Explain how this is a representative example of the population.
Most of the "OMG I LOVE THIS MOVEI!!one11eleven" votes came from "Males under 18", and grades go down after that age.
It is a representative sample of those that go to the website IMDB.com, have created an account, watched the movie in question and bothered to leave a review (assuming no one lied about their age when creating their accout, or rated a movie they never bothered to see). Taking that limited and obviously non-representative population and extrapolating it to the population at large is ludicrous in the extreme.
Drawing conclusions from small samples and then extrapolating that to a population that they poorly represent is not a "Fact". Nor does it give you license to insult those that disagree with you. Even if it were a represenatative sample, no ones opinion is wrong. It could be the minority opinion, but it doesn't necessarily make it invalid.
That's a "pack-in license". "Pack-in licenses" are only valid to the extent they are consistent with existing law. Any novel provisions are generally invalid. So, at best, most pack-in licenses are simply a restatement of applicable law.
You've apparently payed more attention to the law than I or the legal departments at the software companies have, because I only know of 1 case where a provision of an EULA was rendered invalid. Personally, I think the system sucks, but I'm pretty sure the alternative would end up being worse in the long run. No major software company is ok with the idea of developing software that other can purchase instead of license. Consequently, if EULA's are struck down they will either start devoting a large portion of their time to code obfuscation to prevent hacking, and/or come up with a more onerous way of licensing their software that takes more time but would still give them the control they feel they need. The licensing of software is not invalid, It's the "non-negotiated contract" nature of EULA's that are of questionable validity
Are you arguing this counts as "circumventing copy protection" i.e. a DMCA violation?
No, not really. What I'm saying is that it is illegal to take someone else code, modify it and then redistribute it for a profit. If I hack the installer, Apple probably won't care because I'm not selling the resulting product, but that is a result of Apple exercising discretion or being unaware, not an inability on their part to prosecute. The key is that they are doing this for profit. Apple still hasn't gone after the Hackintosh market, because no one is trying to use Apple work to make a profit w/o paying licensing.
And let me stop you before you go saying that Pystar is paying for a license by purchasing a copy of Leopard for each of their computers. No one knows what the price of a full license to the Mac OS costs. We only know what Apple charges for an update to their OS license costs. Since Apple limits their license to computers already running a version of the Mac OS all OS in a box purchases are necessarily "Updates." That is the reason I'm glad it looks like Pystar is going to loose. If they were to win, Apple would change the cost of Update purchases to reflect the full value of the OS for people not purchasing Apple hardware and the cost of my OS updates would jump to the ridiculous level of Windows updates.
Whether you like it or not, because software has a long history of being licensed and not sold, Apple gets a say in to what uses that software can legally be put.
Ok, I agree with you that EULA's are a major PITA. I also question the appropriateness of their use and the validity of everything they contain. However, you said it yourself
...paragraphs are written in such a way as they don't refer to other paragraphs, specifically to make them resistant to the court rulings that invalidate individual provisions.
No, they're not. EULAs and pack-in licenses are generally invalid.
Why? Because you want them to be? I know that in certain states, they are largely unenforceable when it comes to individual end users. However, it has yet to be tested when companies are trying to profit off of the work of other companies.
...instead of invalidating the entirety of contracts when some terms are found to be illegal, they only invalidate those specific terms...
This is just silly, no contract is required to be invalidated just because one paragraph is invalid.
Psystar is NOT illegally reselling Apple software or hardware, which is what YOU (and Apple) claimed.
Yes they are. They are selling computers with the Mac OS preinstalled in direct violation of the license on the box. That they include the purchase of an OS Update with each computer doesn't change the fact that they are violating the license each time the install the OS. Apple doesn't sell ANYONE the Mac OS. They sell licenses for the OS to purchasers of Apple hardware, and they sell licenses to Updates which Pystar is buying. No one knows what dollar value Apple places on the OS itself, only the price they put on updates. That you can do a fresh install of the OS using the media used to distribute the updates is convenient and possibly pedantic, but it's the way Apple views the situation.
Also, Pystar has to hack the installer in order to get it to run. The Installer does hardware checks to verify that the OS can be installed on the hardware.
I ran into the problem trying to install Leopard on my 800mhz G4. Early builds of Leopard had a minimum clock speed of 800mhz, but just prior to official release the minimum was bumped to 867mhz. If you copy the installer to a hard disk, edit one of the files, and run the installer from the HD you can change the installation conditions. While fairly simple, it's still a Hack and what Pystar is doing to get the OS installed.
