Exactly right. I think there is a potentially larger issue at work here. To date, nobody has brought this issue to the courts. See, 90%+ of EULA boilerplate is unenforceable rubbish. If you bought an item as an *individual*, of course you can do whatever you want with it short of reselling it or other business-like practices.
I would say that 100% of EULA boilerplate is unenforceable rubbish, regardless of what it says, because it's not presented until the sale (i.e., the only actual contractual agreement going on here) is already over and done with!
The only loophole that Apple could possibly have here is the motherboard. Psystar could be forced to cough up the price of an Apple motherboard(which has those special non OEM chips on it) only. All of the rest of the insides of a Mac is off-the-shelf stuff that can't be claimed as damages. (ouch?)
Is that even true anymore? I was under the impression that on the Intel machines, everything was commodity hardware.
Psystar is reselling a product that Apple willingly sold to them. Nothing more, nothing less. Whatever else Psystar happens to sell as part of the package is irrelevant to Apple.
Apple is not obligated to have OS X work on Psystar's garage built computers.
Of course not! But that's not the issue here. Nobody, not even Psystar, even wanted Apple to support OS X running on Psystar-brand hardware! The issue is that Apple is trying to prevent Psystar from providing that support itself. And that's a blatantly illegal restraint of trade!
Like the AC said, I don't need case law: it's simple common sense! My real property rights (i.e., my right to use the product I purchased) trump Apple's imaginary "right" to dictate how the new owner can use the product it sold to him.
Next, let me ask you a few simple questions: does Ford have the right to dictate that you may only use Ford-brand parts on your Mustang? Does J.K. Rowling have the right to dictate that you may only read her books using Harry Potter(R)-brand incandescent light? Does Sony have the right to dictate that you may only watch a Sony movie on a Sony DVD player?
The answer, in case you didn't figure it out, is NO! Why? Because that would be absurd. In all cases, such conditions would violate the owner's fundamental property rights!
Now, why should Apple's case be any different? And the onus is on you (or rather Apple), not me (or rather Psystar), to answer that question -- to prove that the Apple Corporation's (a fictional "person") right to enforce product tying to support its monopoly on computers running OS X is more important than actual natural persons' right to own property!
For example, what the hell was the justification for renaming "Add / Remove Programs" to "Programs and Features"?
The rationale is that there are chunks of Windows (such as every individual thing Windows Update has downloaded) in that list too. Those are features of Windows, not standalone programs, hence the name.
Psystar is (hopefully) using legally purchased copies of MacOS X that come with a license allowing installation on a single Apple-labeled computer. Which means they have no right to install the software on their computers...
No, it means they have every right to do whatever the fuck they want with it short of copyright infringement, because they purchased it, it is now their property, and EULAs are bunk!
The point here is that Apple has no obligations to PsyStar to license Mac OS X.
Of course they do! When they SELL a retail copy of OS X, they are OBLIGATED to license it to whoever buys it! And that's REGARDLESS of what the new owner wants to do with it, whether it be using the disk for target practice, printing out the code and wiping their ass with it, or yes, even installing it on a non-Apple computer!
That said, Apple makes significant margins on their hardware. They aren't Dell or Acer.
They make similar margins to Dell on comparable hardware: all-in-one and small-form-factor desktops, high-end Xeon workstations, and laptops. The difference is that, unlike Dell, Apple doesn't make any normal minitowers.
From Apple's point of view, in order to install them you need to have a Mac, which would have come with OS X, therefore making the boxed copy an upgrade.
It sure will be nice if Psystar manages to disabuse them from that fantasy! I just hope Psystar doesn't screw itself over by making too many stupid arguments (like this one about Apple "forgetting" to copyright OS X.)
Requiring that OS X only be used with Apple hardware is exactly like Ford requiring that the customer use only Ford-made replacement parts. Ford most emphatically isn't allowed to do that, so neither can Apple!
The original TIV had outrigger arms that were meant to help stabilize the thing during high wind. That "feature" made me laugh, and it demonstrated that the designer doesn't really comprehend the forces involved.
What's wrong with the outrigger arms? Sure, they won't stop the entire thing from being lifted airborne, but they will make it harder for lesser winds to tip the vehicle over sideways.
