It's impossible to buy a copy of OSX without buying a Mac.
That wasn't true as of the time when Psystar was buying them.
Those boxes you used to be able to buy were not licensed as new installations, but upgrades.
And here's the crux of the matter, and why I find the ruling so despicable: those are terms that were added after the sale through the EULA clickthrough. At the time Psystar paid Apple for their copies of OS X, there were no signed contracts showing that Psystar agreed to abide by those extra-legal terms and conditions. They were bound by normal copyright law, sure, but I'm not aware that they were ever accused of violating copyright.
This ruling affirms the insane doctrine that a company may dictate usage terms to you after you've brought their products and taken them home. Suppose Nintendo's T&C says that you're not allowed to install Homebrew on your Wii, and that they sued you for it. Are you OK with that policy? After all, by booting your Wii you agreed to abide by all the T&C that were not consensual at the time of sale, so Nintendo should full say over how you actually use it.
OK, let me clarify: they did some shifty (and probably outright illegal) things, but those aren't directly related to the Apple lawsuit that the article is discussing. I don't see what Psystar did that was so bad with respect to Apple.
Yeah, taking from big bad super profitable Apple isn't bad
What did they "take" from Apple? They paid full retail for the copies of OS X that they installed on the machines they sold. They took from Apple in roughly the same way that Ford "takes" from GM when someone buys a Focus instead of an Impala.
but they were also ripping the boot code off from the hackintosh community as well. Guess when you rip off the rich and the poor you're an equal opportunity infringer.
...which is highly uncool (and one thing they clearly did wrong), but that's not what caused Apple to grind them into dust.
I never saw what Psystar did that was actually wrong. They bought copies of software, installed them on machines, then sold those machines. That doesn't seem so bad to me. Yes, they violated the EULA that you're only allowed to install OS X on Apple hardware, or something stupid and unconscionable like that. But I have an extremely hard time seeing EULA non-compliance as a bad thing, and I think we're collectively in a worse place for it having been successfully enforced.
Note that Option+PgUp/Down scrolls and moves the cursor, the theory being that you most often want to come back to your original spot after navigating around to look at other parts of the document. I don't know that I agree with it, but it does have a rationale.
Besides: does this "ease of use" explain why I had to enter in fucking arcane escape sequences into the configs to make the Home, End, PgUp, and PgDn keys on my keyboard work?
Since I have no idea what you're referring to as all the keys work out-of-the-box on my MacBook, I'm betting that you hit the "Linux User On A Mac" trap. You try to do something and it doesn't work as expected, so you reflexively Google for a solution and find a forum post for 2005 that kind of half-assed patches around the problem. Almost every time that's happened to me (as a Linux User On A Mac), I've later discovered that 1) there was another "native" way to do it with a couple of mouse clicks that were completely obvious in retrospect, or 2) I was trying to inflict a much more complicated workflow onto something much easier to use once I quit fighting it.
As far as I know, all Macs come with working movement keys. I hate to say this, but I think you were just using it wrong.
Warrantors cannot require that only branded parts be used with the product in order to retain the warranty. This is commonly referred to as the "tie-in sales" provisions, and is frequently mentioned in the context of third-party computer parts, such as memory and hard drives.
So yes, your hypothetical scenario is specifically illegal. That law is why you can buy Fram air filters (instead of AC Delco), Pennzoil 10W-30 (instead of Ford Lubr-o-matic), and Shell gas (instead of Huile d'Fiat) without voiding your car's warranty.
On the other hand, if your car's reputation is based on being a generic vehicle and the brand has been built on support for aftermarket parts, a sudden addition of a locked hood, while requiring the expensive oil and limited service locations, would be seen as anti-competitive.
And illegal. There are times when car analogies are appropriate and reasonable. This isn't one of them.
You'd be surprised, but California is really not spending a lot on their kids either. The places that are spending a lot:
DC - $16408
This makes me want to punch something. The average teacher salary in DC is $53,000, and the average student:teacher ratio is 11.9:1. So at $16,408 per student, that comes out to $195,000 in spending per teacher, or about $142,000 "excess" money. Let's say each teacher actually costs twice their salary, for benefits etc. That's still an excess of $89,000 per teacher. Where's it going? DC isn't exactly renowned for its brand new school buildings, and I can't imaging that each teacher needs their own personal secretary and janitor.