Also, I didn't used the word "Pirate" so I don't know why you brought it up.
I'm not trying to minimize the work of other, but point out that as long as you go to work and don't screw off you'll get paid every day and your annual raises.
Even if a prof shows up 7 days a week and works their ass of, It's still possible to not get funding, not get tenure, and loose your job after 6 years with no recourse other than to find a new job and relocate to another part of the country.
Professors are like subcontractors in the construction industry. They can make their own hours and have a lot of discretion as to their day to day activities, but the stakes are definitely higher than for hourly wage employees.
besides, would you want your mechanic dictating to you which car to buy, or your cable company dictating the TV's you can buy, you may want their suggestions but no one likes being dictated to as to which tools they can use. You may be the professional IT person, but without the researchers doing their work, their wouldn't be as much need for IT work.
If they believe a Mac/PC/Linux box to be the best tool for them, even after you've made your suggestions, then it's ultimately on their head. If choosing the wrong tool screws up their career, it won't affect your paycheck.
The company Xerox predates the the definition of the word Xerox meaning to copy something. It's not exactly the same, but it relates to your tirade on the "IP industry".
try reading the rest of the paragraph before responding
It has become a common convention to refer to software license sales as software sales because in the vast majority of cases the result is the same.
If you have a problem with the fact that common convention gives a slanted view of reality, welcome to the club, but that doesn't mean anyone is doing anything illegal.
Case in point, but in the other direction. The Xerox company tried to sue a bunch of companies for using their trademarked word "Xerox", but they were slapped down by the court because they hadn't enforced their IP early enough. Consequently, they lost some of the protection normally applied to trademarked terms, because it had become a common convention for people to use the word Xerox to imply any photocopy or mimeograph machine.
You can't legislate the way speech patterns develop unless you live in France.
No one has mentioned copyright, we are talking about software licensing. They both relate to the rights of authors to control the use of their IP, but copyright isn't relevant within the scope of this discussion.
I didn't express support for software licensing. I actually expressed my belief that they aren't the best system available. However, there is a world of difference between what you want to be the truth and what actually is the truth, and that is the difference between my post and yours.
I am not a PI, but hope to be once I finish writing my PhD thesis.
You may have excellent qualifications to make suggestions as to what is or isn't feasible, the relative amounts of work required to do a task one way or another, or even the skills necessary to conduct the research yourself. However, if you are not the PI then you can simply collect your paycheck at the end of every pay period, do your work to the best of your ability, and get on with your life.
However, the PI has to spend 6 years proving to the University that he is worthy of tenure, write grants to prove to funding agencies that his research is worth funding, & write manuscripts to prove that his results are worth paying attention to. Ultimately the responsibility for the success or lack thereof his research program is carried entirely on his own shoulders. Consequently, if he's wrong about the best way to proceed, he'll be the one that has to deal with his failures, NOT you! The last thing a PI needs is having to convince yet another person to do things the way he wants to do them. Especially if it's the PI's money being spent on equipment the PI will be using.
They aren't committing fraud. If you actually read the box and the EULA they force you to click through, you learn that you paid for a license and a copy of the physical media necessary to install the software.
If the minimum wage employees at Best Buy tell you they are selling you software then they are wrong. It has become a common convention to refer to software license sales as software sales because in the vast majority of cases the result is the same.
The legal distinction exists for those who try to use the software in a way other than intended by running it on unapproved hardware or installing the software on more machines than the license allows. Many users routinely install software on multiple machines despite only having purchased a single user license and they don't normally get prosecuted because of the bad blood this would cause between the vendor and the user. That doesn't mean they don't have the right to do so, just that they realize it's better not to.
It is my understanding that the contractual tying arrangements would only be a problem if Pystar were successful in convincing the judge that "Computers running the Mac OS" are a separate market from that of computers running windows/linux/other flavors of unix.
Since the judge hasn't bought their argument, the Clayton Act doesn't apply, no matter how much any of us may want it to.
there should be an oversight committee to determine if a Mac is a necessary item
I'm sorry, that's just stupid. If a researcher feels they'll will be more productive using a mac with windows under emulation for the apps that need it who are you to judge?
I use a mac in a research setting at Purdue and run windows for a handful of Apps I rarely use. I probably fire windows up once every couple of months. I used to use it more frequently but apps like SAS, SPSS, and the windows version of Powerpoint are offered over the web via a CITRIX client so I don't need to waste disk space installing those apps locally anymore. However, if their had been the kind of unnecessary oversight you are suggesting I'd be SOL.
