The spec for W3C can say whatever it wants. If the standards body makes a mistake, like blessing useless DRM where it doesn't belong, the rest of the web will kindly ignore the stupid standard. Seriously, IE isn't standards compliant, what would keep Mozilla, Safari, any of the other browsers from simply ignoring this?
It's easy to get all excited because DRM is mentioned, but we should first have a look how adding this to the web standards would help or hurt anyone. With DRM on music there is a clear penalty: It damages interoperability, and it produces the risk that I might not be able to access my music at some point in the future. But in this case here I would want to know what problems it causes.
My understanding is that with everything properly standardised and implemented, a company X could create a webpage using a font F, so that any standard conforming browser can display it properly (as if the user had the font F installed on their machine), but a user viewing the page has no means to extract the font from the web page and install it permanently on their machine. Now if I buy music I have certain expectations what I can do with it, and DRM can interfere with these expectations. When I view a web page, I have no expectations that I could install the fonts used on my machine, so that is fine to me.
Are there things that I would reasonably expect to be able to do with a web site that won't work because of this DRM? Is the spec open so that every browser can implement it without legal problems? Does it create any problems for web designers? (It shouldn't, because any web designer would be free not to use this feature).
No. Dell is interested in profit, and why sell an OS that's both more expensive and in less demand than what they currently have? now, they *might* have thought about it had Apple offered to license them OSX for less than what they pay for Windows OEM licenses, but given how long it took them to offer Linux (which is not only free, but with higher demand in the business sector), the odds aren't that high either.
Michael Dell says you are wrong. See this article, published in June 2005, that is three years ago when Apple sold half as many computers as they sell now:
Apple claims that installing the software on the computer's hard drive counts as making a copy. It's a bullshit argument, but it's the same reasoning as is behind all EULAs, and at least some courts (e.g. the one that decided Blizzard vs. Glider) were stupid enough to buy it.
Excuse me, but how is installing software on your hard drive not making a copy?
didn't someone on ebay already win that one in court? You know with that really expensive software they were reselling and the company that made it was trying to control it and say nobody could resell the license or whatever. Yeah the company lost so if that's how the judge looks at this, Apple is screwed.
A court ruled that a EULA cannot prevent me from reselling the software. But Psystar isn't doing just that: They are, in violation of the terms of the EULA, installing MacOS X on their computers. They are not allowed to do that.
There are certain rights, like the right to resell the software, that a EULA cannot take away from you. There are other things, like restricting you to install software only on certain hardware, that are legal and binding in a EULA. There are some rules in place to protect consumers; these wouldn't apply to a company, like Psystar in this case.
Loading software into RAM or storing it on disk should fall under fair use, perhaps the Glider folks just had poor counsel and failed to argue that so long as they (the Glider folks) weren't distributing Blizzard's code anywhere, the end user could do so either manually or programmatically and it'd be fair use./quote?
Loading software into RAM doesn't fall under "fair use". "Fair use" allows you to make quotes from copyrighted material, like quoting a small part of a scientific work, or quoting parts in a review, or using bits in a parody, etc. Loading software into RAM is explicitly allowed by copyright law, and it has nothing to do with "fair use" at all, but only provided that the software is installed legally in the first place!
It's not just "the disc"; it's your disc. You are authorizing them to copy and adapt the software.
I seriously doubt that Psystar can show that they have authorisation to copy MacOS X from any of their customers. And if you had bought a Psystar computer with MacOS X installed, and Psystar would ask you to confirm that they installed MacOS X on your behalf, would you do that and risk being sued for copyright infringement?
Woah there, easy on the indoctrination. Noone is stealing anything. Apple are getting PAID the full price for this software. It's not even copyright infringement. It's maybe breach of contract on a very dubious contract. Not even the RIAA (yet) are trying to equate breach of contract with theft.
Apple is not getting paid the full price. The price of a retail copy of MacOS X is calculated under the assumption that because of the license terms, the only people who can buy and use it are existing Apple customers who paid a lot of money for Apple hardware. One reason to buy a Macintosh today is the knowledge that you will be able to buy an upgrade of the operating system in a few years for a very reasonable price. If a copy of Leopard is bought with the sole intention of running MacOS X while avoiding to buy a hardware from Apple, then Apple would either want to charge a lot more than $129 for it, or not allow the sale at all (which is what they are doing).
