Psystar Not Closing Up Shop

Despite several sources reporting that post-indefinite-injunction Psystar was closing their doors for good, the company's lawyer is claiming Psystar plans on going forward with PC sales — they just won't be pre-loaded with Apple's OS X. Psystar plans on selling systems pre-loaded with "other operating systems," including Windows, as well as selling their "Rebel EFI software" that allows consumers to load OS X on generic PCs.

Comments

Monopoly or not.

[Zombie Ryushu]

Apple is engaging in anti-competitive behavior by tying its OS to its hardware. This behavior should be illegal for any OS, Windows, or OSX.

Re:Monopoly or not.

[ihuntrocks]

I'm not entirely sure why the previous post was tagged as "Flamebait". The author brings up a valid point in my opinion. You can buy a copy of Apple's OS independent of its hardware. It's not like it only ships pre-installed on Apple machines. Software is a set of instruction to control the state of a machine you have already purchased. I won't get into my opinions on whether you should be able to sell me something that my machine can already do. However, if I purchase a machine that can process instructions which are also purchased for said machine, I should be able to use them.

Flamebait shouldn't be used as a moderation option for legitimate opinions that you don't happen to hold yourself.

Re:Monopoly or not.

[ihuntrocks]

Having worked previously in IBM's AIX development labs and Linux Technology Center, I can say you are correct that the big-iron UNIX world does work that way. It also happens that their tying occurs on hardware platforms that are quite different from those you can buy off the shelf from any PC parts vendor. It's uncommon to find someone with POWER hardware to run AIX on at home. The same applies with PA-RISC hardware to run HP-UX on (older versions anyway).

Apple made the decision to dress up generic PC hardware and plunk their OS on it rather than staying with hardware that set them apart from their competitors and made tying more acceptable. The only thing that truly separates a Mac from a generic PC these days is the software it runs. Companies like Psystar showed that by using generic PC hardware to run Apple's product. If Apple wants to be a hardware vendor, that is fine. They just need to choose what their product actually is.

On the note of big-iron UNIX tying, I did get the chance to play on several PowerPC Macs that were running AIX in the development labs. Even the big-iron stuff runs on hardware that will run it.

Re:Monopoly or not.

[jo_ham]

The licence for OS X says "only to be used on Apple hardware" and if you want to stay true to that licence, you cannot make a business model out of selling machines with OS X preinstalled that clearly break the licence.

If you think "well, the licence should be ignored" then sure, as long as the GPL can also be ignored at will, or any other software licence for that matter.

Vertical integration is not illegal, and it does not harm any competitor if Apple choses to go after a company breaking its licence to OS X (other than the company in breach of the licence of course).

Apple hasn't gone after individual hackintosh creators, but it is well within its rights to go after a company who's main source of income would be a clear breach of the OS X licence.

Whether you agree with it or not, the software you buy (or download from OSS sites) has a licence - if you break the licence you might get away with it, or the enforcer of that licence may come after you.

Re:Monopoly or not.

[AdmiralXyz]

There are way too many people in this debate who think that "anti-competitive behavior" == "Waaaaah, they won't do what I want!".

As has been explained by more level-headed people countless times, Apple is the copyright holder of OS X. The copyright holder (of any kind of work, not just software) is given exclusive rights to license that work for others to use, under the terms of their choice. Apple's "terms of choice" are, you'll run OS X on our hardware and no one else's. If you don't do that, you're committing copyright infringement by using their work without their permission.

There is definitely an argument to be made that that's a silly state of affairs, and that copyright laws with respect to software are lousy, but as the laws stand now, Apple has every right to do what they do. When you say "this behavior should be illegal for any OS", that's one thing, and you might be right, but at the moment it's not illegal, and so Apple is in the clear.

If you don't like that, you need to complain to your government officials to change how software is copyrighted, not try frantically to stick labels like "anti-competitive behavior" where they don't apply.

Re:Monopoly or not.

[furball]

Yes, you should. Key word there being -use- and there is a difference between use and redistribute.

You mean like where you, at home, can modify OS X to install on a standard non-Apple PC, but if a company makes a derivative work and redistributes it much like how Psystar did? Huh. Imagine that.

Re:Monopoly or not.

[furball]

Yes, but you bought the software. If you reject the software to get a refund, you'll need to send the entire packaging back. That includes the hardware. Oh you wanted to keep the hardware? I'm sorry. We can't process your refund. Have a nice day :)

Re:Monopoly or not.

[furball]

People keep throwing out "should" all over this discussion. But no one ever explains the reason why things should/should not be a particular way. Very odd.

Re:Monopoly or not.

[nine-times]

Apple is not a software business, it's a hardware business (10% of their revenue is software and that includes all their high-end software packages and OS).

Well they're not exactly a hardware vendor or software vendor. They sell the integrate platform. Hardware and software.

As techies we're not used to thinking of desktops and laptops like that, but it's not that uncommon for other devices. As far as I know, Garmin doesn't license its GPS software to other vendors. Cisco doesn't license its software for use on other routers. Sony doesn't license the PS3 operating system for use on generic hardware, nor does Microsoft license the XBox 360 operating system. Nintendo doesn't license the Wii OS either. I don't know, but I don't believe TiVO licenses their software for use on generic hardware.

Re:Monopoly or not.

[hedwards]

Actually, Apple doesn't have the right to determine what it is you do with the product after you buy it, so long as you don't produce more copies of it than you've bought. In fact once you've bought it you own the copy, and they don't get to say much about what you do with it, including reselling the copy to somebody else.

Apple has the copy right, as in the right to create new copies. The ability to insert language into the EULA is not the same thing as having the right to enforce.

Additionally, in cases like this where it's clear that the consumer is being harmed by the practice, it's not necessarily so cut and dry that Apple is within it's rights to behave in this fashion. The refusal to allow people to get a refund on the OS if they just want the hardware is definitely an abuse of licensing.