Suspect its almost entirely an untenable cost position. Be interesting to know how the total costs of production compare. Suspect you would find both (a) the ex factory price of the Intel chips and main boards is a lot lower (b) the associated expenses in Cupertino are enormously lower - eg the costs of supporting newer graphics cards.
They probably decided they had to bite the bullet and get the costs out, and the important costs are not always just the ones in the box.
Look where the debate has started and where it has ended.
We started out saying that the great thing about Apple is the quality of the hardware. We are now saying that the great thing about the hardware is, and is just, the quality of the cases. This is not what most people think of, when they talk about the great build quality.
Its a bit like, you get the same Far Eastern quartz movement, but in a hand tooled solid silver block case. There's nothing wrong with it, its important to some people to whom it will feel better and give great satisfaction. Its just very odd to describe the phenomenon as a better quality clock.
Yes, looked at the pics posted. I'd be interested in what others see. I am seeing the B&O or Design Museum factor. What I am not seeing is better functional industrial design, in the sense of, better cooled components, components easier to swap. I'm not a hardware designer, but the main board doesn't look any better to me than any other main board. But maybe there is something elegant about it that I'm missing?
And yes, I've used old and modern and Western and Japanese wood tools. That is exactly the point. My Japanese chisels came wrapped in brown paper. My Record ones in a nice wooden box. You knew which was which the moment you tried the edge on wood.
"When was the last time you saw a PC case that looks like that?"
When I got my Antec BQE, unclipped the two clips at the side rear, and slid the panel off.
But I'm not terribly hung up on cases as an indicator of quality, and the Antec is not hugely high end. Nice psu, though. Quiet. I guess if you buy the really high end case stuff its more elegant looking. But, whatever, its a case, its the components that really count. The point is is that whatever the aesthetics, as far as functionality is concerned, that's to say, connecting and swapping out components, there is no significant quality difference due to cases.
By the way, I didn't talk about zealots. The social aspects of Apple's branding are a different matter altogether.
Vector Soho, a slackware derivative, is worth looking at. KDE, OpenOffice etc. As fast and light as you can be, with KDE. Has the very nice personal database package tellico with it. A collection manager, but you can customise it to be anything you want. In a small office environment this is a very reasonable choice on older hardware. Installs very easily. You can get used compaqs or dells with P3s and run this stuff quite acceptably fast, and be very secure and stable. Easier for ordinary users not to have multiple file managers, mail clients etc. Great for charities and small low budget educational insititutions.
Well, I did look, and I still do not see it. The inside of a reasonable quality PC case, which is increasingly all of them, have cables running here and there, but I don't see anything wrong with it. They are perfectly functional, they don't get in the way of the cooling. The bays are nicely laid out with easy snap in access. If you are looking at the interiors as aesthetic objects, you may likely prefer the cables and parts to be screened off with perforated stainless steel. But they are not aesthetic objects. The purpose is, for them to make everything connectable, point one, and point two, to allow you to put stuff in and take stuff out as easily as possible. The average x86 case of the same generation as a similar Apple case is about as functional and of about as good quality.
And, if the only point of discussion on quality is whether the cabling is visible, think about that for a moment. There used to be a day when we said Apple was better quality hardware. We meant, nubus cards and scsi drives. In their day, they were way better. Now its down to covering up your cable runs! I don't think they are any worse than average, in terms of hardware quality, but they are certainly no better.
"no one can deny the build quality and attention to detail that goes into Apple hardware"
Well, yes, that's what a lot of us, many of us Apple users, do deny. We have opened the cases, and looked at what's in them, and we just do not see it. We see the same drives, opticals, memory, psus, graphics cards as in our Dell boxes. We see main boards manufactured by, I think, Asus. We don't see any particularly wonderful layout of the components. We don't even see in general better cooled or quieter cases.
And if you think failure rates and quality problems are any different, read Ars Technica. They just are not.