Your second argument is that this is not copyright infringement, but breach of a contract. This is wrong, and exactly this has been established just recently in the Jacobson vs. Katzer case. If the license says "you can only install on an Apple-labeled computer", then installing it somewhere else is copyright infringement, not breach of contract. As in the Jacobson/Katzer case, where software was copied in breach of a GPL-like license, if the license states "you can (only) make a copy if you meet certain conditions", then making a copy without meeting the conditions is copyright infringement, not breach of contract.
I think you're wrong. 17 USC 117 allows "the owner of a copy of a computer program to make or authorize the making of another copy" in order to run it. If I buy a computer and a copy of OS X from Psystar, I can install the OS myself, or I can authorize Psystar to do it on my behalf at the factory.
What this means: If you bought a DVD with MacOS X and install it on a Macintosh (which obviously involves making a copy of the software on your hard drive), Apple cannot be an ass about it and sue it. If you own a company, bought a DVD with MacOS X and you ask an employee to install it on his Macintosh, instead of you (the owner) doing it yourself, Apple can still not sue you. If Time Machine backs up your hard drive, making a copy of MacOS X while doing it, Apple cannot sue you. If you start your Mac, and parts of the operating system get loaded into RAM, Apple can't sue you. Even if you send your MacMini to Psystar and authorize them to copy MacOS X onto your MacMini on your behalf, Apple still cannot sue anybody. But all these things require that you have used that copy according to the terms of the license. If anyone installs the software on a non-Apple computer, that is copyright infringement, and all the other copies that are made during normal use are also copyright infringements.
The language is ambiguous: does "Apple-labeled" mean "labeled by Apple" or "labeled with an Apple logo?" I choose to believe it means the latter; the fact that Apple supplies Apple logo stickers in the OS X package supports this position. I mean, what else are they supposed to be used for, if not to "Apple-label" the computer you're installing the OS on?
Should you ever end up in a court, that kind of argument is what will make a judge really annoyed and make him double whatever fine he or she was going to give you.
Why do they have to eliminate retail sales? They can just require anyone buying a copy of OSX to supply evidence of the owner of a genuine Mac. Anyone who cannot supply such evidence simply does not get to buy a copy.
Why make customers go to all that effort? Just put into the license agreement "this software can only be installed on an Apple-labeled computer". Trust in the customers honesty, and if someone is not only dishonest, but right in your face about it, you sue them. Oh, I forgot: That is what they are doing right now.
You can install Windows on a Mac. And that's fine. But install OSX on a PC and Apple throws a hissy fit... Am I missing something here?
Yes. If you want to install Windows on a Mac, you need to ask Microsoft (can I install your OS on a Mac) who says "yes", and you need to ask Apple (can I install Windows on your computer), who also says "yes". Apple says "yes" because they try to be nice to customers who bought expensive Apple hardware.
If you want to install MacOS X on a PC, you need to ask the PC maker (no idea what they think about it), and you have to ask Apple (can I install MacOS X on my Dell?) who says "no". Apple says "no" because they don't want anyone but customers who bought expensive Apple hardware to use their OS.
For EULA to be valid, the company has to provide me a copy of EULA to review before I purchase the software, otherwise it is invalid... and even if court found me guilty for breaking EULA there's no punishment for me as law says nothing about it.
The first part is not true: The company has to allow you to return the software for a refund, that is all. And "breaking EULAs" is not the problem: The EULA states what you are allowed to do and what not; you wouldn't be punished for breaking the EULA but for doing something without permission. In this case, installing MacOS X on a computer that is not Apple-labeled is copyright infringement. If Psystar does it, it is for commercial gain and there may be a jail sentence, but at least the usual $750 to $150,000 per copy. If Psystar entices its user to install MacOS X on a non-Apple computer, then it is interfering with Apple's business.
Apple may not be allowed that option. Remember they are challenging Apple on Monopoly grounds. If they win Apple can be mandated to do or not do certain things that wouldn't apply to normal companies.
Except that the product that is supposed to be a "monopoly" is an operating system, and Psystar has at least two other choices of operating systems: The one from the market leader, Microsoft, with 90 percent or more market share, and the other one Linux, which they can even distribute without license fees.
The big question here is what kind of product the boxed version of Mac OS X really is.