Macs do it on purpose though, when the battery is about to run out. (At least newer ones with "safe sleep," anyway -- my G4 would just run down the battery and lose my data if I didn't plug it in within about a week.) In contrast, my Thinkpad does it unpredictably even when the battery is full.
whilst biodiesel would certainly make us less dependent on oil, it still isn't a long term solution for environmental problems, seeing as the emissions are as dirty if not dirtier (higher micro-particle count, etc).
the leading automobile association here (Germany, ADAC) advises not to use biodiesel in modern diesel cars. I forget the technicalities, but some components get clogged from the thicker and less pure biodiesel, forcing a more frequent exchange of these parts and shortening the life span of the vehicle.
You must have missed the part where I said that I own (or rather, my girlfriend owns -- same difference) a diesel car. Because of that, I do know these "technicalities." ; )
First of all, regarding emissions: Biodiesel has the distinct advantage (over both petrodiesel and gasoline) of being carbon-neutral. In other words, all the CO2 released from burning it is CO2 that had recently been in the atmosphere anyway (before the plants from which the biodiesel was made absorbed it). It also does not produce more particulate emissions than petrodiesel. Finally, biodiesel produces zero SO2 (but with the change to ultra low sulfur diesel (ULSD), that's no longer a problem anyway I think).
Second, there are two major known possible issues when running biodiesel blends above B5 in a modern "clean diesel" (in this case, a 2009+ Jetta):
Biodiesel might work its way past the piston rings and contaminate the oil, causing the need for more frequent oil changes (keep in mind we're talking about 5K or 10K miles instead of 20K+, when using the correct (VW 507.00) synthetic oil).
Biodiesel produces different kinds of particles which may clog the diesel particulate filter (an extra exhaust system component that goes between the catalytic converter and the muffler) more quickly, causing more frequent regen cycles and possible premature failure of the filter itself only.
Of course, the real reason that VW doesn't warrant the use of biodiesel blends over B5 in the new cars is because it doesn't want to be liable for any unknown problems. There are peopletesting biodiesel in the new Jettas, and they could very well discover that biodiesel is perfectly OK. It's just that nobody knows yet.
Whoops, I forgot to reply to the rest of your post.
But the way we're going now is even less sensical than before. for instance bio diesel or ethanol. often being hailed as "our saviour" and the replacement of petrol, harvesting enough soyabeans or whatever, means that other vegetable products will have less space to be grown and thus the supply shrinks. great idea amidst food shortages. I know I'd rather have (affordable) food than (affordable) petrol.
I agree that making biofuels from materials otherwise used for food is stupid. However, condemning biofuels based on that is missing the point. Biofuels can be viable once we finish figuring out how to make them from cellulose, algae, or other non-food sources.
Biofuels also have the advantage that they work right now in existing vehicles, albeit with limited supply. My girlfriend's 10-year-old VW Beetle TDI has been running on B20 for the past year (ever since we bought the car). That B20 was made from either waste vegetable oil or chicken fat, depending on which of the two biodiesel vendors in Atlanta we bought it from.
so far, I do believe hydrogen is the way to go. simple electrolysis can serve up as much of it as we could ever need - just add water. it's a nice and simple complete cycle: power source seperates oxygen and hydrogen, hydrogen is farmed. cars fill up with hydrogen, internal combustion uses the hydrogen & adds oxygen into the mix and the only by-product is water. best reachargeable battery ever.
I'm not a big fan of hydrogen. It's not a fuel source, per se; you have to create it from something else (water or hydrocarbons). It's really only a means of fuel storage, and it's a pretty bad one when you think about it. Hydrogen is really hard to store: as a gas it has very low energy density, if you compress it you have to deal with the risk of explosion, and if you liquefy it you have to keep it really fucking cold (and spend the energy to do so). It's just not practical, IMO.
However, I do see the benefits of the whole "hydrogen economy" thing, what with the making it from electrolysis using clean electricity and all. What I propose is doing the "hydrogen economy" without the hydrogen! In other words, synthesize hydrocarbons instead of hydrogen gas using that clean electricity. H2O + C02 + energy -> gasoline (or diesel, or whatever). It's clean, it's carbon-neutral, and we don't have to invent new miracle hydrogen storage technology to use it!