It would be lovely if it were different, especially for us users, but the facts are alas not so.
The difficulty in principle is surely this: recording in a Government database, for access by anyone, facts about a person which are not legally relevant or legally proven.
For example, in a country with socialised medecine, what is wrong with a central database of treatments an individual has had? That's arguably a service. A social security number allows contributions when working for various employers to be summed and credited. But when we come to the concept of a 'troubled' family, or, as in my previous post, when we start recording the religious affliliations of a person, then we start to have real potential problems. After all, what is a 'troubled' family? Could it be one too preoccupied with vegetarianism, feminism, or naturism, academic excellence, untidiness, or something else a social worker doesn't agree with?
You can see this in the UK, with a recent proposal to track children from families with a criminal record, the idea being to 'support' them - they are after all 'at risk'. You saw it in Holland in 1940, when all an occupier had to do to round up people of a certain religion was use the municipal records.
The problem, surely familiar enough to/. readers, is, how to make sure that what gets in a database is factual, and objective, and relevant to the legally defined objectives of that database, not simply a collection of opinions and rumours to be used for any purpose a reader may choose.
In the end, the only way to sanitize is to keep out certain kinds of data, and this would precisely be stuff about 'troubled' families, whatever they are. Isn't the issue that, if there is a legally established history of child abuse, the penalties have to be got right for that offence, and the legally sanctioned powers of the courts have to be used to safeguard the children. This is what you need - something to tackle the particular problem, not some all inclusive database of...what exactly?
You would have thought the Dutch of all people would understand the dangers. In Holland before WWII the local authorities had records of the religion of their people. The reason was simple, so that contributions could be made to the churches on their behalf. All very reasonable and in keeping with tolerance and religious diversity. But come the invasion, it was very very simple to find everyone of a given religion.... It is not what these guys will use this stuff for, its what their successors may use it for.
Well, its labelled a troll, and it is phrased rather intemperately, but it has a lot of truth in it. Particularly the point about openness. It is very striking that in an open source environment a company can be idolised which has locking as an essential component of its marketing strategy. Whether it is locking the OS to its own hardware, or locking its music formats and download service to its players....
It is a real legitimate question to ask: why do people feel it is fine for Apple to do these things, and anathema for MS to do similar things? Why, for example, if MS were to start taking people to court for running Office under Wine, would there be a universal outcry, when if Apple starts taking people to court for buying and running X on Dells, an awful lot of people here would applaud?
But, when you actually read the fine print, this is not what is going on. This case does not say that by conditions on sale the supplier can tell you what to do or not do with what you have bought. It does say that if in consideration of giving you a discount, you enter into an agreement to return the empty case, you have to do that. That is a different thing altogether. It is rather as if MS should give you a rebate on a combined purchase of Windows and Office, provided you did something. You accept the rebate at point of sale, and then don't do it. That is quite different from the situation where you just go and buy stuff, and the manufacturer or seller prints restraints on the label, and tries to stop various sorts of post sale uses.
No, it really does not mean that GM can stop you getting your car serviced elsewhere. What it means is that if they give you a big discount on condition you agree to have it serviced at the dealer, and you accept the discount, they can hold you to it. Very different.
"It's a little to obvious that if Apple really doesn't want Mac OS X running on PCs, they can easily make Aqua apps fail to run in ways that will be very difficult to work around. Mac OS X is not some DOS shell or Linux variant."
This is quite right. It is perfectly lawful to make it technically impossible to run software in certain ways.
The point of the present discussion is quite different though. The point of the present discussion is whether a supplier can, SOLELY BY CONDITIONS OF SALE, restrict what you can install your purchased software on. The answer is, no. In order to think clearly about this, you have to separate out the different issues. Restrictions on post sale use are not the same as copyright restrictions, nor are they the same as technical feasibility restrctions. It is post sale restrictions on use that will not hold up.