That question is really easy to answer by looking at the license, and all your three answer were wrong. The license allows you to install one copy of the software on one Apple-labeled computer. It doesn't have to be an upgrade, so it is fine if you deleted your old copy of MacOS X, or if you install it on an Apple-labeled computer that never had MacOS X installed (or never had any MacOS version installed). In practice, it will usually be purchased by people who would otherwise buy an upgrade version.
Wow. I thought Psystar was going to get crushed, and then suddenly I see their angle. They might have a case here.
Bloody nonsense. Psystar claims that Apple prevents them from selling computers. Reality is that Dell, HP, and all the other companies are quite successfully selling computers without MacOS X, and if Psystar wants to sell the computer, they can just do the same as Dell, HP and everyone else in that business and install OEM copies of Windows, or Linux, or whatever other operating system they can find where the copyright holder is willing to give them a license, or write their own OS like Apple did.
Don't you think if there was any legal angle that could force Apple to license their OS, Dell wouldn't have gone after them at least a year ago?
I really hope Psystar wins this one. Apple (and they aren't the only one, just the subject on hand at the moment) really needs to get told where to stick their monopolistic behavior. If you release a product to the market, then you have no business telling people what they can and can't do with it once they've bought it.
I think you will be disappointed. And seriously, guys, who rated that post as "insightful"?
Given how closely Apple has worked with Intel before and after the processor switch from PowerPC, I wonder how much more Hyper-Threading aware OS X 10.6 (AKA Snow Leopard) will be?
I don't think an operating system actually needs very much support for Hyperthreading.
Of course the OS needs to know about Hyperthreading and not schedule two threads to run on the same core while any other core is completely unused (so hyperthreading would only be used if number of running threads > number of cores). And if different threads have different priorities, you would want to use hyperthreading for threads with low priority and use a full core for a thread with higher priority. If the OS gives statistics of CPU usage, you might want to count time running hyperthreaded a bit lower.
Apart from that, I don't think there is much to do. MacOS X already knows that processors are not completely symmetric, so a programmer can say that two threads should run on cores that are close together (better with lots of communication between threads) or on cores that are far apart (better for independent threads). It probably should be possible to turn hyperthreading off for things like profiling and measuring performance, because hyperthreaded timings and timings without HT cannot be compared.
This is the British Broadcasting Corporation so yes they are both completely patent free because there are no software patents allowed in the UK. It may be a problem for those in the US but why should the BBC worry about that?
This is complete bollocks. I am sure that the nice guys who created Ogg Vorbis and Dirac have tried to step past any patents in the way (I think there are about 200 or so on the mp3 format) and haven't patented anything themselves, but that doesn't mean they are not infringing on any patent, and it definitely doesn't mean you can't be sued if you use these formats.
Look at mp3: There is a huge industry consortium that didn't prevent patents, but instead collected all the patents, so you can license them easily together at a very reasonable price, which is what everybody does, and which is why mp3 is so widespread. And what happens? Some patent troll comes out of the woodworks and tries to sue Microsoft for 2 billion dollars for two patents (after Microsoft paid an estimated 80 million for a license to 200 patents). Same would happen with Ogg Vorbis or Dirac if they are in wide use.
The bottom line here is that Apple sells OS X in stores, without them being clearly marked as an "upgrade". Therefore, since it's not an upgrade version the user is free to attempt to install it on any system he chooses. No?
They are clearly marked as "only licensed to be installed on an Apple-labeled computer". You are allowed to install it on an Apple II computer that has never seen any version of MacOS. Or on a Macintosh before 2001 that never had MacOS X installed. But not on a Dell, HP etc.
As the Supreme Court said in United States v. Loew's, Inc, "Even absent a showing of market dominance, the crucial economic power may be inferred from the tying product's desirability to consumers or from uniqueness in its attributes." That's a famous case, and broke the power of the movie studios over film distribution.
The "tying product" in this case would be Macintosh computers. Since Psystar doesn't intend to sell Macintosh computers, and Apple doesn't refuse to sell Macintosh computers to them, I really cannot see how this is related to this case. This case would apply if Apple actively prevented Windows from running on Macs, and Microsoft complained about it.
If Apple wants to restrict the use of OSX to Apple computers, there are plenty of legitimate ways to do it-- the best of which would be to only offer upgrades and support for verified legitimate hardware, or to sell the hardware on the merits of the hardware itself, and make it that illegitimate machines have a lessened user experience by virtue of inferior hardware.
