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Psystar Crushed In Court
We've been following the case of Mac cloner Psystar for some time now. Apple was just handed a summary judgement over Psystar, and as usual Groklaw has the scoop. Here is the order (PDF), though PJ supplies it in text form at the link above. "Psystar just got what's coming to them in the California case. ... It's a total massacre. Psystar's first-sale defense went down in flames. Apple's motion for summary judgment on copyright infringement and DMCA violation is granted. Apple prevailed also on its motion to seal. Psystar's motion for summary judgment on trademark infringement and trade dress is denied. So is its illusory motion for copyright misuse. ... So that means damages ahead for Psystar on the copyright issues just decided on summary judgment, at a minimum. The court asked for briefs on that subject. In short, Psystar is toast." Reader UnknowingFool adds, "There are still issues to be decided but they are only Apple's allegations: breach of contract, induced breach of contract, trademark infringement, trademark dilution; trade dress infringement, state unfair competition, and common law unfair competition. Even if Psystar wins all of them, it is unlikely to help them very much."
I know. They'll say, but, but, but ... what if they hadn't used the master and just used each copy, then would it work? Sons, why do you think Psystar used the master copy? Because it's a business, and in a business, efficiency is money. That's why businesses set themselves up, to make money. The whole world is not with you on a holy war to destroy EULAs and the GPL. Even this rinkydink business wanted to make money. Theoreticals belong on message boards, not in business and definitely not in courtrooms, and even on message boards, everyone told you for years that this wouldn't work out if someone tried it. It's been tried. It didn't work out. ... coming from Pamela, who revealed that Microsoft played no small role funding the SCO debacle though bogus license purchase.
If you follow patent troll cases for example, you would know that shell business are often set up by litigants for the sole purpose of facilitating a lawsuit. Once you've acquired your defunct IP, you set up a web site to demonstrate intent to sell a product. Sure it's not strictly necessary to test the patent but it can help when it come times to assess damages, and it garners judge and jury sympathies (especially if you can get it tried in the Texas east district).
So, who was behind Psystar? Dell perhaps? There's no chance in hell a startup box builder would go to these lengths to test a legal theory. Their vested interest in the supposed business was a pittance compared to the cost to fight this, so where'd they get the money?
Obviously, Psystar was staged for the exclusive purpose of being sued .
It makes you wonder. Incidentally, it's amazing how often "you're a conspiracy nut" comes from people who have no grasp of long-term strategy and really don't know the first thing about it. The person or group who works towards a goal in incremental steps (each of which has an excuse or plausible deniability) over longer periods of time is much more likely to get what they want than the person or group who goes for a short-term, win-or-lose, once-and-for-all type of showdown. That's particularly true when what they want to get is illegal, immoral, or goes against things like tradition, social convention, or public opinion. Recognizing this reality is the first step towards truly understanding business and politics.
It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education. - Einstein
it's unlikely they'll ever release the death grip and let the world play with OS X.
The real question is: do they even need to in order to maintain their ridiculous profit margins?
Functional programming... for real men!
Dragging Apple down to their level in the public's eyes wouldn't be a bad strategy.
It's not, but I think it's unnecessary. MS just needs to stand back and let Apple do it to themselves. Anybody knowledgeable about tech knows that Apple is just as evil as MS, and that knowledge is beginning to filter out into the general public. I really anticipate a collapse of the 'cool' shell that apple has built around itself in the next few years, and they'll have to actually begin competing on merit. They might do well, because they sell a decent operating system, good computers, and a not too bad mix of portable devices. They're very competitive everywhere except the price/performance ratio.
Psystar isn't a front for anyone. That doesn't mean they haven't been used by real players.
The truly powerful don't need to do anything so unsubtle as conspiracy nuts like to believe. They can take existing bit players, and give them the right nudge for the same effect.
You're right.
The single vendor lock-in is just killing them. They were doing so well when they allowed others to build Mac clones, they should just go back to doing that. Jobs was obviously an idiot for cancelling the scheme - if he hadn't the company may have been a household name by now, instead on teetering on the brink of disaster.
Advanced users are users too!
Meh. Apple is pretty happy where they are. If their hardware suits you and fits your needs, buy it as necessary. Otherwise, avoid it. Many many people have a hard time doing that. If Apple finds themselves needing to change because of this down the road, they will. It's that simple.
If you're building a hackintosh, good for you. Tinkering with things like that can be fun. But please don't start acting like Apple is supposed to support you. Don't install it on production machines. The hacking part of the hackintosh is supposed to be half the fun anyway. But that is it.
