it looks like some of my other replies got posted in the wrong place, but oh well.
I have no issues with people putting OS X on their Psystar system, I don't see a copyright issue there. Where I do see it is with the security updates, it said Psystar was distributing modified versions to its customers. This is where I'm not seeing a clear resale of original, but distribution of copies and a business model around it.
I think its going to fall into a fairly large grey area.
Ok, what about when there was no sale between the first and second party? Apple certainly didn't sell the security updates to Psystar. I want to make a clear separation between OS X itself and the security updates, they are two separate things. If Psystar can rig the bios to boot and run OS X with no modifications to OS X itself, no problem. But if they have to modify the update packages to work, did they legally obtain them and do they have the right to modify them for this purpose? And this is where I say no, no they do not, its a copyright thing only at this point for the security updates. The same applies to the previous example of MS's OEM licensing, yes they have the license but if I don't have it then I can't distribute my changes to others.
They could post info on how to let end users do the changes and be ok, more or less Apple would probably frown on that too, but to build a business around making these changes available to end users is where it crosses the line. Once money is clearly involved its a whole lot easier to sue.
First sale law could get a little fuzzy about copies. If Psystar modified each update separately for each of their customers, then maybe.
I guess it comes down to are the customizations a feature that others are allowed to use or not. In MS's case yes, they purposely built that and licensing to allow it. I'm not sure what changes have been made to the update packages, tweak a setting or two, or disable certain system checks, etc.. but if it wasn't an end user feature of the update packages and they don't have a license to redistribute them its a copyright issue not a EULA issue. One could argue that the update packages are their own separate copyrighted code that doesn't fall under the main OS X EULA because its an after the fact installation. Actually I'm not sure the update packages have their own EULA, so standard copyright laws would apply. As another note, even with the EULA, copyright still applies which handles cases of distribution.
Take a look at what it takes to distribute an IE installation CD, while its "free" there are certain conditions you have to be compliant with in order to get that right. I believe Adobe does something similar with Acrobat Reader, ie you have to use their graphics from their website, and blah blah blah....
The main problem is redistributing the modified software for profit, big copyright no no. As I doubt any commercial software company would be ok with someone else selling modified versions of their software, this is just blatant infringement. I think this also shows why it took so long for Apple to sue, they needed to get everything in order to build a full case as the EULA by itself might not hold up. The copyright, image, trademarks, etc... side is something Apple can succeed on.
I seem to recall talk about modularizing the OS before..... um.... around the time they were talking up vista oh 5 years ago as they're end goal of an OS. Seriously is this really what anyone wants, needs, or will pay for?!
1. Consumer
I get a new computer and after looking around decide to see what other apps/components/etc.. can be installed/uninstalled so I start up Add/Remove Programs and hey hasn't this been there since Win95? To the end consumer modularizing the OS means nothing at all, adding and removing applications will still be like it is, or like linux, dependent libraries will either be bundled in the install or set as requirements to download. As an end user I want click click install done, the internals don't matter to me. Oh and click click uninstall done too! Once my OS holds me for ransom I'm done, it shouldn't be getting in my way or preventing me from doing my day to day tasks. This was something I found a bit odd with OS X at first, there just wasn't things that demanded tweaking or reconfiguring like XP did. I found that it wasn't getting in the way and wasn't demanding attention, that I was left to just run my apps.
2. Programmer
Isn't this the same old thing, what version of MDAC, DirectX,.NET, etc... is installed but taken to the next level, what OS modules are missing? How did this help me? System level APIs shouldn't come and go, its micro management at its worst and will only make my job that much harder. But hey its what MS is good at keeping the rest of us scrambling around trying to catch up and use the next best thing rather than just focusing on what works for us. Now I'm not against patches/updates/service packs, you can test against it to a degree, but depending on how much they break the OS down into modules the interdependency issues are just going to be a pain. Also how goes this get me the developer to want to code against APIs/modules that may or may not be there. I'm beginning to like OS X's single OS all APIs there all the time, new versions have bug fixes and new features as expected, much easier to know hey this app requires 10.5.1 and I can trust that parts of the OS aren't going to drop out from under me. Speaking of which what happens after installation? I'm assuming there's going to have to be a dependency tracker in place so the user can't uninstall modules that my app needs, or at the very least be warned about it. Either way the app will have to check on startup to make sure everything still exists.
MS seems hell bent on making the OS a major app that gets needer and needer.
slashdot appears to eat less than and greater than "" symbols when used in the subject. But I guess that'll teach me to stick to the tried and true !=.
Scroll down to post 4, it should have been the first but something happened with google's cache.
Summary: They're looking to refocus the IDE tools group into a company that can focus on the tools and the developers. Also they're still working on the tools, same people nothing has changed, and it'll be sold to a company that shares their vision of moving forward with IDE development.
Slashdot Mirror
it looks like some of my other replies got posted in the wrong place, but oh well.
I have no issues with people putting OS X on their Psystar system, I don't see a copyright issue there. Where I do see it is with the security updates, it said Psystar was distributing modified versions to its customers. This is where I'm not seeing a clear resale of original, but distribution of copies and a business model around it.
I think its going to fall into a fairly large grey area.