I get the impression from your post that you work for the researchers, but not as a researcher yourself. You are poorly equiped to decide which tools would best benefit the researcher unless you are the PI in question.
If I'm not mistaken, the person was allowed to sell the AutoCAD on ebay because they were transferring the License to the purchaser along with the installation disks. That meant that the seller was not going to retain an installed copy of the software so no violation of the EULA was taking place.
I don't know if the AutoCAD EULA contained prohibitions against re-selling the license. If they did, then that portion of the EULA would have been invalidated by the decision. However, that doesn't mean that the rest of the EULA was invalidated as well.
Microsoft could do this if they wanted to. It's perfectly legal. It would hurt their market share numbers and potentially their bottom line, even if they owned the hardware manufacturing business. I believe that their software would probably improve if they did this, but they won't because Dell, HP, Acer, etc. would jump into Linux with both feet and kill MS profitability over night.
I just can't believe you claim that Apple needs some competition. Their market share is in the low teens in the US and in single digits on the global market. How much more competition do they need if >90% of computers sold globally are manufactured by their competition?
Ultimately your arguments operate under the false impression that software is ever sold. Licenses to use software are sold, but those are contracts that stipulate the conditions under which the software can legally be used. I don't particularly like the system, but it is what it is and whining about it won't actually change it.
No, they don't because they never bought the software. They licensed the software with the license being null and void if they violate their end of the contract.
...and are free to do with it as they wish.
Just as long as they are willing to live with the potential consequences of their actions. Namely, the potential to be sued by the other party in the contract for violating that contract. No one is forced to enter into the contract with Apple, but if they want to use Apple's software they will be legally obligated to abide by that contract.
Now, I don't believe that software should be licensed instead of sold, but that's the way the cookie crumbles. I'm free to use any other OS on their hardware, or to use completely different hardware if I so choose, just not with their software. Companies are under no obligation to give you as many choices in configuration as you feel entitled to. If you don't like the options provided by Apple, use a different vendor. Whining about it is just juvenile.
You can do what ever you want with the hardware you purchased from them. However, you are limited in what you can do with the software you license from them.
If your motherboard does break you are allowed to replace it with whichever motherboard you want, but Apple isn't obligated to support it.
You are the 4th or 5th person to respond to my post with statements to the effect of "I bought the software so I should be able to do what I want". However, you DON'T BUY SOFTWARE. You License it. I think the law should be changed so that software is purchased instead of licensed, but until that happens the view of the situation that you are espousing is fundamentally out of sync with reality.
They are selling hardware/EFI that works with the OS X installer.
No, that's what the other cloning company was doing that closed up shop almost before they opened (I believe they were based in Australia).
I agree that software should be sold and not licensed, but that is not the way things are done at the moment, and violating EULA's will not make them go away. As I said in a different response to this post, it would be better for everyone if the energy being put into violating EULA's went into changing the laws instead.
I'm not defending the use of restrictive EULA's, but instead explaining why, in a world where EULA's are legally enforceable, Pystars arguments are asinine.
Microsoft doesn't sell the "Xbox OS" as a separate product.
Neither does Apple. Neither company "Sells" any software. Instead, they both license software to users, and both sell at least some hardware which comes with the licensed software pre-installed. Apple arguably has more a more restrictive license for their computer OS, but that in and of itself isn't an indefensible legal position.
If you consider my point to be unnecessarily pedantic how about this. Apple doesn't sell boxed licenses of the Mac OS as a separate product either. What they sell are boxed licenses for Mac OS updates which by definition require the OS to have been installed on that hardware previously.
I don't particularly like that software is licensed instead of sold, but that's the way things are at the moment. Breaking the law is not a suitable substitute for changing the law.
No it doesn't. they are both Operating Systems for running specific hardware designs. Their is only one Xbox 360 design, but if I were to go out and purchase all of the parts necessary, assemble the system, and get my hands on a copy of the OS from some hacker I could conceivably install the Xbox 360 OS on reference hardware and do the equivalent of what Pystar is doing. It would be no less illegal based on the EULA and copywrite law as it is written and enforced at the moment. That it would be more difficult to procure a copy of the installable OS doesn't invalidate my analogy.
If anything your "Bad Car Analogy" is worse than the one I used because tires are sold and not licensed as software is. I don't particularly like that software is licensed instead of sold but that's the state of things at the moment.