Once you start despising the jerks, you become one.
keep holding your breath. That shell might and only might die when steve jobs leave the company. however apple is setting themselves up for a company without steve jobs.
The cool shell though is the fact they innovate the combined hardware/software, not just one piece of the pie, but making whole new pies. It has been shown time and time again MSFT only makes products good enough to beat the competition through brute force. Since just about everyone else gets their software from MSFT they start at a disadvantage. The ipod caught every other player off guard because it was simple to use. the iphone caught every other phone off guard because it was simple to use.
You can literally hand any one an iphone and they can figure out how to make calls with it and surf the web without being told how. Maybe one day other companies will figure out that the interface matters more than the hardware specs. that people with big fingers can't push tiny little keyboard buttons to enter phone numbers with. That as you age you lose the dexterity of a 15 year old. I have watched business people use the blackberries, and all they do is struggle with it. I hand them my iphone and they find they can do the things they just were easily, not trying to use a scroll ball half the size of the tip of their pinky.
i thought once I was found, but it was only a dream.
Oh yeah, don't forget CUPS, WEBKIT, and a few other useful tools.
"The problem with socialism is eventually you run out of other people's money" - Thatcher.
OS X is a decent operating system, but few people can be satisfied by a single hardware vendor. Might as well write off Apple as a player now, as it's unlikely they'll ever release the death grip and let the world play with OS X.
This statement seems silly on the face of it, and would benefit from some, you know, supporting evidence.
Mac's marketshare has been steadily increasing for quite some time now. Not to mention that I know lots o' Windows folks who swear by HP/Dell/Sony (pick one) for their personal computers, and Unix/Linux admins who will only buy Sun or SGI or whatever.
Even outside of the computer realm, people become enamored of particular brands all the time - be it automobiles, televisions, appliances... whatever. And once they lock themselves into that mindset, it is not easy for them to change their opinions.
#DeleteChrome
The claim that OS X is "absolutely irrelevant to any reasonable person" [emphasis mine] isn't a terribly reasonable statement.
By that logic, Windows is irrelavent (to any reasonable person) because you are tied to a single software vendor.
Even assuming I agreed with you regarding whether or not Apple gave licensing a "real" chance (which I haven't yet decided, but leaning towards not), I don't see any compelling reason for them to roll the dice (again) on such an experiment, considering both their present commercial performance AND reported customer satisfaction.
But, for the sake of entertaining a thought: what specific choices on Apple's part regarding the handling of licensing Mac OS would have constituted giving it a "real" chance?
And yet Apple is reaping profit hand over foot, during a economic depression. Why fix what isn't broken. They obviously have something that Microsoft does not. "Cool" and "Hip" will only go so far. If there is nothing of substance to back it up, then after a few months, the hotness has worn off, and people drop them in droves. This obviously is not happening. Apple continues to increase it's market share, even in these bad economic times.
I can guarantee you that if MS finds any manufacturer that isn't properly licensing Windows, they would be wiped from the map. The difference here being that MS licenses it's OS for resale. Apple does not. The only barrier to entry is to buy an Apple Mac, which are about the same price as any other comparable piece of hardware from a PC manufacturer (not a whole seller mind you, but a manufacturer).
If I recall, it's the Microsoft market share and profit that is shrinking. Apple is doing just fine on it's "1960's proprietary hardware business model', whatever that means. It's just a closed system, nuts to bolts. Nothing wrong with that. Thousands upon thousands of manufacturer's produce a closed product.
I've been through the links and it just looks like a company wanted to sell a cheap Mac clone. I don't get what one or a firm would get in setting up a clone company just to get sued by Apple.
It's NOT me! It's the meds! I'm on 1000mg of Fukitol.
Here...let me explain... First...get all teary...then start whining...then demand that everyone should give you what you want the way you want it because you want it to be that way. Then start stomping...screaming...crying...maybe rolling around on the floor. Basically...all you really need to do is throw a temper tantrum that would make a 2yr old proud and you will understand the entitlement mentality behind all of this. "I should get what I want, for the price I want, with the rules I want, because I want it that way." This is all driven by people who think that if they don't like the terms of an agreement that they can unilaterally alter them to meet their needs. These are the same people that dream up stupid shit ideas like "We reserve the right to alter this agreement at any time without notice" and then scream bloody murder when other like minded idiots lock them into a contract that says the same thing.