It is also, as you say, possible that a company can impose restrictions on use by a sort of 'persuasion'. Yes, that could be. Again, it doesn't affect the point I and others are making, which is that these kinds of restrictions are not legally enforceable.
No, this isn't right either. Its confusing things which are completely different. Its the difference between copyright restrictions, and other non-copyright restrictions on using what you have bought. When you buy software, you buy the right to run a certain number of copies. It can be unlimited, it can be one or two seats, it can be a certain number of simultaneous users. THAT is a matter of copyright law. Similarly, when you buy a book or a record, you have bought one copy, and its copyright law that prevents you making lots more, or broadcasting without paying royalties, and so on. Cpyright law however does not say anything about what particular machine you install the software on, or what player you play the music on.
None of this in any way affects the inability of the seller to place NON COPYRIGHT conditions on use. THAT is what courts will not enforce.
The interesting question in the Exchange Server case is not, can you buy one copy and then, in violation of copyright, install it on 20 machines. Of course you cannot. Not because of the Eula, but because its in violation of copyright.
The interesting question is, can MS stop you, solely by conditions of sale, from installing it on some other OS than Windows? The answer is no. The reason is competition law. For the same reason, they cannot stop you running Office under Wine, regardless of what the Eula says. Any such provisions will be held anti-competitive by US and Euro courts. And for exactly the same reason, Apple cannot stop you running X on the hardware of your choice.
The only condition is, doing this must not involve any other breaches of law. You cannot, for instance, commit DMCA violations in order to make the stuff run. You cannot make copies in violation of copyright. But that is the point. Copyright law cannot be used by any supplier to impose restrictions on what machine you run your purchased software on, within the constraints of copyright.
DVD Jon was acquitted, you know, and he went even further than just running the stuff on a machine different from intended. The courts really will not enforce restrictions on post sale use which do not violate copyright.
Its a list of what I think the law actually is - but the law in question is competition law.
Eulas are not enforceable or not enforceable as a whole. Some provisions may be, and some or not. Any that conflict with competition law will not be.
Installing software, without making unlawful, extra, copies, on a machine other than the one intended by the supplier, cannot be a copyright violation. Copyright violation has to do with unlawful copying, not with installing on one machine which is different from the one the maker had in mind. Yes, if you have to hack around the software itself, you may violate DMCA. The important point though is that you cannot be prevented from such installations SOLELY BY CONDITIONS OF SALE. There has to be a technical barrier as well. Circumventing the technical barrier may be unlawful, but it's the circumvention that is unlawful, not simply using the system on a different machine.
The point about OSX on Intel was exactly this: can a company make it unlawful to run an OS or any other software on machines of its choice SOLELY BY CONDITIONS OF SALE. My contention is, no. The courts will not enforce such conditions.
We could settle this and prove my contention wrong very easily. Just supply one case, either in Europe or the US, where some restriction on post sale use has been upheld. I don't mean cases where, for instance, a warranty has been held void by uses outside the manufacturers spec. I don't mean cases where reverse engineering of an unlawful sort has happened to make the thing work differently. I don't mean cases about copyright violations due to copying. I want to see a case where, when you buy something, there is a condtition on sale which says you undertake not to use it in a certain way, though it is perfectly possible technically to use it out of the box like that. Not to, for instance, run it on a non-Windows OS, though it installs out of the box under Wine and you have a purchased copy. Not to use it on a PC with less than a certain amount of memory, though it runs just fine. Not to use it on machines made by X or Y, though they're no different from those made by Z. Not to export data from it without upgrading to the Export enabled license - though the supplied software exports perfectly well. Not to give more than 5 people network access, though the software itself supports unlimited simultaneous users. Not to play CDs made by X on it, or only to play CDs made by X on X branded CD players. Not to use other peoples blades in the disposable blade knife, though they fit just fine. And so on.