There is another, totally legitimate and much more efficient way: Put a license on the box that only allows installation on Apple-labeled hardware. Rely on the honesty of users instead of the DRM measures that you propose, and if some idiot forces you to take them to court by blatantly going against that license, then you sue them.
I don't remember the exact cases (I'm sure some other/.er will know for sure), but I seem to recall that EULAs have already been put to the test in multiple cases and been shot down. *I found one regarding right of first sale, which is somewhat related to the topic at hand: http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=01/11/28/1551200
EULAs have never been "shot down" per se, but a seller can try to put terms into a EULA that _can_ be shot down.
Apple must allow you to resell a box (first sales doctrine). However, that must be with unmodified software, and with no copies of the software made. And Psystar is enticing customers to install Leopard on a non-Apple labeled computer which is against the license.
Apple must allow you to modify the software if that is necessary to install it, say on a dual 500 MHz G4 computer. But that only applies if the installation itself is allowed to the EULA. Installing on an untested Macintosh is unsupported, but clearly allowed by the EULA. Even installing on an Apple II computer is allowed by the EULA. Installing on a PC isn't, and therefore modifying Leopard to install it on a PC is not allowed.
Because Apple doesn't mind if Psystar buys ten thousand used Macs running MacOS X 10.4, buys ten thousand boxes with 10.5, installs them on those Macs and sells them on for a higher price. And because Apple doesn't check the identity of people buying MacOS X.
If I go to purchase OSX, on the outside of the box, does it say "Upgrade" on it somewhere or "must be run on Apple-branded hardware" on it somewhere?
If it only says that inside the box or inside the box after you purchase it or electronically in the EULA then I am against Apple on this.
It says "must be installed only on Apple labeled computers". I haven't even checked where exactly it says that. However, Psystar has been buying more than one of these boxes. We _might_ consider that they didn't know they don't have a license to install it on their computers when opened the first box to get the DVDs out. On the second box and all further boxes, there is no excuse.
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The spec for W3C can say whatever it wants. If the standards body makes a mistake, like blessing useless DRM where it doesn't belong, the rest of the web will kindly ignore the stupid standard. Seriously, IE isn't standards compliant, what would keep Mozilla, Safari, any of the other browsers from simply ignoring this?
It's easy to get all excited because DRM is mentioned, but we should first have a look how adding this to the web standards would help or hurt anyone. With DRM on music there is a clear penalty: It damages interoperability, and it produces the risk that I might not be able to access my music at some point in the future. But in this case here I would want to know what problems it causes.
My understanding is that with everything properly standardised and implemented, a company X could create a webpage using a font F, so that any standard conforming browser can display it properly (as if the user had the font F installed on their machine), but a user viewing the page has no means to extract the font from the web page and install it permanently on their machine. Now if I buy music I have certain expectations what I can do with it, and DRM can interfere with these expectations. When I view a web page, I have no expectations that I could install the fonts used on my machine, so that is fine to me.
Are there things that I would reasonably expect to be able to do with a web site that won't work because of this DRM? Is the spec open so that every browser can implement it without legal problems? Does it create any problems for web designers? (It shouldn't, because any web designer would be free not to use this feature).
No. Dell is interested in profit, and why sell an OS that's both more expensive and in less demand than what they currently have? now, they *might* have thought about it had Apple offered to license them OSX for less than what they pay for Windows OEM licenses, but given how long it took them to offer Linux (which is not only free, but with higher demand in the business sector), the odds aren't that high either.
Michael Dell says you are wrong. See this article, published in June 2005, that is three years ago when Apple sold half as many computers as they sell now:
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20050616-5002.html
Apple claims that installing the software on the computer's hard drive counts as making a copy. It's a bullshit argument, but it's the same reasoning as is behind all EULAs, and at least some courts (e.g. the one that decided Blizzard vs. Glider) were stupid enough to buy it.
Excuse me, but how is installing software on your hard drive not making a copy?
didn't someone on ebay already win that one in court? You know with that really expensive software they were reselling and the company that made it was trying to control it and say nobody could resell the license or whatever. Yeah the company lost so if that's how the judge looks at this, Apple is screwed.
A court ruled that a EULA cannot prevent me from reselling the software. But Psystar isn't doing just that: They are, in violation of the terms of the EULA, installing MacOS X on their computers. They are not allowed to do that.