This would be akin to Microsoft having said Windows only on Intel, using another processor violates the EULA
Except that Microsoft does say that with the Xbox and Xbox 360. They have 2 different platforms with 2 different lisencing strategies for their hardware. Windows is lisenced to anyone and everyone for an exorbinant fee, while the Xbox OS is not lisenced to anyone and used only for running hardware assembled and sold by Microsoft. Apple doesn't have any obligation to market it's computer OS the same way that MS does, and unless you have a problem with MS, Sony, or Nintendo marketing their OS the same way Apple does I fail to see validity of the "Apple is the next MS" argument you are using here unless you plan to apply it to the other game station manufacturers as well.
Your whole second paragraph is self contradictory. Apple is suing Pystar for selling hardware with a "Hacked version of Apples OS" they are not suing Pystar for the computers they've sold with windows or linux installed, only those with OS X. If you want to go take the open source compnents of Apple's OS and recreate the closed source code yourself, and then sell computers with it you are free to do so. However, you'll quickly find that even with mooching Apple contributions to open source you won't be able to maintain profitability sell this OS for the same price Apple does their updates. They are a way to generate some income off of major OS updates from people that have already purchased Apple hardware. They are not sold at a profit by themselves, so Apple is free to restrict the sales to whomever they want in the EULA.
Would I like cheeper Mac's, of course, but that doesn't mean I advocate hamstringing their ability to decide the direction of their own products.
Re:Hey, remember when Ender's Game was good?
on
Ender in Exile
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
Anton married because he wanted to help the woman raise a child, not because he himself wanted to breed. He even stated this plainly. It's is normally necessary for adults to engage in heterosexual sex in order to reproduce, but this solution allowed Anton the opportunity to be a father without having to engage in heterosexual acts. If anything this is could be viewed as an example of showing that he believes that homosexuals would make good parents. Have you even read the book in question?
Being homosexual is not the sin, engaging in homosexual acts is the sin. Same thing with being an alcoholic, drug addict, possessed of a homicidal temper, etc. It's the performance of those actions that have been labeled as sins by the faith you belong to that are the sin, not the desire or inclination to perform them in most judeo-christian denominations. The ACT is the sin.
Now, I don't personally agree with his definition of right and wrong, nor do I agree with all of his politics. However, that doesn't mean that I should go looking through all of his written works trying to find reasons not to like them in order to bolster my belief that my opinions are correct and his are false and demonize him for it. It's self aggrandizing reinforcement of your own perceived moral superiority.
If you read his columns regularly instead of just googling for bits a pieces to trot out as evidence of his "vileness" you'd see that he has homosexual friends and has a fairly compassionate view of the gay community and individuals despite his stated belief in the doctrines of Mormansim. He's a playwright for Chris's-sake. The theatre is where he got is start writing if I remember correctly. The theatre has been a bastion of homosexuality since time immemorial. If he really had the aversion to homosexuals that you seem to be implying, I find it hard to believe he'd have pursued a career that would have put him in contact with so many of them over the years.
I get the impression that your big problems with Card is that you disapprove of the religious belief that homosexuality is a sin while he does not, and you disapprove of his support for the Bush administration. Both of those are perfectly acceptable reasons to disagree with, or disapprove of Card as a person, but neither of them are relevant to the evaluation of the quality of his literary work. They are tangential, and inappropriate within the context of a book review.
The human brain is a connection making machine. Superstitions started because of the fact that a lot of the time, the connections are correlation and not causation. If you develop a negative opinion of an authors beliefs it's guaranteed that you'll find evidence within their written work that you can use to say their writings are propaganda. That doesn't mean you are necessarily correct. In my Freshman writing class we had to read through children's stories for the underlying themes. The prof. implied that she wanted wild explanations for the themes. Consequently most of the class found themes of bestiality, rape, pedophilia, etc because that's what they were looking for, not because the authors of those children's tails wrote them with the intention of turning the children into perverts.
Re:Hey, remember when Ender's Game was good?
on
Ender in Exile
·
· Score: 1
You are correct that Anton was gay. I recently listened to most of the books recently (I love audible.com). However, I failed to see the sinister motivation for making him miserable. He was a victim of the governments ham fisted approach to controling information they percieived to be dangerous. The gay part was tangential to the point. Later on Anton marries, not because being gay is bad, but because he was lonely and their is a strong theme of "Community" throughout the books. By marrying, Anton once again joins the community at large.
the extent of Card's Homophobic tendencies
have you ever read his book "Songbird"? Most of the major characters in the novel are homosexual pederasts as a result of the beauty and talent of a child singer. Card also publishes in a local (VA I believe) paper and occationally the subject of homosexuality arrises in that, and I've gotten the impression that he disapproves of homosexuality for moral reasons, but doesn't hate or even disapprove of those who are homosexual at all.