If there are such cases, it would be really interesting to see them. I do not believe there are any, because European courts have consistently refused to enforce post sale restrictions on use, because their enforcement effectively enables anti competitive behaviour of a sort that wipes out aftermarkets and permits linked sales. Linked sales are always one of the great bugbears of competition law. No Euro courts at least are going to help manufacturers implement compulsory linked sales through conditions on sale.
But if there are any cases like that, I'd love to see them.
It would help a lot if people distinguished between a number of different things.
1) Are Eulas are valid and enforceable? Answer: sometimes, it depends on the conditions.
(2) Are copyright laws which prohibit unauthorised reproduction enforceable? Answer, yes.
(3)When I install some software I have bought on a different machine from the one intended by the maker, without making unauthorised copies, is that a copyright violation? Answer, no.
(4) If I make use of some purchased software in a way the maker doesn't want, eg by using networking features which the Eula has said I should not use, is this copyright violation? Answer: no
(5) Are either of the last two prohibitions going to be enforced by the courts if contained in a Eula? Answer: no. Nor even if they are contained in some other agreement. Once you have bought any product, you can use it as you like within its technical capabilities and the general law of the land. No restrictions on use which a supplier tries to impose solely by conditions on sale will hold up, because they will conflict with competition law.
It is a pity that your opponents have substituted invective for discussion. KillShill's point is correct. It has nothing to do with Eulas or piracy. It is simply a fact about competition law. If suppliers were able to prohibit certain uses of their product, and in particular, prevent people from using them with other products, then it would be impossible to prevent linked sales. I am speaking of restrictions which are imposed solely by conditions of sale, and not technical ones. Take a simple case. Can GM stop you installing other brands tires? Yes, if they make different fittings so they will not fit. No if they try to do it by a condition on sale. No also if they try to proceed against people who make and market adaptors, if you can imagine such a thing...
KillShill is right and this is wrong. The reason that post sales restrictions on use cannot be enforced in a EULA has nothing to do with whether EULAs are valid. Sometimes they are, sometimes not - it depends on the conditions. Conditions which prohibit you using the product in technically possible ways, which do not violate copyright, after you have bought it, will not be enforced by the courts. Because, such provisions are contrary to competition law.
I've posted on this before. Microsoft doesn't 'license' their product to be used differently. What happens is, they sell different products with different technical capabilities. This is perfectly fine. In the same way, Apple could prevent X by technical means from running on other computers. Or a game maker could sell a version which could not, technically be networked.
What none of these people can do, in law, is sell identical versions of their products with capabilities that are then selectively made unlawful to use, solely by conditions on sale. That is, MS cannot sell to two people technically identical versions of XP, one of which SOLELY BY A CONDITION OF SALE allows you to run some features, and the other does not.
This is because when you have bought something, you can use it as you like, and suppliers cannot stop you solely by conditions on sale.
"Now maybe someone could set up a Linux computer for a newbie, and maybe that newbie will never have to use the command line, but the person setting it up certainly would have. I'm not saying it's a bad thing to use the command line, in many ways it's more efficient. But to say that you'll almost certainly never use it in Linux is an outright lie"
Think you can - think I actually did - several installs of Mandrake, from 9.0 onwards, without ever using the command line. Suse 9.2 needed one - to do with passwords to use CUPS. But that was all. It depends very much on what you use. Mandriva, don't think its an issue unless you want to use it.
What is really needed is a test case on this one. It is a classic, and if I am right about post sales restraints on use, it will turn out to be unenforceable in court. What they are effectively saying is, this will work perfectly well on certain kinds of devices, but, by conditions on sale only, we are forbidding its use on them. This is no different from GM forbidding you to install certain kinds of tires, Gilette forbidding you to use other people's razor blades, MS forbidding you to run Office under Wine.....or, yes, Apple forbidding you to run a licensed copy of X on a Dell.
It should not hold up in court, because these kinds of restraints on post sale use have never been valid, at least in the EU, and I believe, not in the US either. One should also consider writing to the European Commission, Competition Directorate, for a ruling. It is a wonderfully clear case.