Ok, what about when there was no sale between the first and second party? Apple certainly didn't sell the security updates to Psystar. I want to make a clear separation between OS X itself and the security updates, they are two separate things. If Psystar can rig the bios to boot and run OS X with no modifications to OS X itself, no problem. But if they have to modify the update packages to work, did they legally obtain them and do they have the right to modify them for this purpose? And this is where I say no, no they do not, its a copyright thing only at this point for the security updates. The same applies to the previous example of MS's OEM licensing, yes they have the license but if I don't have it then I can't distribute my changes to others.
They could post info on how to let end users do the changes and be ok, more or less Apple would probably frown on that too, but to build a business around making these changes available to end users is where it crosses the line. Once money is clearly involved its a whole lot easier to sue.
First sale law could get a little fuzzy about copies. If Psystar modified each update separately for each of their customers, then maybe.
I guess it comes down to are the customizations a feature that others are allowed to use or not. In MS's case yes, they purposely built that and licensing to allow it. I'm not sure what changes have been made to the update packages, tweak a setting or two, or disable certain system checks, etc.. but if it wasn't an end user feature of the update packages and they don't have a license to redistribute them its a copyright issue not a EULA issue. One could argue that the update packages are their own separate copyrighted code that doesn't fall under the main OS X EULA because its an after the fact installation. Actually I'm not sure the update packages have their own EULA, so standard copyright laws would apply. As another note, even with the EULA, copyright still applies which handles cases of distribution.
Take a look at what it takes to distribute an IE installation CD, while its "free" there are certain conditions you have to be compliant with in order to get that right. I believe Adobe does something similar with Acrobat Reader, ie you have to use their graphics from their website, and blah blah blah....
The main problem is redistributing the modified software for profit, big copyright no no. As I doubt any commercial software company would be ok with someone else selling modified versions of their software, this is just blatant infringement. I think this also shows why it took so long for Apple to sue, they needed to get everything in order to build a full case as the EULA by itself might not hold up. The copyright, image, trademarks, etc... side is something Apple can succeed on.
That would have been the smart way to do it. But seriously that really goes against the mid management design by comity that vista portrays so well.
well theres that and the fact that the OS X version tells you useful information. That or I slept through the class on how to read GUID.
I seem to recall talk about modularizing the OS before..... um.... around the time they were talking up vista oh 5 years ago as they're end goal of an OS. Seriously is this really what anyone wants, needs, or will pay for?!
.NET, etc... is installed but taken to the next level, what OS modules are missing? How did this help me? System level APIs shouldn't come and go, its micro management at its worst and will only make my job that much harder. But hey its what MS is good at keeping the rest of us scrambling around trying to catch up and use the next best thing rather than just focusing on what works for us. Now I'm not against patches/updates/service packs, you can test against it to a degree, but depending on how much they break the OS down into modules the interdependency issues are just going to be a pain. Also how goes this get me the developer to want to code against APIs/modules that may or may not be there. I'm beginning to like OS X's single OS all APIs there all the time, new versions have bug fixes and new features as expected, much easier to know hey this app requires 10.5.1 and I can trust that parts of the OS aren't going to drop out from under me. Speaking of which what happens after installation? I'm assuming there's going to have to be a dependency tracker in place so the user can't uninstall modules that my app needs, or at the very least be warned about it. Either way the app will have to check on startup to make sure everything still exists.
1. Consumer
I get a new computer and after looking around decide to see what other apps/components/etc.. can be installed/uninstalled so I start up Add/Remove Programs and hey hasn't this been there since Win95? To the end consumer modularizing the OS means nothing at all, adding and removing applications will still be like it is, or like linux, dependent libraries will either be bundled in the install or set as requirements to download. As an end user I want click click install done, the internals don't matter to me. Oh and click click uninstall done too! Once my OS holds me for ransom I'm done, it shouldn't be getting in my way or preventing me from doing my day to day tasks. This was something I found a bit odd with OS X at first, there just wasn't things that demanded tweaking or reconfiguring like XP did. I found that it wasn't getting in the way and wasn't demanding attention, that I was left to just run my apps.
2. Programmer
Isn't this the same old thing, what version of MDAC, DirectX,
MS seems hell bent on making the OS a major app that gets needer and needer.
screw it, I'm done ranting.
slashdot appears to eat less than and greater than "" symbols when used in the subject. But I guess that'll teach me to stick to the tried and true !=.
Its to bad the worlds most expensive mp3 player can't buy the worlds most expensive server to survive a slashdotting.
As a Delphi developer I feel bad that others don't get to use structured exception handling, its great!
http://groups.google.com/group/borland.public.delp hi.non-tec% 3Aborland.e n&
hnical/browse_frm/thread/9781ff657b80368a?q=group
public.delphi.*+author%3Adavidi%40borland.com&hl=
or
http://tinyurl.com/8hcek
Scroll down to post 4, it should have been the first but something happened with google's cache.
Summary:
They're looking to refocus the IDE tools group into a company that can focus on the tools and the developers. Also they're still working on the tools, same people nothing has changed, and it'll be sold to a company that shares their vision of moving forward with IDE development.
We can only pray. But seriously do you really want the road commission guys applying for jobs were you work?
Forget trying to warrenty packages that come with Debian or Mandrake, but think about Suse! There's a nightmare on a new level.