A catholic friend of mine put it best "Hate the Sin, NOT the Sinner"
Slashdot Mirror
In the 90's an average bag of seed corn was $50....it's expected that in the next two years, it will be $500.
Citation needed
Most of the "OMG I LOVE THIS MOVEI!!one11eleven" votes came from "Males under 18", and grades go down after that age.
It is a representative sample of those that go to the website IMDB.com, have created an account, watched the movie in question and bothered to leave a review (assuming no one lied about their age when creating their accout, or rated a movie they never bothered to see). Taking that limited and obviously non-representative population and extrapolating it to the population at large is ludicrous in the extreme.
Drawing conclusions from small samples and then extrapolating that to a population that they poorly represent is not a "Fact". Nor does it give you license to insult those that disagree with you. Even if it were a represenatative sample, no ones opinion is wrong. It could be the minority opinion, but it doesn't necessarily make it invalid.
That's a "pack-in license". "Pack-in licenses" are only valid to the extent they are consistent with existing law. Any novel provisions are generally invalid. So, at best, most pack-in licenses are simply a restatement of applicable law.
You've apparently payed more attention to the law than I or the legal departments at the software companies have, because I only know of 1 case where a provision of an EULA was rendered invalid. Personally, I think the system sucks, but I'm pretty sure the alternative would end up being worse in the long run. No major software company is ok with the idea of developing software that other can purchase instead of license. Consequently, if EULA's are struck down they will either start devoting a large portion of their time to code obfuscation to prevent hacking, and/or come up with a more onerous way of licensing their software that takes more time but would still give them the control they feel they need. The licensing of software is not invalid, It's the "non-negotiated contract" nature of EULA's that are of questionable validity
Are you arguing this counts as "circumventing copy protection" i.e. a DMCA violation?
No, not really. What I'm saying is that it is illegal to take someone else code, modify it and then redistribute it for a profit. If I hack the installer, Apple probably won't care because I'm not selling the resulting product, but that is a result of Apple exercising discretion or being unaware, not an inability on their part to prosecute. The key is that they are doing this for profit. Apple still hasn't gone after the Hackintosh market, because no one is trying to use Apple work to make a profit w/o paying licensing.
And let me stop you before you go saying that Pystar is paying for a license by purchasing a copy of Leopard for each of their computers. No one knows what the price of a full license to the Mac OS costs. We only know what Apple charges for an update to their OS license costs. Since Apple limits their license to computers already running a version of the Mac OS all OS in a box purchases are necessarily "Updates." That is the reason I'm glad it looks like Pystar is going to loose. If they were to win, Apple would change the cost of Update purchases to reflect the full value of the OS for people not purchasing Apple hardware and the cost of my OS updates would jump to the ridiculous level of Windows updates.
Whether you like it or not, because software has a long history of being licensed and not sold, Apple gets a say in to what uses that software can legally be put.
No, they're not. EULAs and pack-in licenses are generally invalid.
Why? Because you want them to be? I know that in certain states, they are largely unenforceable when it comes to individual end users. However, it has yet to be tested when companies are trying to profit off of the work of other companies.
...instead of invalidating the entirety of contracts when some terms are found to be illegal, they only invalidate those specific terms...
This is just silly, no contract is required to be invalidated just because one paragraph is invalid.
Psystar is NOT illegally reselling Apple software or hardware, which is what YOU (and Apple) claimed.
Yes they are. They are selling computers with the Mac OS preinstalled in direct violation of the license on the box. That they include the purchase of an OS Update with each computer doesn't change the fact that they are violating the license each time the install the OS. Apple doesn't sell ANYONE the Mac OS. They sell licenses for the OS to purchasers of Apple hardware, and they sell licenses to Updates which Pystar is buying. No one knows what dollar value Apple places on the OS itself, only the price they put on updates. That you can do a fresh install of the OS using the media used to distribute the updates is convenient and possibly pedantic, but it's the way Apple views the situation.
Also, Pystar has to hack the installer in order to get it to run. The Installer does hardware checks to verify that the OS can be installed on the hardware.
I ran into the problem trying to install Leopard on my 800mhz G4. Early builds of Leopard had a minimum clock speed of 800mhz, but just prior to official release the minimum was bumped to 867mhz. If you copy the installer to a hard disk, edit one of the files, and run the installer from the HD you can change the installation conditions. While fairly simple, it's still a Hack and what Pystar is doing to get the OS installed.