Kjots, the easiest to use. Much improved now you can nest folders.
Gjots, more features.
TreePad (windows version) still more, but harder to use and not free.
Treeline is supposed to be good but I have never got it to work.
Again, there is some confusion. It is correct to say that having bought one product (Office for Windows) you have not bought a different one (Office for Mac). However this is not the issue. The question here is whether, having bought Office for Mac or Windows, you can run it on the OS of your choice, or whether, just by conditions on sale, Microsoft can prevent you from running on a different one. Can they, to be clear, purely by conditions on sale, prevent you from running Office for Windows under Wine? The answer is no. Similarly, having bought OSX, you will have the legal power to run that copy on the hardware of your choice. If anyone knows of real court decisions to the contrary, we would all benefit from hearing about them.
A little confusion between a firms policy on returns, and the ability of conditions on sale to restrict a product's use by the purchaser.
A company can have any sort of policy it wants on returns. But this is a policy on returns, it is not a condition on use.
Similarly, there's a little confusion on copyright and use. Copyright prohibits copying of certain sorts. It does not prohibit some kinds of use.
Similarly, the fact that a company does not warrant its products under some uses does not give it the power to prohibit use. This is the difference between your hard drive not being guaranteed if you break the seal, and you being liable to be sued if you break the seal. The first is OK, the second is a non-starter.
No conditions on sale which restrain post sale use, whether by EULA or even contract, have ever been upheld by any court, to my knowledge. If people know of any cases, please do post them, it would be very interesting indeed.
Amiga people are a very nice, cheerful, friendly, enthusiastic lot. We should all wish them well and hope they carry on having fun with their hobby. The least fanatical lot of enthusiasts you will ever meet.
The key difference between them will be, apart from any differences in the OS itself, that to run OS X, you will have to buy Apple hardware. Solaris or MS, you bring the hardware of your choice. So it won't be a level playing field.
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They probably decided they had to bite the bullet and get the costs out, and the important costs are not always just the ones in the box.
We started out saying that the great thing about Apple is the quality of the hardware. We are now saying that the great thing about the hardware is, and is just, the quality of the cases. This is not what most people think of, when they talk about the great build quality.
Its a bit like, you get the same Far Eastern quartz movement, but in a hand tooled solid silver block case. There's nothing wrong with it, its important to some people to whom it will feel better and give great satisfaction. Its just very odd to describe the phenomenon as a better quality clock.
Yes, looked at the pics posted. I'd be interested in what others see. I am seeing the B&O or Design Museum factor. What I am not seeing is better functional industrial design, in the sense of, better cooled components, components easier to swap. I'm not a hardware designer, but the main board doesn't look any better to me than any other main board. But maybe there is something elegant about it that I'm missing?
And yes, I've used old and modern and Western and Japanese wood tools. That is exactly the point. My Japanese chisels came wrapped in brown paper. My Record ones in a nice wooden box. You knew which was which the moment you tried the edge on wood.
But I'm not terribly hung up on cases as an indicator of quality, and the Antec is not hugely high end. Nice psu, though. Quiet. I guess if you buy the really high end case stuff its more elegant looking. But, whatever, its a case, its the components that really count. The point is is that whatever the aesthetics, as far as functionality is concerned, that's to say, connecting and swapping out components, there is no significant quality difference due to cases.
By the way, I didn't talk about zealots. The social aspects of Apple's branding are a different matter altogether.
Vector Soho, a slackware derivative, is worth looking at. KDE, OpenOffice etc. As fast and light as you can be, with KDE. Has the very nice personal database package tellico with it. A collection manager, but you can customise it to be anything you want. In a small office environment this is a very reasonable choice on older hardware. Installs very easily. You can get used compaqs or dells with P3s and run this stuff quite acceptably fast, and be very secure and stable. Easier for ordinary users not to have multiple file managers, mail clients etc. Great for charities and small low budget educational insititutions.