I'm no fan of electrical cars though - hybrid or not. I don't think it's a good idea to waste all those valuable metals on batteries. we're already running into problems finding enough of the (semi-rare) metals needed to satisfy the demand for LCDs and other computer components.
You mean you're no fan of battery cars, then. Electric cars don't necessarily have to use batteries (alternatives include fuel cells, flywheels, and ultracapacitors).
It's not mirrors you need, it's a big sheet of plastic. Imagine a really huge tent with the sun shining on it, heating the air inside. The air rises and moves towards the center of the tent (the highest part), where it escapes out a big "chimney" with a turbine in it, thereby generating electricity.
IIRC, they've actually built a proof-of-concept of this sort of power plant in Australia.
WTF does that have to do with anything? It's a laptop, dumbass; you need sleep to work just so that you can put it away and take it back out again quickly when you're out somewhere.
Usually when that sort of thing happens to me it's because I closed the lid (causing it to start going to sleep) and then opened it again before it finished (causing it to still be in the "sleep" state with the lid open). Closing and opening the lid again tends to fix it for me.
Oh, look, they use the word RIGHT. Congress grants a legal right to authors and inventors.
I turned RIGHT a couple of times driving home today. And look, here's a Wikipedia article about the RIGHT whale. And I bet that guy on the game show last night was happy that he got the RIGHT answer!
Try getting yourself some reading comprehension skills sometime! "Right" is just a word. It has different meanings in different contexts. In particular, there are two kinds of "rights" in relation to the government. There are fundamental rights, as in the Bill of Rights, and there are incidental "rights" which really aren't rights at all, but are rather privileges conferred by the government.
For example, I could say that my driver's license gives me the "right" to drive. But it's not really a right; it's a privilege granted by the government. In contrast, the right to free speech is a fundamental right, because it is inherent and irrevocable.
So, how do you tell the difference between fundamental and incidental rights? Well, when referring to fundamental rights the Constitution uses language like "this right shall not be infringed." It explicitly affirms that the right was preexisting -- not granted by the government -- and that the government cannot take it away. In contrast, the copyright clause says "Congress shall have the power... [to secure the right]." That's not a description of a "right" at all; that's a description of a privilege granted by Congress. Note that "hav[ing] the power" doesn't mean Congress must use that power. If it wanted, Congress could invalidate every copyright in existence simply by passing a law (not an Amendment) abolishing it. Also note that copyrights explicitly may only exist for limited times. They expire. Fundamental rights do not, and cannot, expire; therefore "copyright" is not a right!
1) One can not, by definition, steal from the Public Domain.
2) That statement makes no sense in relation to what I said. Works come into public domain in a number of ways, including but not limited to one giving up one's copyright and one's copyright expiring. You don't have any right to other people's copyrighted work until and unless that work passes into the public domain. There, happy now, dumbass?
The only thing that stops everything from entering the Public Domain immediately is congressional privilege. That privilege is conferred -- or is supposed to be conferred -- only when it would "promote the progress of science and the useful arts." By asserting copyright in such a way that it fails to "promote progress," copyright holders violate their part of the bargain and prevent works that should enter the Public Domain immediately from doing so. That, in a colloquial sense, is "stealing" from the Public Domain.
I suggest you look a little closer, fuckwit. You assume that your ideology allows you to ignore the law and other people's rights. But then you use those same rights and laws, which you have decried other having and using, against other who do not share your ideology. That is hypocrisy in action.
I advocate using copyright to promote progress, as intended in the Constitution. I oppose people who want to pervert it into performing exactly the opposite function! If you still think that's somehow "hypocrisy," then no word even exists to sufficiently describe how idiotic you are!
Try a Mac. One of the things that initially impressed me most about my old iBook G4 was that sleep actually worked. (I have a Thinkpad X60 tablet now and while sleep mostly works, I never know whether it's going to suspend to RAM or to disk.)
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I would say that 100% of EULA boilerplate is unenforceable rubbish, regardless of what it says, because it's not presented until the sale (i.e., the only actual contractual agreement going on here) is already over and done with!
Is that even true anymore? I was under the impression that on the Intel machines, everything was commodity hardware.
Psystar is reselling a product that Apple willingly sold to them. Nothing more, nothing less. Whatever else Psystar happens to sell as part of the package is irrelevant to Apple.