Also, I didn't used the word "Pirate" so I don't know why you brought it up.
I'm not trying to minimize the work of other, but point out that as long as you go to work and don't screw off you'll get paid every day and your annual raises.
Even if a prof shows up 7 days a week and works their ass of, It's still possible to not get funding, not get tenure, and loose your job after 6 years with no recourse other than to find a new job and relocate to another part of the country.
Professors are like subcontractors in the construction industry. They can make their own hours and have a lot of discretion as to their day to day activities, but the stakes are definitely higher than for hourly wage employees.
besides, would you want your mechanic dictating to you which car to buy, or your cable company dictating the TV's you can buy, you may want their suggestions but no one likes being dictated to as to which tools they can use. You may be the professional IT person, but without the researchers doing their work, their wouldn't be as much need for IT work.
If they believe a Mac/PC/Linux box to be the best tool for them, even after you've made your suggestions, then it's ultimately on their head. If choosing the wrong tool screws up their career, it won't affect your paycheck.
The company Xerox predates the the definition of the word Xerox meaning to copy something. It's not exactly the same, but it relates to your tirade on the "IP industry".
common misconceptions are not fraud.
It has become a common convention to refer to software license sales as software sales because in the vast majority of cases the result is the same.
If you have a problem with the fact that common convention gives a slanted view of reality, welcome to the club, but that doesn't mean anyone is doing anything illegal.
Case in point, but in the other direction. The Xerox company tried to sue a bunch of companies for using their trademarked word "Xerox", but they were slapped down by the court because they hadn't enforced their IP early enough. Consequently, they lost some of the protection normally applied to trademarked terms, because it had become a common convention for people to use the word Xerox to imply any photocopy or mimeograph machine.
You can't legislate the way speech patterns develop unless you live in France.
No one has mentioned copyright, we are talking about software licensing. They both relate to the rights of authors to control the use of their IP, but copyright isn't relevant within the scope of this discussion.
I didn't express support for software licensing. I actually expressed my belief that they aren't the best system available. However, there is a world of difference between what you want to be the truth and what actually is the truth, and that is the difference between my post and yours.
I am not a PI, but hope to be once I finish writing my PhD thesis.
You may have excellent qualifications to make suggestions as to what is or isn't feasible, the relative amounts of work required to do a task one way or another, or even the skills necessary to conduct the research yourself. However, if you are not the PI then you can simply collect your paycheck at the end of every pay period, do your work to the best of your ability, and get on with your life.
However, the PI has to spend 6 years proving to the University that he is worthy of tenure, write grants to prove to funding agencies that his research is worth funding, & write manuscripts to prove that his results are worth paying attention to. Ultimately the responsibility for the success or lack thereof his research program is carried entirely on his own shoulders. Consequently, if he's wrong about the best way to proceed, he'll be the one that has to deal with his failures, NOT you! The last thing a PI needs is having to convince yet another person to do things the way he wants to do them. Especially if it's the PI's money being spent on equipment the PI will be using.
They aren't committing fraud. If you actually read the box and the EULA they force you to click through, you learn that you paid for a license and a copy of the physical media necessary to install the software.
If the minimum wage employees at Best Buy tell you they are selling you software then they are wrong. It has become a common convention to refer to software license sales as software sales because in the vast majority of cases the result is the same.
The legal distinction exists for those who try to use the software in a way other than intended by running it on unapproved hardware or installing the software on more machines than the license allows. Many users routinely install software on multiple machines despite only having purchased a single user license and they don't normally get prosecuted because of the bad blood this would cause between the vendor and the user. That doesn't mean they don't have the right to do so, just that they realize it's better not to.
It is my understanding that the contractual tying arrangements would only be a problem if Pystar were successful in convincing the judge that "Computers running the Mac OS" are a separate market from that of computers running windows/linux/other flavors of unix.
Since the judge hasn't bought their argument, the Clayton Act doesn't apply, no matter how much any of us may want it to.
there should be an oversight committee to determine if a Mac is a necessary item
I'm sorry, that's just stupid. If a researcher feels they'll will be more productive using a mac with windows under emulation for the apps that need it who are you to judge?
I use a mac in a research setting at Purdue and run windows for a handful of Apps I rarely use. I probably fire windows up once every couple of months. I used to use it more frequently but apps like SAS, SPSS, and the windows version of Powerpoint are offered over the web via a CITRIX client so I don't need to waste disk space installing those apps locally anymore. However, if their had been the kind of unnecessary oversight you are suggesting I'd be SOL.