Maybe it's not that we're not spending enough money, but that we're spending far too much money on stupid crap that's not related to learning. I'm happy to ensure teachers have a nice salary and benefits packages, but not in the least interested in paying for 5 layers of administration on top of it.
OK, you got me there. And that actually doesn't surprise me, the idea being that personal indiscretion can leave you vulnerable to blackmail, which has potential national security implications in this context.
Note that this is also the same man who wrote on his blog:
...that people should be free to do things we find distasteful, in the absence of evidence that those behaviors are harmful.
RMS is pro-freedom. I am shocked.
Note: he was referring to a Bush court nominee who opined that if choosing a same-sex partner were permissible, then each of the acts on that list may also be Constitutionally protected. I happen to disagree with his statement that those things should be allowed (with the exception of adultery, which we've pretty much all agreed is a household matter and not something for the criminal courts). But within certain very narrow scopes, I see (but not concur with) his points.
Prostitution is supported by a lot of varied groups, from women's libbers to libertarian groups who see it as a free market barter.
I don't think adultery is directly illegal anywhere.
Necrophilia is hyper-icky, but if the, erm, cadaver, explicitly agreed to it while still in a condition to do so...
Bestiality: OK, I'm having a hard time finding a scenario defending that one.
If your 18 year old son has a sexy picture of his 17 year old girlfriend, he possesses child porn and would be put on a sex offender registry in many states. That's not in the same moral category as some perv collecting pictures of toddlers, but it seems to have the same legal classification.
Incest: see necrophilia; I can't fathom it, but if two adults consent to something I find utterly repulsive, I'm not sure what right I have to tell them they can't be disgusting.
Pedophila: see child pornography; a 50 year old with a teen is pretty clearly not OK, but I don't think a boy turns into a child molester on the day he turns 18 just because his girlfriend is a week younger than him.
So your main complaint with the man seems to be that he doesn't automatically have zero tolerance for situations you may be morally uncomfortable with. I don't like them either, and RMS himself probably doesn't (short of enjoying the reaction others have when he says that he supports them). That doesn't mean that they're off-limit to discussion, if not to allow them but only to suss out exactly why we don't allow them beyond "they're icky!"
I personally think you have a responsibility towards your daughters, and to some extent also towards your wife
He volunteered to sacrifice his life, if need be, to make the world a better place for his daughters and wife (and mine and yours). I can respect that.
This is the only sane way to implement evoting. I've heard (and advocated) this idea a few times now, but it needs a pithy, marketable name so that we can say "just use machine-assisted (or whatever) voting" to get the point across quickly. What should we call it?
No, I can prove that someone voted that way, but not necessarily me.
No way, no how. Uh-uh. Imagine that a gang said they want a receipt that you voted for their leader in a local contest. When you walk out that door into the street, do you think they'll buy the "I dropped my receipt and picked up this one by mistake" excuse before bashing your teeth it? If "gang" doesn't work for you, insert whichever bugaboo personally scares you: yakuza boss, union leader, your manager, Halliburton hired election "guard", ACORN hired election "guard", Kim Jong Un, etc.
Free elections have to be untraceable. Have to. That's a fundamental requirement that can't be waved away. Frankly, even vote-by-mail ballots are a travesty outside the specific uses for which they were originally intended. I'm fine with the military having a "voting day" session where everyone fills out their ballots and they get dropped into a box for escorted delivery back to the States. Having served, I know that's an honor and duty that members hold near-sacred and it would be done right. I'm not even the slightest bit fine with someone's boss "suggesting" that they order a vote-by-mail ballot and bring it to work so that management can "help" them fill it out correctly, and you know that has to happen.
What I don't get are the libertarians who think that requiring companies to give factual information is somehow an unconstitutional overreach.
I've had that discussion with friends, and I think the disagreement largely boils down to the meaning of "free" - an argument any long-time FOSS fan should be quite familiar with. I prefer my markets free-as-in-GPL, where the minimum sufficient set of rules is in place to ensure that the market itself is liberated and open. Such rules include anti-monopoly and truth in labeling laws. Others are proponents of free-as-in-BSD and are more concerned with the liberties of the market's participants.
The new law also stipulates that any ad which uses airbrushing, computer editing, or any other form of Photoshop editing to create a slimmer model must clearly state that fact.