No, you just boot from the installation CD (or the DVD of 10.1 that was on magazine covers lately) and away you go.
And, if the only point of discussion on quality is whether the cabling is visible, think about that for a moment. There used to be a day when we said Apple was better quality hardware. We meant, nubus cards and scsi drives. In their day, they were way better. Now its down to covering up your cable runs! I don't think they are any worse than average, in terms of hardware quality, but they are certainly no better.
Well, yes, that's what a lot of us, many of us Apple users, do deny. We have opened the cases, and looked at what's in them, and we just do not see it. We see the same drives, opticals, memory, psus, graphics cards as in our Dell boxes. We see main boards manufactured by, I think, Asus. We don't see any particularly wonderful layout of the components. We don't even see in general better cooled or quieter cases.
And if you think failure rates and quality problems are any different, read Ars Technica. They just are not.
It would be lovely if it were different, especially for us users, but the facts are alas not so.
For example, in a country with socialised medecine, what is wrong with a central database of treatments an individual has had? That's arguably a service. A social security number allows contributions when working for various employers to be summed and credited. But when we come to the concept of a 'troubled' family, or, as in my previous post, when we start recording the religious affliliations of a person, then we start to have real potential problems. After all, what is a 'troubled' family? Could it be one too preoccupied with vegetarianism, feminism, or naturism, academic excellence, untidiness, or something else a social worker doesn't agree with?
You can see this in the UK, with a recent proposal to track children from families with a criminal record, the idea being to 'support' them - they are after all 'at risk'. You saw it in Holland in 1940, when all an occupier had to do to round up people of a certain religion was use the municipal records.
The problem, surely familiar enough to /. readers, is, how to make sure that what gets in a database is factual, and objective, and relevant to the legally defined objectives of that database, not simply a collection of opinions and rumours to be used for any purpose a reader may choose.
In the end, the only way to sanitize is to keep out certain kinds of data, and this would precisely be stuff about 'troubled' families, whatever they are. Isn't the issue that, if there is a legally established history of child abuse, the penalties have to be got right for that offence, and the legally sanctioned powers of the courts have to be used to safeguard the children. This is what you need - something to tackle the particular problem, not some all inclusive database of...what exactly?
You would have thought the Dutch of all people would understand the dangers. In Holland before WWII the local authorities had records of the religion of their people. The reason was simple, so that contributions could be made to the churches on their behalf. All very reasonable and in keeping with tolerance and religious diversity. But come the invasion, it was very very simple to find everyone of a given religion.... It is not what these guys will use this stuff for, its what their successors may use it for.
It is a real legitimate question to ask: why do people feel it is fine for Apple to do these things, and anathema for MS to do similar things? Why, for example, if MS were to start taking people to court for running Office under Wine, would there be a universal outcry, when if Apple starts taking people to court for buying and running X on Dells, an awful lot of people here would applaud?
No, it really does not mean that GM can stop you getting your car serviced elsewhere. What it means is that if they give you a big discount on condition you agree to have it serviced at the dealer, and you accept the discount, they can hold you to it. Very different.
This is quite right. It is perfectly lawful to make it technically impossible to run software in certain ways.
The point of the present discussion is quite different though. The point of the present discussion is whether a supplier can, SOLELY BY CONDITIONS OF SALE, restrict what you can install your purchased software on. The answer is, no. In order to think clearly about this, you have to separate out the different issues. Restrictions on post sale use are not the same as copyright restrictions, nor are they the same as technical feasibility restrctions. It is post sale restrictions on use that will not hold up.
It is also, as you say, possible that a company can impose restrictions on use by a sort of 'persuasion'. Yes, that could be. Again, it doesn't affect the point I and others are making, which is that these kinds of restrictions are not legally enforceable.