I get the impression from your post that you work for the researchers, but not as a researcher yourself. You are poorly equiped to decide which tools would best benefit the researcher unless you are the PI in question.
Your sig is Awsome and surprsingly relevant.
If I'm not mistaken, the person was allowed to sell the AutoCAD on ebay because they were transferring the License to the purchaser along with the installation disks. That meant that the seller was not going to retain an installed copy of the software so no violation of the EULA was taking place.
I don't know if the AutoCAD EULA contained prohibitions against re-selling the license. If they did, then that portion of the EULA would have been invalidated by the decision. However, that doesn't mean that the rest of the EULA was invalidated as well.
Microsoft could do this if they wanted to. It's perfectly legal. It would hurt their market share numbers and potentially their bottom line, even if they owned the hardware manufacturing business. I believe that their software would probably improve if they did this, but they won't because Dell, HP, Acer, etc. would jump into Linux with both feet and kill MS profitability over night.
I just can't believe you claim that Apple needs some competition. Their market share is in the low teens in the US and in single digits on the global market. How much more competition do they need if >90% of computers sold globally are manufactured by their competition?
Ultimately your arguments operate under the false impression that software is ever sold. Licenses to use software are sold, but those are contracts that stipulate the conditions under which the software can legally be used. I don't particularly like the system, but it is what it is and whining about it won't actually change it.
Once they buy it though, THEY OWN THE PRODUCT...
No, they don't because they never bought the software. They licensed the software with the license being null and void if they violate their end of the contract.
...and are free to do with it as they wish.
Just as long as they are willing to live with the potential consequences of their actions. Namely, the potential to be sued by the other party in the contract for violating that contract. No one is forced to enter into the contract with Apple, but if they want to use Apple's software they will be legally obligated to abide by that contract.
Now, I don't believe that software should be licensed instead of sold, but that's the way the cookie crumbles. I'm free to use any other OS on their hardware, or to use completely different hardware if I so choose, just not with their software. Companies are under no obligation to give you as many choices in configuration as you feel entitled to. If you don't like the options provided by Apple, use a different vendor. Whining about it is just juvenile.
You can do what ever you want with the hardware you purchased from them. However, you are limited in what you can do with the software you license from them.
If your motherboard does break you are allowed to replace it with whichever motherboard you want, but Apple isn't obligated to support it.
You are the 4th or 5th person to respond to my post with statements to the effect of "I bought the software so I should be able to do what I want". However, you DON'T BUY SOFTWARE. You License it. I think the law should be changed so that software is purchased instead of licensed, but until that happens the view of the situation that you are espousing is fundamentally out of sync with reality.
Psystar isnt selling you a hacked product
Yes they are!
(and even if they did it shouldn't be wrong).
Fixed that for you.
They are selling hardware/EFI that works with the OS X installer.
No, that's what the other cloning company was doing that closed up shop almost before they opened (I believe they were based in Australia).
I agree that software should be sold and not licensed, but that is not the way things are done at the moment, and violating EULA's will not make them go away. As I said in a different response to this post, it would be better for everyone if the energy being put into violating EULA's went into changing the laws instead.
I'm not defending the use of restrictive EULA's, but instead explaining why, in a world where EULA's are legally enforceable, Pystars arguments are asinine.
Microsoft doesn't sell the "Xbox OS" as a separate product.
Neither does Apple. Neither company "Sells" any software. Instead, they both license software to users, and both sell at least some hardware which comes with the licensed software pre-installed. Apple arguably has more a more restrictive license for their computer OS, but that in and of itself isn't an indefensible legal position.
If you consider my point to be unnecessarily pedantic how about this. Apple doesn't sell boxed licenses of the Mac OS as a separate product either. What they sell are boxed licenses for Mac OS updates which by definition require the OS to have been installed on that hardware previously.
I don't particularly like that software is licensed instead of sold, but that's the way things are at the moment. Breaking the law is not a suitable substitute for changing the law.
your MS Xbox analogy fails.
No it doesn't. they are both Operating Systems for running specific hardware designs. Their is only one Xbox 360 design, but if I were to go out and purchase all of the parts necessary, assemble the system, and get my hands on a copy of the OS from some hacker I could conceivably install the Xbox 360 OS on reference hardware and do the equivalent of what Pystar is doing. It would be no less illegal based on the EULA and copywrite law as it is written and enforced at the moment. That it would be more difficult to procure a copy of the installable OS doesn't invalidate my analogy.
