restrictions on the end user, and that acceptance of the license is not required, at all, to use the software.
As a long time hardware tech, I am convinced the hardware I see in Macs is no better or worse than average PC hardware-simply because it IS average PC hardware.
I own a couple (Desktop and mac book) which I got to see what all the fuss was about, and frankly I dont see the so called superiority of OSX over Windows either.
Certainly I have seen no difference in stability, and found some things, particularly the setup program to be markedly inferior to Windows!
The fans have to say its higher quality, or look
foolish for paying 30% more for exactly the same thing.
I just broke Slashdot rule 5, no criticism of Apple allowed, so I expect the fanfoys will mod me to oblivion.
Meh, I got karma to burn.
You can't legally buy OS X for something other than a Mac. It doesn't have to get to the EULA, its clearly stated on the outside of the box.
System requirements are not a legally binding contract. Or do you think it's illegal to try to run software on a machine that doesn't meet the official minimum specs?
If Apples' license isn't valid, neither is GPL, and I can take any GPL app and distribute binaries with proprietary code without any source.
Um, no. The GPL depends only on copyright law. Apple's EULA attempts to impose restrictions that go beyond that.
Don't like it? Change the law, until then, shut the fuck up, we're tired of the broken record.
The law is clear, see 17 USC 117. What we need is for judges to strike down the loopholes that publishers have come up with to remove property rights from software purchasers. And I'm tired of Apple fanboys blindly defending everything Apple does and selling out our rights in the process. Oh, and I have 3 Macs.
How to solve most of our problems: 1.Lots of nuclear plants. 2.Cure aging.
Remember that books are licensed, not outright purchased...
Or at least they were, until the courts struck it down with the First Sale Doctrine...
In 1908, in Bobbs-Merrill Co. v. Straus, 210 U.S. 339 (1908), the first-sale doctrine was established. In a later opinion (Quality King v. L'Anza) (see below), the Court described this opinion:
“ In that case, the publisher, Bobbs-Merrill, had inserted a notice in its books that any retail sale at a price under $1.00 would constitute an infringement of its copyright. The defendants, who owned Macy’s department store, disregarded the notice and sold the books at a lower price without Bobbs-Merrill’s consent. We held that the exclusive statutory right to "vend" applied only to the first sale of the copyrighted work...
Also, a judge just struck down that idea in the AutoDesk case:
In 2008, in Timothy S. Vernor v. Autodesk Inc.[6], a U.S. Federal District Judge in Washington rejected a software vendor's argument that it only licensed copies of its software, rather than selling them, and that therefore any resale of the software constituted copyright infringement. Judge Richard A. Jones cited first-sale doctrine when ruling that a reseller was entitled to sell used copies of the vendor's software regardless of any licensing agreement that might have bound the software's previous owners because the transaction resembled a sale and not a temporary licensing arrangement[7].
Moral of the story is, you can't believe everything you read in a EULA.
Peter predicted that you would "deliberately forget" creation 2000 years ago...
Apple did try selling their OS to run on other platforms. That nearly put then out of business. I think they have a good clue what will work for them and for their customers. We dont' see a whole lot of OS only companies out there. BEOS? even Linux business are tiny compared to apple. Even Oracle bought Sun. Microsoft has Xbox.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
Even the upgrade DVD will happily install on a clean drive, without verification of the operating system that might have previously been on the drive.
You can. Reverse engineering is explicitly allowed. Distributing a program for the purpose of circumventing copy protection, even if it was found through reverse engineering... is not.
So if a large corporation wanted to put Mac OSX on all their internal computers, and was OK with doing internal support on non-Apple hardware, they could modify the distribution and use it internally, but it'd have to be for internal use only, and telling someone else how to do it, selling the software to do it, etc, might run afoul of the law.
For better and worse.
Note: I am not a lawyer, but this is what I've gleaned from the DMCA. My advice is not legal advice and I am not liable for it.
> If you want, you can license your book, too.
No, you absolutely can't. First Sale originally became case law because a publisher attempted to do exactly that: include a "license" on that restricted your right to resell the book. In 1908, the Supreme Court (Bobbs-Merrill Co. v. Straus) found that anyone that bought a copy of a book was free to resell it. Copyright grants you a right to sell, but does not grant you the right to limit resale after the fact. Period. It was later codified (Copyright Act of 1976) to include anyone that legally owned a copy (even if they didn't buy it).