Of course not! But that's not the issue here. Nobody, not even Psystar, even wanted Apple to support OS X running on Psystar-brand hardware! The issue is that Apple is trying to prevent Psystar from providing that support itself. And that's a blatantly illegal restraint of trade!
Like the AC said, I don't need case law: it's simple common sense! My real property rights (i.e., my right to use the product I purchased) trump Apple's imaginary "right" to dictate how the new owner can use the product it sold to him.
Next, let me ask you a few simple questions: does Ford have the right to dictate that you may only use Ford-brand parts on your Mustang? Does J.K. Rowling have the right to dictate that you may only read her books using Harry Potter(R)-brand incandescent light? Does Sony have the right to dictate that you may only watch a Sony movie on a Sony DVD player?
The answer, in case you didn't figure it out, is NO! Why? Because that would be absurd. In all cases, such conditions would violate the owner's fundamental property rights!
Now, why should Apple's case be any different? And the onus is on you (or rather Apple), not me (or rather Psystar), to answer that question -- to prove that the Apple Corporation's (a fictional "person") right to enforce product tying to support its monopoly on computers running OS X is more important than actual natural persons' right to own property!
The rationale is that there are chunks of Windows (such as every individual thing Windows Update has downloaded) in that list too. Those are features of Windows, not standalone programs, hence the name.
No, it means they have every right to do whatever the fuck they want with it short of copyright infringement, because they purchased it, it is now their property, and EULAs are bunk!
Of course they do! When they SELL a retail copy of OS X, they are OBLIGATED to license it to whoever buys it! And that's REGARDLESS of what the new owner wants to do with it, whether it be using the disk for target practice, printing out the code and wiping their ass with it, or yes, even installing it on a non-Apple computer!
Apple's market share of computers running OS X is 99.9%.
They make similar margins to Dell on comparable hardware: all-in-one and small-form-factor desktops, high-end Xeon workstations, and laptops. The difference is that, unlike Dell, Apple doesn't make any normal minitowers.
It sure will be nice if Psystar manages to disabuse them from that fantasy! I just hope Psystar doesn't screw itself over by making too many stupid arguments (like this one about Apple "forgetting" to copyright OS X.)
Requiring that OS X only be used with Apple hardware is exactly like Ford requiring that the customer use only Ford-made replacement parts. Ford most emphatically isn't allowed to do that, so neither can Apple!
Or unless the car in front merged in shortly before, cutting the other person off.
Are you sure you got the order of "not" and "always" right?
What's wrong with the outrigger arms? Sure, they won't stop the entire thing from being lifted airborne, but they will make it harder for lesser winds to tip the vehicle over sideways.
Macs do it on purpose though, when the battery is about to run out. (At least newer ones with "safe sleep," anyway -- my G4 would just run down the battery and lose my data if I didn't plug it in within about a week.) In contrast, my Thinkpad does it unpredictably even when the battery is full.
You must have missed the part where I said that I own (or rather, my girlfriend owns -- same difference) a diesel car. Because of that, I do know these "technicalities." ; )
First of all, regarding emissions: Biodiesel has the distinct advantage (over both petrodiesel and gasoline) of being carbon-neutral. In other words, all the CO2 released from burning it is CO2 that had recently been in the atmosphere anyway (before the plants from which the biodiesel was made absorbed it). It also does not produce more particulate emissions than petrodiesel. Finally, biodiesel produces zero SO2 (but with the change to ultra low sulfur diesel (ULSD), that's no longer a problem anyway I think).
Second, there are two major known possible issues when running biodiesel blends above B5 in a modern "clean diesel" (in this case, a 2009+ Jetta):
Of course, the real reason that VW doesn't warrant the use of biodiesel blends over B5 in the new cars is because it doesn't want to be liable for any unknown problems. There are people testing biodiesel in the new Jettas, and they could very well discover that biodiesel is perfectly OK. It's just that nobody knows yet.
That's really not that big. It's only twice the size of the greater Los Angeles area, for instance.
Whoops, I forgot to reply to the rest of your post.
I agree that making biofuels from materials otherwise used for food is stupid. However, condemning biofuels based on that is missing the point. Biofuels can be viable once we finish figuring out how to make them from cellulose, algae, or other non-food sources.