If anything your "Bad Car Analogy" is worse than the one I used because tires are sold and not licensed as software is. I don't particularly like that software is licensed instead of sold but that's the state of things at the moment.
This would be akin to Microsoft having said Windows only on Intel, using another processor violates the EULA
Except that Microsoft does say that with the Xbox and Xbox 360. They have 2 different platforms with 2 different lisencing strategies for their hardware. Windows is lisenced to anyone and everyone for an exorbinant fee, while the Xbox OS is not lisenced to anyone and used only for running hardware assembled and sold by Microsoft. Apple doesn't have any obligation to market it's computer OS the same way that MS does, and unless you have a problem with MS, Sony, or Nintendo marketing their OS the same way Apple does I fail to see validity of the "Apple is the next MS" argument you are using here unless you plan to apply it to the other game station manufacturers as well.
Your whole second paragraph is self contradictory. Apple is suing Pystar for selling hardware with a "Hacked version of Apples OS" they are not suing Pystar for the computers they've sold with windows or linux installed, only those with OS X. If you want to go take the open source compnents of Apple's OS and recreate the closed source code yourself, and then sell computers with it you are free to do so. However, you'll quickly find that even with mooching Apple contributions to open source you won't be able to maintain profitability sell this OS for the same price Apple does their updates. They are a way to generate some income off of major OS updates from people that have already purchased Apple hardware. They are not sold at a profit by themselves, so Apple is free to restrict the sales to whomever they want in the EULA.
Would I like cheeper Mac's, of course, but that doesn't mean I advocate hamstringing their ability to decide the direction of their own products.
Anton married because he wanted to help the woman raise a child, not because he himself wanted to breed. He even stated this plainly. It's is normally necessary for adults to engage in heterosexual sex in order to reproduce, but this solution allowed Anton the opportunity to be a father without having to engage in heterosexual acts. If anything this is could be viewed as an example of showing that he believes that homosexuals would make good parents. Have you even read the book in question?
Being homosexual is not the sin, engaging in homosexual acts is the sin. Same thing with being an alcoholic, drug addict, possessed of a homicidal temper, etc. It's the performance of those actions that have been labeled as sins by the faith you belong to that are the sin, not the desire or inclination to perform them in most judeo-christian denominations. The ACT is the sin.
Now, I don't personally agree with his definition of right and wrong, nor do I agree with all of his politics. However, that doesn't mean that I should go looking through all of his written works trying to find reasons not to like them in order to bolster my belief that my opinions are correct and his are false and demonize him for it. It's self aggrandizing reinforcement of your own perceived moral superiority.
If you read his columns regularly instead of just googling for bits a pieces to trot out as evidence of his "vileness" you'd see that he has homosexual friends and has a fairly compassionate view of the gay community and individuals despite his stated belief in the doctrines of Mormansim. He's a playwright for Chris's-sake. The theatre is where he got is start writing if I remember correctly. The theatre has been a bastion of homosexuality since time immemorial. If he really had the aversion to homosexuals that you seem to be implying, I find it hard to believe he'd have pursued a career that would have put him in contact with so many of them over the years.
I get the impression that your big problems with Card is that you disapprove of the religious belief that homosexuality is a sin while he does not, and you disapprove of his support for the Bush administration. Both of those are perfectly acceptable reasons to disagree with, or disapprove of Card as a person, but neither of them are relevant to the evaluation of the quality of his literary work. They are tangential, and inappropriate within the context of a book review.
The human brain is a connection making machine. Superstitions started because of the fact that a lot of the time, the connections are correlation and not causation. If you develop a negative opinion of an authors beliefs it's guaranteed that you'll find evidence within their written work that you can use to say their writings are propaganda. That doesn't mean you are necessarily correct. In my Freshman writing class we had to read through children's stories for the underlying themes. The prof. implied that she wanted wild explanations for the themes. Consequently most of the class found themes of bestiality, rape, pedophilia, etc because that's what they were looking for, not because the authors of those children's tails wrote them with the intention of turning the children into perverts.
the extent of Card's Homophobic tendencies
have you ever read his book "Songbird"? Most of the major characters in the novel are homosexual pederasts as a result of the beauty and talent of a child singer. Card also publishes in a local (VA I believe) paper and occationally the subject of homosexuality arrises in that, and I've gotten the impression that he disapproves of homosexuality for moral reasons, but doesn't hate or even disapprove of those who are homosexual at all.
A catholic friend of mine put it best "Hate the Sin, NOT the Sinner"