I'm pretty libertarian, but I'm 100% OK with that requirement by itself. Labeling laws help consumers make informed decisions about their purchases, which is a basic requirement of a free market. For example, I fully support a store's right to sell ground beef containing "pink slime" as long as it's clearly labeled as such. Along those lines, let Israel require companies to state that their images do not depict genuine humans. I'd like to be able to show my daughter that I'm not just making this stuff up, that models in magazines really don't look like that in real life and aren't a reasonable standard to judge yourself by.
I've seen that too, but her current doctor (who she likes in most other ways) wants to make sure that this sinus infection is the same as the previous 20 which developed and presented in an identical manner.
Yeah, those are the kinds of thinks that are making her willing to take antibiotics for the rest of her life. I'm hopeful that the move from the upper Midwest (scads of ragweed pollen, etc.) to the SF bay area will make a sufficient difference that we can stop worrying about it.
In my mind this is proposal only makes sense since we're already at an unbearable cost for medicine and yet if we continue doing things the way we're going costs will have to rise as we'll need more bodies to provide services for our aging population.
And not even just the elderly. My wife gets sinus infections regularly [0], and when she does, there's exactly one prescription medicine that cures it. My wife is a doctor and self-prescribing is a huge taboo, but her family practice doctor (sadly justifiably for liability reasons) won't write a prescription without an office visit. It would be hugely helpful if my wife could hit up a pharmacist for the medicine which reliably cures her illness, rather than having to wait to be seen by the doctor who is almost guaranteed to prescribe it anyway.
[0] The long term cures are "move to a new climate" (which we're in the process of trying now) and "have one's sinuses drilled out by a Roto-Rooter". If plan A doesn't help out, she's much more receptive to occasional rounds of antibiotics than the much more drastic plan B.
I've had pretty good luck with Wal-Mart and Costco photo printing provided the printers are maintained properly
And the nice part is that you don't pay if they screw up your prints, whereas you're paying for ink whether your photo prints out nicely at home or if it takes you 10 times to get something usable.
Preach it. I took a job in a different city and moved here soon after to start work, while my wife and kids stayed put through the end of the school year. I find myself sitting in an empty house, in a situation where it'd be dumb to buy a TV when all my furniture will be moving here within the month. The library is a lifesaver. There's a bus stop near my house, and it's cheap to ride to another part of the city and just walk around to look at stuff. If I have to have passive entertainment, I can watch shows on Netflix (and I bet 90% of households who would want to buy an XBox already have a PC and Internet connection capable of supporting it).
I grew up with video games and I love 'em, but they're hardly something you've gotta have. For the history of the world up through 30 years ago, people managed to entertain themselves without them. It's still possible, you know?
Slashdot Mirror
It's impossible to buy a copy of OSX without buying a Mac.
That wasn't true as of the time when Psystar was buying them.
Those boxes you used to be able to buy were not licensed as new installations, but upgrades.
And here's the crux of the matter, and why I find the ruling so despicable: those are terms that were added after the sale through the EULA clickthrough. At the time Psystar paid Apple for their copies of OS X, there were no signed contracts showing that Psystar agreed to abide by those extra-legal terms and conditions. They were bound by normal copyright law, sure, but I'm not aware that they were ever accused of violating copyright.
This ruling affirms the insane doctrine that a company may dictate usage terms to you after you've brought their products and taken them home. Suppose Nintendo's T&C says that you're not allowed to install Homebrew on your Wii, and that they sued you for it. Are you OK with that policy? After all, by booting your Wii you agreed to abide by all the T&C that were not consensual at the time of sale, so Nintendo should full say over how you actually use it.
OK, let me clarify: they did some shifty (and probably outright illegal) things, but those aren't directly related to the Apple lawsuit that the article is discussing. I don't see what Psystar did that was so bad with respect to Apple.
Yeah, taking from big bad super profitable Apple isn't bad
What did they "take" from Apple? They paid full retail for the copies of OS X that they installed on the machines they sold. They took from Apple in roughly the same way that Ford "takes" from GM when someone buys a Focus instead of an Impala.
but they were also ripping the boot code off from the hackintosh community as well. Guess when you rip off the rich and the poor you're an equal opportunity infringer.
...which is highly uncool (and one thing they clearly did wrong), but that's not what caused Apple to grind them into dust.