There are certain rights, like the right to resell the software, that a EULA cannot take away from you. There are other things, like restricting you to install software only on certain hardware, that are legal and binding in a EULA. There are some rules in place to protect consumers; these wouldn't apply to a company, like Psystar in this case.
Loading software into RAM or storing it on disk should fall under fair use, perhaps the Glider folks just had poor counsel and failed to argue that so long as they (the Glider folks) weren't distributing Blizzard's code anywhere, the end user could do so either manually or programmatically and it'd be fair use./quote? Loading software into RAM doesn't fall under "fair use". "Fair use" allows you to make quotes from copyrighted material, like quoting a small part of a scientific work, or quoting parts in a review, or using bits in a parody, etc. Loading software into RAM is explicitly allowed by copyright law, and it has nothing to do with "fair use" at all, but only provided that the software is installed legally in the first place!
It's not just "the disc"; it's your disc. You are authorizing them to copy and adapt the software.
I seriously doubt that Psystar can show that they have authorisation to copy MacOS X from any of their customers. And if you had bought a Psystar computer with MacOS X installed, and Psystar would ask you to confirm that they installed MacOS X on your behalf, would you do that and risk being sued for copyright infringement?
Woah there, easy on the indoctrination. Noone is stealing anything. Apple are getting PAID the full price for this software. It's not even copyright infringement. It's maybe breach of contract on a very dubious contract. Not even the RIAA (yet) are trying to equate breach of contract with theft.
Apple is not getting paid the full price. The price of a retail copy of MacOS X is calculated under the assumption that because of the license terms, the only people who can buy and use it are existing Apple customers who paid a lot of money for Apple hardware. One reason to buy a Macintosh today is the knowledge that you will be able to buy an upgrade of the operating system in a few years for a very reasonable price. If a copy of Leopard is bought with the sole intention of running MacOS X while avoiding to buy a hardware from Apple, then Apple would either want to charge a lot more than $129 for it, or not allow the sale at all (which is what they are doing).
Your second argument is that this is not copyright infringement, but breach of a contract. This is wrong, and exactly this has been established just recently in the Jacobson vs. Katzer case. If the license says "you can only install on an Apple-labeled computer", then installing it somewhere else is copyright infringement, not breach of contract. As in the Jacobson/Katzer case, where software was copied in breach of a GPL-like license, if the license states "you can (only) make a copy if you meet certain conditions", then making a copy without meeting the conditions is copyright infringement, not breach of contract.
I think you're wrong. 17 USC 117 allows "the owner of a copy of a computer program to make or authorize the making of another copy" in order to run it. If I buy a computer and a copy of OS X from Psystar, I can install the OS myself, or I can authorize Psystar to do it on my behalf at the factory.
What this means: If you bought a DVD with MacOS X and install it on a Macintosh (which obviously involves making a copy of the software on your hard drive), Apple cannot be an ass about it and sue it. If you own a company, bought a DVD with MacOS X and you ask an employee to install it on his Macintosh, instead of you (the owner) doing it yourself, Apple can still not sue you. If Time Machine backs up your hard drive, making a copy of MacOS X while doing it, Apple cannot sue you. If you start your Mac, and parts of the operating system get loaded into RAM, Apple can't sue you. Even if you send your MacMini to Psystar and authorize them to copy MacOS X onto your MacMini on your behalf, Apple still cannot sue anybody. But all these things require that you have used that copy according to the terms of the license. If anyone installs the software on a non-Apple computer, that is copyright infringement, and all the other copies that are made during normal use are also copyright infringements.
The language is ambiguous: does "Apple-labeled" mean "labeled by Apple" or "labeled with an Apple logo?" I choose to believe it means the latter; the fact that Apple supplies Apple logo stickers in the OS X package supports this position. I mean, what else are they supposed to be used for, if not to "Apple-label" the computer you're installing the OS on?
Should you ever end up in a court, that kind of argument is what will make a judge really annoyed and make him double whatever fine he or she was going to give you.
Why do they have to eliminate retail sales? They can just require anyone buying a copy of OSX to supply evidence of the owner of a genuine Mac. Anyone who cannot supply such evidence simply does not get to buy a copy.