Biofuels also have the advantage that they work right now in existing vehicles, albeit with limited supply. My girlfriend's 10-year-old VW Beetle TDI has been running on B20 for the past year (ever since we bought the car). That B20 was made from either waste vegetable oil or chicken fat, depending on which of the two biodiesel vendors in Atlanta we bought it from.
I'm not a big fan of hydrogen. It's not a fuel source, per se; you have to create it from something else (water or hydrocarbons). It's really only a means of fuel storage, and it's a pretty bad one when you think about it. Hydrogen is really hard to store: as a gas it has very low energy density, if you compress it you have to deal with the risk of explosion, and if you liquefy it you have to keep it really fucking cold (and spend the energy to do so). It's just not practical, IMO.
However, I do see the benefits of the whole "hydrogen economy" thing, what with the making it from electrolysis using clean electricity and all. What I propose is doing the "hydrogen economy" without the hydrogen! In other words, synthesize hydrocarbons instead of hydrogen gas using that clean electricity. H2O + C02 + energy -> gasoline (or diesel, or whatever). It's clean, it's carbon-neutral, and we don't have to invent new miracle hydrogen storage technology to use it!
You mean you're no fan of battery cars, then. Electric cars don't necessarily have to use batteries (alternatives include fuel cells, flywheels, and ultracapacitors).
It's not mirrors you need, it's a big sheet of plastic. Imagine a really huge tent with the sun shining on it, heating the air inside. The air rises and moves towards the center of the tent (the highest part), where it escapes out a big "chimney" with a turbine in it, thereby generating electricity.
IIRC, they've actually built a proof-of-concept of this sort of power plant in Australia.
WTF does that have to do with anything? It's a laptop, dumbass; you need sleep to work just so that you can put it away and take it back out again quickly when you're out somewhere.
Usually when that sort of thing happens to me it's because I closed the lid (causing it to start going to sleep) and then opened it again before it finished (causing it to still be in the "sleep" state with the lid open). Closing and opening the lid again tends to fix it for me.
I turned RIGHT a couple of times driving home today. And look, here's a Wikipedia article about the RIGHT whale. And I bet that guy on the game show last night was happy that he got the RIGHT answer!
Try getting yourself some reading comprehension skills sometime! "Right" is just a word. It has different meanings in different contexts. In particular, there are two kinds of "rights" in relation to the government. There are fundamental rights, as in the Bill of Rights, and there are incidental "rights" which really aren't rights at all, but are rather privileges conferred by the government.
For example, I could say that my driver's license gives me the "right" to drive. But it's not really a right; it's a privilege granted by the government. In contrast, the right to free speech is a fundamental right, because it is inherent and irrevocable.
So, how do you tell the difference between fundamental and incidental rights? Well, when referring to fundamental rights the Constitution uses language like "this right shall not be infringed." It explicitly affirms that the right was preexisting -- not granted by the government -- and that the government cannot take it away. In contrast, the copyright clause says "Congress shall have the power... [to secure the right]." That's not a description of a "right" at all; that's a description of a privilege granted by Congress. Note that "hav[ing] the power" doesn't mean Congress must use that power. If it wanted, Congress could invalidate every copyright in existence simply by passing a law (not an Amendment) abolishing it. Also note that copyrights explicitly may only exist for limited times. They expire. Fundamental rights do not, and cannot, expire; therefore "copyright" is not a right!
The only thing that stops everything from entering the Public Domain immediately is congressional privilege. That privilege is conferred -- or is supposed to be conferred -- only when it would "promote the progress of science and the useful arts." By asserting copyright in such a way that it fails to "promote progress," copyright holders violate their part of the bargain and prevent works that should enter the Public Domain immediately from doing so. That, in a colloquial sense, is "stealing" from the Public Domain.
I advocate using copyright to promote progress, as intended in the Constitution. I oppose people who want to pervert it into performing exactly the opposite function! If you still think that's somehow "hypocrisy," then no word even exists to sufficiently describe how idiotic you are!
...Oh wait, that was Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. Never mind.
Try a Mac. One of the things that initially impressed me most about my old iBook G4 was that sleep actually worked. (I have a Thinkpad X60 tablet now and while sleep mostly works, I never know whether it's going to suspend to RAM or to disk.)
I dunno about you, but I'm currently wasting some Friday!
Let that be a lesson to your brother to stop preordering things!