I never saw what Psystar did that was actually wrong. They bought copies of software, installed them on machines, then sold those machines. That doesn't seem so bad to me. Yes, they violated the EULA that you're only allowed to install OS X on Apple hardware, or something stupid and unconscionable like that. But I have an extremely hard time seeing EULA non-compliance as a bad thing, and I think we're collectively in a worse place for it having been successfully enforced.
Type from my Apple-branded Mac. :-/
Note that Option+PgUp/Down scrolls and moves the cursor, the theory being that you most often want to come back to your original spot after navigating around to look at other parts of the document. I don't know that I agree with it, but it does have a rationale.
Ctrl+A and Ctrl+E usually work as expected.
Besides: does this "ease of use" explain why I had to enter in fucking arcane escape sequences into the configs to make the Home, End, PgUp, and PgDn keys on my keyboard work?
Since I have no idea what you're referring to as all the keys work out-of-the-box on my MacBook, I'm betting that you hit the "Linux User On A Mac" trap. You try to do something and it doesn't work as expected, so you reflexively Google for a solution and find a forum post for 2005 that kind of half-assed patches around the problem. Almost every time that's happened to me (as a Linux User On A Mac), I've later discovered that 1) there was another "native" way to do it with a couple of mouse clicks that were completely obvious in retrospect, or 2) I was trying to inflict a much more complicated workflow onto something much easier to use once I quit fighting it.
As far as I know, all Macs come with working movement keys. I hate to say this, but I think you were just using it wrong.
Still bad in my opinion, but not illegal
Warren Magnuson and John Moss would like a word with you:
So yes, your hypothetical scenario is specifically illegal. That law is why you can buy Fram air filters (instead of AC Delco), Pennzoil 10W-30 (instead of Ford Lubr-o-matic), and Shell gas (instead of Huile d'Fiat) without voiding your car's warranty.
And illegal. There are times when car analogies are appropriate and reasonable. This isn't one of them.
You'd be surprised, but California is really not spending a lot on their kids either. The places that are spending a lot:
DC - $16408
This makes me want to punch something. The average teacher salary in DC is $53,000, and the average student:teacher ratio is 11.9:1. So at $16,408 per student, that comes out to $195,000 in spending per teacher, or about $142,000 "excess" money. Let's say each teacher actually costs twice their salary, for benefits etc. That's still an excess of $89,000 per teacher. Where's it going? DC isn't exactly renowned for its brand new school buildings, and I can't imaging that each teacher needs their own personal secretary and janitor.
Maybe it's not that we're not spending enough money, but that we're spending far too much money on stupid crap that's not related to learning. I'm happy to ensure teachers have a nice salary and benefits packages, but not in the least interested in paying for 5 layers of administration on top of it.
Totally agree, but I was speaking within the context of the US. Maybe I should've been more clear on that.
OK, you got me there. And that actually doesn't surprise me, the idea being that personal indiscretion can leave you vulnerable to blackmail, which has potential national security implications in this context.
Note that this is also the same man who wrote on his blog:
...that people should be free to do things we find distasteful, in the absence of evidence that those behaviors are harmful.
RMS is pro-freedom. I am shocked.
Note: he was referring to a Bush court nominee who opined that if choosing a same-sex partner were permissible, then each of the acts on that list may also be Constitutionally protected. I happen to disagree with his statement that those things should be allowed (with the exception of adultery, which we've pretty much all agreed is a household matter and not something for the criminal courts). But within certain very narrow scopes, I see (but not concur with) his points.
So your main complaint with the man seems to be that he doesn't automatically have zero tolerance for situations you may be morally uncomfortable with. I don't like them either, and RMS himself probably doesn't (short of enjoying the reaction others have when he says that he supports them). That doesn't mean that they're off-limit to discussion, if not to allow them but only to suss out exactly why we don't allow them beyond "they're icky!"
I personally think you have a responsibility towards your daughters, and to some extent also towards your wife
He volunteered to sacrifice his life, if need be, to make the world a better place for his daughters and wife (and mine and yours). I can respect that.
Me: You mean like EDI?
In fairness, it's possible to hate EDI on its own demerits. There are two kinds of programmers: ones who've never dealt with EDI, and ones who drink.
This is the only sane way to implement evoting. I've heard (and advocated) this idea a few times now, but it needs a pithy, marketable name so that we can say "just use machine-assisted (or whatever) voting" to get the point across quickly. What should we call it?
No, I can prove that someone voted that way, but not necessarily me.