None of this in any way affects the inability of the seller to place NON COPYRIGHT conditions on use. THAT is what courts will not enforce.
The interesting question in the Exchange Server case is not, can you buy one copy and then, in violation of copyright, install it on 20 machines. Of course you cannot. Not because of the Eula, but because its in violation of copyright.
The interesting question is, can MS stop you, solely by conditions of sale, from installing it on some other OS than Windows? The answer is no. The reason is competition law. For the same reason, they cannot stop you running Office under Wine, regardless of what the Eula says. Any such provisions will be held anti-competitive by US and Euro courts. And for exactly the same reason, Apple cannot stop you running X on the hardware of your choice.
The only condition is, doing this must not involve any other breaches of law. You cannot, for instance, commit DMCA violations in order to make the stuff run. You cannot make copies in violation of copyright. But that is the point. Copyright law cannot be used by any supplier to impose restrictions on what machine you run your purchased software on, within the constraints of copyright.
DVD Jon was acquitted, you know, and he went even further than just running the stuff on a machine different from intended. The courts really will not enforce restrictions on post sale use which do not violate copyright.
Eulas are not enforceable or not enforceable as a whole. Some provisions may be, and some or not. Any that conflict with competition law will not be.
Installing software, without making unlawful, extra, copies, on a machine other than the one intended by the supplier, cannot be a copyright violation. Copyright violation has to do with unlawful copying, not with installing on one machine which is different from the one the maker had in mind. Yes, if you have to hack around the software itself, you may violate DMCA. The important point though is that you cannot be prevented from such installations SOLELY BY CONDITIONS OF SALE. There has to be a technical barrier as well. Circumventing the technical barrier may be unlawful, but it's the circumvention that is unlawful, not simply using the system on a different machine.
The point about OSX on Intel was exactly this: can a company make it unlawful to run an OS or any other software on machines of its choice SOLELY BY CONDITIONS OF SALE. My contention is, no. The courts will not enforce such conditions.
We could settle this and prove my contention wrong very easily. Just supply one case, either in Europe or the US, where some restriction on post sale use has been upheld. I don't mean cases where, for instance, a warranty has been held void by uses outside the manufacturers spec. I don't mean cases where reverse engineering of an unlawful sort has happened to make the thing work differently. I don't mean cases about copyright violations due to copying. I want to see a case where, when you buy something, there is a condtition on sale which says you undertake not to use it in a certain way, though it is perfectly possible technically to use it out of the box like that. Not to, for instance, run it on a non-Windows OS, though it installs out of the box under Wine and you have a purchased copy. Not to use it on a PC with less than a certain amount of memory, though it runs just fine. Not to use it on machines made by X or Y, though they're no different from those made by Z. Not to export data from it without upgrading to the Export enabled license - though the supplied software exports perfectly well. Not to give more than 5 people network access, though the software itself supports unlimited simultaneous users. Not to play CDs made by X on it, or only to play CDs made by X on X branded CD players. Not to use other peoples blades in the disposable blade knife, though they fit just fine. And so on.
If there are such cases, it would be really interesting to see them. I do not believe there are any, because European courts have consistently refused to enforce post sale restrictions on use, because their enforcement effectively enables anti competitive behaviour of a sort that wipes out aftermarkets and permits linked sales. Linked sales are always one of the great bugbears of competition law. No Euro courts at least are going to help manufacturers implement compulsory linked sales through conditions on sale.
But if there are any cases like that, I'd love to see them.
1) Are Eulas are valid and enforceable? Answer: sometimes, it depends on the conditions.
(2) Are copyright laws which prohibit unauthorised reproduction enforceable? Answer, yes.
(3)When I install some software I have bought on a different machine from the one intended by the maker, without making unauthorised copies, is that a copyright violation? Answer, no.