I don't like what the RIAA is doing. I haven't bought any RIAA music in almost 10 years now. I also haven't downloaded any music. I don't try to rationalize some weird shit reason that says it is ok for me to simply take what I want because they won't offer it to me on the terms I want. The same goes for software. I VERY rarely buy software, and I pretty much restrict most of my software to F/OSS stuff. There are a few software package that I have bought, but rather than downloading, I wait for a deal where I can pay the price I want, or I find another product. It is that simple. This insane entitlement mentality is getting disgusting, and is ultimately what drives much of behavior the whiners usually throw tantrums about. Tell me that the RIAA behavior is anything other than greedy entitlement bullshit...just the same as the idiots downloading music.
These battles are escalating battles between large groups of spoiled brats that think that they deserve whatever they demand on the terms they demand and they will go to great lengths to force their demands.
The only change I can believe in is what I find in my couch cushions.
Why does MS have to be considered "cloning" Apple when Apple is never the first to implement anything? Doesn't Zune owe more to Rio than it does to Apple.? Doesn't Microsoft Store owe more to umm nearly everyone than it does to Apple? Wasn't Windows Mobile around long before the earliest iPhone rumors?
Apple has implemented existing ideas in an elegant way, but they're still "me too" products, not original ideas.
Why then is Microsoft trying to clone everything apple is doing?
Because that is their business model.
Excel to Lotus, Explorer to Netscape, C# to Java, Xbox to Playstation...the list goes on and on. It's what MS does.
It's nothing personal against Apple. That's just what they do.
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
Who are these few people that you speak of? If you mean slashdotters, that might be true. The average person buying a computer doesn't care. They mostly care if the computer they are buying will work for them. They should care more about these things but they don't.
Yes, we've heard the death knell of Apple before. That may have been closer to being true ten years ago when Apple was in deep trouble. Today they are sitting on $34 billion in cash. That doesn't account for total assets, that's just cash.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
This. Apple is very, very good at evolution. Rarely revolution.
Between the falling angel and the rising ape
I hereby declare Psystar to be a reverse trojan horse. Apple created Psystar so they could sue themselves and once and for all crush any thoughts companies might have of trying to produce generic Apple-compatible platforms for OSX.
You can't legislate goodness. Let each to his own destiny, by will of his freely made choices.
Why in the world would Apple want to do that? They would (like Microsoft) have to support every POS computer ever cobbled together. For a couple of bucks. Apple can barely do upgrades on the two dozen or so models they actively support - every time Apple brings out a point release or even a security fix, it manages to hose various systems.
If they had to support everything, it would look like.... Linux. Command line patches everywhere. Pleasant hours troubleshooting Bog-knows-what. Nope. They're smart doing exactly what they've set up.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
Undoubtably the iPod was and still is the coolest MP3 player. But you miss the point of WHY it became the coolest. Because it was the best. Because it had a great design, Because it had a great UI, because with iTunes it was the easiest to use. Normal people (i.e. not geeks) didn't want to piss about dragging MP3 files around to external disk drives, manually managing directory structures. They just want to rip their CDs in the easiest way possible and have the music appear on their iPods automatically. Let the computer take care of the administration grunt work.
Clearly you are entirely unaware of Apple's financial results, which even in the recession continue to outgrow pretty much everyone else. They don't need any business advice from you. They know far better than you do what is good for business.
I don't need to "convince myself". I know better than you do because I bought one, and I know why I bought one. You didn't make that choice, and you're imagining reasons for whay other people (that you despise) did so. Which is rather ignorant of you.
The irony here is that you are the one who is arguing like an emotional sorority girl.
Agreed. Apple is very good at refining the little details that ultimately make the end user experience much better. Almost every competitor seems to miss this. Incredible attention to fine details is not something you can just copy and then hope to make a lot of money from. It's a motivation that has to come from within.
I hereby declare Psystar to be a reverse trojan horse. Apple created Psystar so they could sue themselves and once and for all crush any thoughts companies might have of trying to produce generic Apple-compatible platforms for OSX.
this should be modded "insightful"
Supreme executive power derives from a mandate from the masses, not from some farcical aquatic ceremony.
To innovate is not to generate something entirely unique from a vacuum.
Innovation is defined as "making changes in something established by introducing new methods, ideas, or products."
Microsoft is accused of "cloning" because the methods, ideas, and products that they introduce do not generally constitute an improvement.
Microsoft is very happy with the status quo
But their shareholders are not. MSFT stock is shit over the past 5 years. Compare that with Apple. MSFT shareholders are very unhappy people.
Now cram your system into 85 cubic inches, under 3 lbs., and make it use less than 100 watts.
Why would anyone looking for a cheap computer care about any of those things?