Why make customers go to all that effort? Just put into the license agreement "this software can only be installed on an Apple-labeled computer". Trust in the customers honesty, and if someone is not only dishonest, but right in your face about it, you sue them. Oh, I forgot: That is what they are doing right now.
You can install Windows on a Mac. And that's fine. But install OSX on a PC and Apple throws a hissy fit... Am I missing something here?
Yes. If you want to install Windows on a Mac, you need to ask Microsoft (can I install your OS on a Mac) who says "yes", and you need to ask Apple (can I install Windows on your computer), who also says "yes". Apple says "yes" because they try to be nice to customers who bought expensive Apple hardware.
If you want to install MacOS X on a PC, you need to ask the PC maker (no idea what they think about it), and you have to ask Apple (can I install MacOS X on my Dell?) who says "no". Apple says "no" because they don't want anyone but customers who bought expensive Apple hardware to use their OS.
For EULA to be valid, the company has to provide me a copy of EULA to review before I purchase the software, otherwise it is invalid... and even if court found me guilty for breaking EULA there's no punishment for me as law says nothing about it.
The first part is not true: The company has to allow you to return the software for a refund, that is all. And "breaking EULAs" is not the problem: The EULA states what you are allowed to do and what not; you wouldn't be punished for breaking the EULA but for doing something without permission. In this case, installing MacOS X on a computer that is not Apple-labeled is copyright infringement. If Psystar does it, it is for commercial gain and there may be a jail sentence, but at least the usual $750 to $150,000 per copy. If Psystar entices its user to install MacOS X on a non-Apple computer, then it is interfering with Apple's business.
Apple may not be allowed that option. Remember they are challenging Apple on Monopoly grounds. If they win Apple can be mandated to do or not do certain things that wouldn't apply to normal companies.
Except that the product that is supposed to be a "monopoly" is an operating system, and Psystar has at least two other choices of operating systems: The one from the market leader, Microsoft, with 90 percent or more market share, and the other one Linux, which they can even distribute without license fees.
The big question here is what kind of product the boxed version of Mac OS X really is.
That question is really easy to answer by looking at the license, and all your three answer were wrong. The license allows you to install one copy of the software on one Apple-labeled computer. It doesn't have to be an upgrade, so it is fine if you deleted your old copy of MacOS X, or if you install it on an Apple-labeled computer that never had MacOS X installed (or never had any MacOS version installed). In practice, it will usually be purchased by people who would otherwise buy an upgrade version.
Wow. I thought Psystar was going to get crushed, and then suddenly I see their angle. They might have a case here.
Bloody nonsense. Psystar claims that Apple prevents them from selling computers. Reality is that Dell, HP, and all the other companies are quite successfully selling computers without MacOS X, and if Psystar wants to sell the computer, they can just do the same as Dell, HP and everyone else in that business and install OEM copies of Windows, or Linux, or whatever other operating system they can find where the copyright holder is willing to give them a license, or write their own OS like Apple did.
Don't you think if there was any legal angle that could force Apple to license their OS, Dell wouldn't have gone after them at least a year ago?
I really hope Psystar wins this one. Apple (and they aren't the only one, just the subject on hand at the moment) really needs to get told where to stick their monopolistic behavior. If you release a product to the market, then you have no business telling people what they can and can't do with it once they've bought it.
I think you will be disappointed. And seriously, guys, who rated that post as "insightful"?
Given how closely Apple has worked with Intel before and after the processor switch from PowerPC, I wonder how much more Hyper-Threading aware OS X 10.6 (AKA Snow Leopard) will be?
I don't think an operating system actually needs very much support for Hyperthreading.
Of course the OS needs to know about Hyperthreading and not schedule two threads to run on the same core while any other core is completely unused (so hyperthreading would only be used if number of running threads > number of cores). And if different threads have different priorities, you would want to use hyperthreading for threads with low priority and use a full core for a thread with higher priority. If the OS gives statistics of CPU usage, you might want to count time running hyperthreaded a bit lower.
Apart from that, I don't think there is much to do. MacOS X already knows that processors are not completely symmetric, so a programmer can say that two threads should run on cores that are close together (better with lots of communication between threads) or on cores that are far apart (better for independent threads). It probably should be possible to turn hyperthreading off for things like profiling and measuring performance, because hyperthreaded timings and timings without HT cannot be compared.