(4) If I make use of some purchased software in a way the maker doesn't want, eg by using networking features which the Eula has said I should not use, is this copyright violation? Answer: no
(5) Are either of the last two prohibitions going to be enforced by the courts if contained in a Eula? Answer: no. Nor even if they are contained in some other agreement. Once you have bought any product, you can use it as you like within its technical capabilities and the general law of the land. No restrictions on use which a supplier tries to impose solely by conditions on sale will hold up, because they will conflict with competition law.
It is a pity that your opponents have substituted invective for discussion. KillShill's point is correct. It has nothing to do with Eulas or piracy. It is simply a fact about competition law. If suppliers were able to prohibit certain uses of their product, and in particular, prevent people from using them with other products, then it would be impossible to prevent linked sales. I am speaking of restrictions which are imposed solely by conditions of sale, and not technical ones. Take a simple case. Can GM stop you installing other brands tires? Yes, if they make different fittings so they will not fit. No if they try to do it by a condition on sale. No also if they try to proceed against people who make and market adaptors, if you can imagine such a thing...
KillShill is right and this is wrong. The reason that post sales restrictions on use cannot be enforced in a EULA has nothing to do with whether EULAs are valid. Sometimes they are, sometimes not - it depends on the conditions. Conditions which prohibit you using the product in technically possible ways, which do not violate copyright, after you have bought it, will not be enforced by the courts. Because, such provisions are contrary to competition law.
What none of these people can do, in law, is sell identical versions of their products with capabilities that are then selectively made unlawful to use, solely by conditions on sale. That is, MS cannot sell to two people technically identical versions of XP, one of which SOLELY BY A CONDITION OF SALE allows you to run some features, and the other does not.
This is because when you have bought something, you can use it as you like, and suppliers cannot stop you solely by conditions on sale.
Think you can - think I actually did - several installs of Mandrake, from 9.0 onwards, without ever using the command line. Suse 9.2 needed one - to do with passwords to use CUPS. But that was all. It depends very much on what you use. Mandriva, don't think its an issue unless you want to use it.
It should not hold up in court, because these kinds of restraints on post sale use have never been valid, at least in the EU, and I believe, not in the US either. One should also consider writing to the European Commission, Competition Directorate, for a ruling. It is a wonderfully clear case.
Kjots, the easiest to use. Much improved now you can nest folders. Gjots, more features. TreePad (windows version) still more, but harder to use and not free. Treeline is supposed to be good but I have never got it to work.
Again, there is some confusion. It is correct to say that having bought one product (Office for Windows) you have not bought a different one (Office for Mac). However this is not the issue. The question here is whether, having bought Office for Mac or Windows, you can run it on the OS of your choice, or whether, just by conditions on sale, Microsoft can prevent you from running on a different one. Can they, to be clear, purely by conditions on sale, prevent you from running Office for Windows under Wine? The answer is no. Similarly, having bought OSX, you will have the legal power to run that copy on the hardware of your choice. If anyone knows of real court decisions to the contrary, we would all benefit from hearing about them.
A company can have any sort of policy it wants on returns. But this is a policy on returns, it is not a condition on use.
Similarly, there's a little confusion on copyright and use. Copyright prohibits copying of certain sorts. It does not prohibit some kinds of use.
Similarly, the fact that a company does not warrant its products under some uses does not give it the power to prohibit use. This is the difference between your hard drive not being guaranteed if you break the seal, and you being liable to be sued if you break the seal. The first is OK, the second is a non-starter.
No conditions on sale which restrain post sale use, whether by EULA or even contract, have ever been upheld by any court, to my knowledge. If people know of any cases, please do post them, it would be very interesting indeed.
Amiga people are a very nice, cheerful, friendly, enthusiastic lot. We should all wish them well and hope they carry on having fun with their hobby. The least fanatical lot of enthusiasts you will ever meet.
The key difference between them will be, apart from any differences in the OS itself, that to run OS X, you will have to buy Apple hardware. Solaris or MS, you bring the hardware of your choice. So it won't be a level playing field.