What makes software so special and different from books and records? It's true that case law hasn't fully caught up, but give me a reason as to why the author of a software product should have any additional rights that are not granted to other copyright holder?
-- Don't Tase me, bro!
Yes, it will install on a clean box. How else would you install it on a new hard drive if your old one went bad?
I am a leaf on the wind. Watch how I soar.
Apple doesn't sell OS X. They sell updates. This is an important distinction.
That's a quibble not even Apple themselves has tried to make (because it wouldn't hold up in court). The bottom line is that every version of OS X sold is a full install - with the exception of small updates like the $29 Snow Leopard upgrade (which IS sold as an update). It checks for no previous version, is not marketed as an update, and such terms are never mentioned.
In short, any attempt to claim that Apple is merely selling updates is just talking out of your ass to try and justify Apple's behavior.
"People who think they know everything are very annoying to those of us who do."-Mark Twain
The summary is misleading. The original source of all this hubbub is http://stellarola.tumblr.com/post/225234492/10-6-2-kills-atom-and-other-news. Basically someone noted that a lot of stuff in the kernel has changed so that the Atom processor that developer was using no longer works after the build. They list three work around methods. There is no inside information that this is an intentional attempt to block Atom processors as the summary's wording strongly implies.
The summary then goes on to speculate about the improbable and impractical wet dream of the writer that Apple should start licensing OS X to generic PC makers, completely ignoring the economic realities involved. You might as well end a summary of an article about MS losing an antitrust case by claiming it raises speculation MS will open source Windows under the GPL.
Yeah, and now NeXT is king of the computer world?
Not king, but alive and gaining market share at a pretty good clip, not to mention an enviable position in smart phones.
I mean they went bankrupt and had to be rescued by Apple
NeXT didn't go bankrupt, they were operating profitably and sold out for about $400M.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
ProCD v. Zeidenbert, which held shrinkwrap licenses enforceable. Granted, there is another line of cases that disagrees. This means it comes down to where you live, and when the Supreme Court will get off its ass, grant cert, and address the issue.
In the 1908 case, Bobbs-Merrill Company sold a book with this license: "The price of this book at retail is $1 net. No dealer is licensed to sell it at a lower price, and a sale at a lower price will be treated as an infringement of the copyright."
Straus bought a copy (several, actually) and resold them. According to you, Straus only had possession under certain terms. According to your logic, Bobbs-Merrill should have retained ownership. The Supreme Court found otherwise. It has been further codified and there is extensive case law on the side of first-sale. Most recently in 2008, Timothy S. Vernor v. Autodesk, Inc, found that first-sale applied to Autodesk software, even though Autodesk claims they only sold a license (although that case has not made it to the Supremes yet).
-- Don't Tase me, bro!
Or maybe they optimized the kernel for SSE4? All Macs do SSE4 - the Atom doesn't. Perfectly reasonable, yet people always jump to the malicious explanation...
I don't know what kind of crack I was on, but I suspect it was decaf.
The initial claim was that the GPL didn't add any restrictions that weren't already in copyright law. That's obviously not true
Yes, it is. Show me a sequence of actions that would violate the GPL but would not violate copyright law.
because copyright law makes no mention of not distributing source code, or making a program closed-source.
Source code is automatically copyrighted by the author. The default state of copyright is that if you aren't the copyright holder, you can't redistribute it at all. (With exceptions for fair use, which the GPL doesn't attempt to remove). The GPL grants users the right to do some but not all of the actions normally prohibited by copyright.
Utter horsepucky. Even if you don't accept the GPL, you can still be sued for violating it.
You're actually sued for violating copyright. The GPL only enters into it in that if you had followed its terms, you could point to it as a defense. But if you haven't, then you can't, and standard copyright applies.
And the GPL says "if you redistribute, you can't do a, b, c, d, e, f, g, ..." - what's the difference?
Once again, the difference is that the GPL does not attempt to remove any of your existing rights. The GPL is a unilateral grant of privileges that you normally wouldn't have.
How to solve most of our problems: 1.Lots of nuclear plants. 2.Cure aging.
No, they don't. The original Intel Macs used the Core Solo and Core Duo. Those were Yonah; SSE4 wasn't added until Penryn, AFAIK. They do support SSE3, but not SSE4....
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
As MacOS is not copy protected, there's nothing to circumvent there, DMCA-wise.