What's with the Hebrew? Nehalem? Are these the chips Mossad uses to accelerate the backdoor access to the Israeli-coded crypto cyphers? :-)
Nehalem is a small town in Oregon, USA.
This is the British Broadcasting Corporation so yes they are both completely patent free because there are no software patents allowed in the UK. It may be a problem for those in the US but why should the BBC worry about that?
This is complete bollocks. I am sure that the nice guys who created Ogg Vorbis and Dirac have tried to step past any patents in the way (I think there are about 200 or so on the mp3 format) and haven't patented anything themselves, but that doesn't mean they are not infringing on any patent, and it definitely doesn't mean you can't be sued if you use these formats.
Look at mp3: There is a huge industry consortium that didn't prevent patents, but instead collected all the patents, so you can license them easily together at a very reasonable price, which is what everybody does, and which is why mp3 is so widespread. And what happens? Some patent troll comes out of the woodworks and tries to sue Microsoft for 2 billion dollars for two patents (after Microsoft paid an estimated 80 million for a license to 200 patents). Same would happen with Ogg Vorbis or Dirac if they are in wide use.
The bottom line here is that Apple sells OS X in stores, without them being clearly marked as an "upgrade". Therefore, since it's not an upgrade version the user is free to attempt to install it on any system he chooses. No?
They are clearly marked as "only licensed to be installed on an Apple-labeled computer". You are allowed to install it on an Apple II computer that has never seen any version of MacOS. Or on a Macintosh before 2001 that never had MacOS X installed. But not on a Dell, HP etc.
As the Supreme Court said in United States v. Loew's, Inc, "Even absent a showing of market dominance, the crucial economic power may be inferred from the tying product's desirability to consumers or from uniqueness in its attributes." That's a famous case, and broke the power of the movie studios over film distribution.
The "tying product" in this case would be Macintosh computers. Since Psystar doesn't intend to sell Macintosh computers, and Apple doesn't refuse to sell Macintosh computers to them, I really cannot see how this is related to this case. This case would apply if Apple actively prevented Windows from running on Macs, and Microsoft complained about it.
If Apple wants to restrict the use of OSX to Apple computers, there are plenty of legitimate ways to do it-- the best of which would be to only offer upgrades and support for verified legitimate hardware, or to sell the hardware on the merits of the hardware itself, and make it that illegitimate machines have a lessened user experience by virtue of inferior hardware.
There is another, totally legitimate and much more efficient way: Put a license on the box that only allows installation on Apple-labeled hardware. Rely on the honesty of users instead of the DRM measures that you propose, and if some idiot forces you to take them to court by blatantly going against that license, then you sue them.
Sorry, that's exactly what Apple does.
I don't remember the exact cases (I'm sure some other /.er will know for sure), but I seem to recall that EULAs have already been put to the test in multiple cases and been shot down. *I found one regarding right of first sale, which is somewhat related to the topic at hand: http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=01/11/28/1551200
EULAs have never been "shot down" per se, but a seller can try to put terms into a EULA that _can_ be shot down.
Apple must allow you to resell a box (first sales doctrine). However, that must be with unmodified software, and with no copies of the software made. And Psystar is enticing customers to install Leopard on a non-Apple labeled computer which is against the license.
Apple must allow you to modify the software if that is necessary to install it, say on a dual 500 MHz G4 computer. But that only applies if the installation itself is allowed to the EULA. Installing on an untested Macintosh is unsupported, but clearly allowed by the EULA. Even installing on an Apple II computer is allowed by the EULA. Installing on a PC isn't, and therefore modifying Leopard to install it on a PC is not allowed.
Why does Apple keep selling OS X to Pystar then?
Because Apple doesn't mind if Psystar buys ten thousand used Macs running MacOS X 10.4, buys ten thousand boxes with 10.5, installs them on those Macs and sells them on for a higher price. And because Apple doesn't check the identity of people buying MacOS X.
If I go to purchase OSX, on the outside of the box, does it say "Upgrade" on it somewhere or "must be run on Apple-branded hardware" on it somewhere?
If it only says that inside the box or inside the box after you purchase it or electronically in the EULA then I am against Apple on this.
It says "must be installed only on Apple labeled computers". I haven't even checked where exactly it says that. However, Psystar has been buying more than one of these boxes. We _might_ consider that they didn't know they don't have a license to install it on their computers when opened the first box to get the DVDs out. On the second box and all further boxes, there is no excuse.