No way, no how. Uh-uh. Imagine that a gang said they want a receipt that you voted for their leader in a local contest. When you walk out that door into the street, do you think they'll buy the "I dropped my receipt and picked up this one by mistake" excuse before bashing your teeth it? If "gang" doesn't work for you, insert whichever bugaboo personally scares you: yakuza boss, union leader, your manager, Halliburton hired election "guard", ACORN hired election "guard", Kim Jong Un, etc.
Free elections have to be untraceable. Have to. That's a fundamental requirement that can't be waved away. Frankly, even vote-by-mail ballots are a travesty outside the specific uses for which they were originally intended. I'm fine with the military having a "voting day" session where everyone fills out their ballots and they get dropped into a box for escorted delivery back to the States. Having served, I know that's an honor and duty that members hold near-sacred and it would be done right. I'm not even the slightest bit fine with someone's boss "suggesting" that they order a vote-by-mail ballot and bring it to work so that management can "help" them fill it out correctly, and you know that has to happen.
What I don't get are the libertarians who think that requiring companies to give factual information is somehow an unconstitutional overreach.
I've had that discussion with friends, and I think the disagreement largely boils down to the meaning of "free" - an argument any long-time FOSS fan should be quite familiar with. I prefer my markets free-as-in-GPL, where the minimum sufficient set of rules is in place to ensure that the market itself is liberated and open. Such rules include anti-monopoly and truth in labeling laws. Others are proponents of free-as-in-BSD and are more concerned with the liberties of the market's participants.
I'm pretty libertarian, but I'm 100% OK with that requirement by itself. Labeling laws help consumers make informed decisions about their purchases, which is a basic requirement of a free market. For example, I fully support a store's right to sell ground beef containing "pink slime" as long as it's clearly labeled as such. Along those lines, let Israel require companies to state that their images do not depict genuine humans. I'd like to be able to show my daughter that I'm not just making this stuff up, that models in magazines really don't look like that in real life and aren't a reasonable standard to judge yourself by.
I've seen that too, but her current doctor (who she likes in most other ways) wants to make sure that this sinus infection is the same as the previous 20 which developed and presented in an identical manner.
Yeah, those are the kinds of thinks that are making her willing to take antibiotics for the rest of her life. I'm hopeful that the move from the upper Midwest (scads of ragweed pollen, etc.) to the SF bay area will make a sufficient difference that we can stop worrying about it.
In my mind this is proposal only makes sense since we're already at an unbearable cost for medicine and yet if we continue doing things the way we're going costs will have to rise as we'll need more bodies to provide services for our aging population.
And not even just the elderly. My wife gets sinus infections regularly [0], and when she does, there's exactly one prescription medicine that cures it. My wife is a doctor and self-prescribing is a huge taboo, but her family practice doctor (sadly justifiably for liability reasons) won't write a prescription without an office visit. It would be hugely helpful if my wife could hit up a pharmacist for the medicine which reliably cures her illness, rather than having to wait to be seen by the doctor who is almost guaranteed to prescribe it anyway.
[0] The long term cures are "move to a new climate" (which we're in the process of trying now) and "have one's sinuses drilled out by a Roto-Rooter". If plan A doesn't help out, she's much more receptive to occasional rounds of antibiotics than the much more drastic plan B.
I've had pretty good luck with Wal-Mart and Costco photo printing provided the printers are maintained properly
And the nice part is that you don't pay if they screw up your prints, whereas you're paying for ink whether your photo prints out nicely at home or if it takes you 10 times to get something usable.
Years of practice, son.
Preach it. I took a job in a different city and moved here soon after to start work, while my wife and kids stayed put through the end of the school year. I find myself sitting in an empty house, in a situation where it'd be dumb to buy a TV when all my furniture will be moving here within the month. The library is a lifesaver. There's a bus stop near my house, and it's cheap to ride to another part of the city and just walk around to look at stuff. If I have to have passive entertainment, I can watch shows on Netflix (and I bet 90% of households who would want to buy an XBox already have a PC and Internet connection capable of supporting it).
I grew up with video games and I love 'em, but they're hardly something you've gotta have. For the history of the world up through 30 years ago, people managed to entertain themselves without them. It's still possible, you know?
It's not going to happen, Miguel.
Oh, OK. I saw you talking about pcntl in a thread and didn't realize that's what it was.
BTW, thanks for un-foe'ing me. :-)