Psystar "Definitely Still Shipping" Mac Clones 833
Preedit writes "Continuing its defiance of Apple, Psystar is reassuring customers that it is "definitely still shipping" its line of Mac clones. And, in a further nose-thumbing at Steve Jobs, Psystar this week said it's now making Leopard restore disks available to its customers, even as Apple insists that Mac clones sold to date be recalled.
In its story on the latest developments, Infoweek is reporting that tiny Psystar apparently has no intention of backing down in its legal dispute with the much larger Apple."
Re:Plus ça change, plus c'est la même ch (Score:4, Informative)
I think Compaq had Microsoft and some part of Government/Corporate scene who is very afraid of IBM monopoly behind them.
Microsoft was allowed to license MS-DOS to _anyone which wants_ from the beginning. It is part of their agreement with IBM and it is why BillG and Ballmer are called "visionary". There is no such thing on OS X. Apple believes in integrated hardware/software combination from the very beginning.
Having reports like "I pressed power button but my Mac slept 10 secs later, it must be broken" is very common on Apple scene. It is nothing on a PC running Windows or Clone OS X.
What those idiots did is also convincing Apple that clones/licensed machines was always a bad idea. They ship JUNK PC.
Not clones! (Score:3, Informative)
Psystar ships its own flavor of hackintosh... they are not clones. I don't get the persistence of the label. Is it just the desire of folks to have an actual clone as a choice to run OS X that keeps the term active in discussions?
Re:Follow the money (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Follow the money (Score:2, Informative)
If you had read the article you'd see that they hired what it seems to suggest is a high profile law firm which has dealt with Apple before. I don't think they're "hiding", or skipping court.
Re:Futile (Score:4, Informative)
Re:WRONG!! (Score:5, Informative)
That reputation may apply to their software, but it doesn't apply to their hardware. Even Apple fans acknowledge that the first generation of almost anything is rather likely to expose some pretty significant flaws that, for some reason, never revealed itself during testing prior to release. I recall the overheating MacBookPro line... That should have been pretty darned obvious. But not every Apple fan acknowledges this... I had a vice president in my company acknowledge that he waited more than 4 hours to get the 3G iPhone and he has been rather disappointed in various aspects of its performance since.
Re:It's simply the Mac business model (Score:5, Informative)
Does this qualify as fanboy bullshit? Why? I'm just saying if you don't like it, don't use it. But the facts speak for themselves. People hate Vista, the average Joe can't/won't figure out linux, and people generally enjoy the Apple experience.
Those opinions you express are not facts. They are, as you accurately phrase it, 'fanboy bullshit'.
Re:Good for them... (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Futile (Score:3, Informative)
As I understand it, they are not actually pirating OS X, they merely install retail copies of Apple OS on unblessed hardware, albeit breaking the TOS.
Psystar is going to win (Score:5, Informative)
Psystar is going to win this as long as Apple sells their OS as a boxed product.
Insisting that Apple's separately sold software has to be run on Apple's hardware is an unenforceable and illegal tying arrangement under US antitrust law. This exact issue has come up before in 734 F.2d 1336 DIGIDYNE CORP. v. DATA GENERAL. [precydent.com]. The Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled: The issue presented for review is whether Data General's refusal to license its NOVA operating system software except to purchasers of its NOVA central processing units (CPUs) is an unlawful tying arrangement under section 1 of the Sherman Act, 15 U.S.C. Sec. 1 (1976) and section 3 of the Clayton Act, 15 U.S.C. Sec. 14 (1976). We conclude that it is.
That's clear enough.
In antitrust tying cases, it's very unusual for a tying provision in a contract to be found legally enforceable. A more common situation is that some victim of a tying arrangement wants a court to compel the company in a monopoly position to do something, like sell them spare parts. [precydent.com] Even then, the tying company usually loses.
Re:Futile (Score:5, Informative)
While your right that Psystar is violating the EULA and that its not clear if the EULA is enforceable I do not believe that is the core of Apples case (mostly because they don't want to find out that their EULA is unenforceable).
I believe they are suing because Psystar modified and redistributed the software updates from apple which is a violation of copyright law. Apple didn't sue them when they first shipped units with OS X installed they waited until they had distributed a modified software update for just this reason.
Re:Good for them... (Score:3, Informative)
Because it's an end-user license agreement, not a distribution license. If copyright law were sensible, this would be completely invalid. If you buy a book, you don't need a license to read it, because this right is automatically granted to you by copyright. You don't need a license to pull out the pages, paste them together in a different order, set fire to the book, or anything else. You would only need a license if you wanted to sell or give away copies of the book.
For software, companies are exploiting the technicality that you need to copy software into RAM (and often onto the hard disk) to be able to use it. Since you need to copy it to use it, they reason, you need an explicit license to do this, rather than the implicit license from copyright law. This makes copyright very one-sided. If I buy a book, I can do whatever I want with it. If I buy software, I can only use it how the seller decides I should use it.
Licenses like the GPL are different because they control distribution. If someone gives you some GPL'd software, you can use it however you like. The GPL explicitly forbids them from imposing any further conditions on you. If you want to distribute (modified or unmodified) copies of it, then the GPL also grants you permission to do this as long as you agree to some terms.
Your comment about Apple spending a ton of money is a red herring. Psystar are buying copies of OS X from Apple. For every Psystar sale, Apple gets the retail price of a copy of OS X (around $129, if I remember correctly). I'd be surprised if they make as much from the sale of a Mac Mini.
Re:Good for them... (Score:2, Informative)
Re:This company needs to be shut down (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Question (Score:2, Informative)
BeOS tried selling an x86 OS and failed. NeXT tried selling an x86 OS and failed.
Apple tried licensing MacOS 8 to 3rd parties and saw their hardware sales canabalized without increasing OS sales enough to compensate.
Re:Good for them... (Score:3, Informative)
The GPL gives you rights that copyright would not normally allow. EULAs take away rights that the doctrine of first sale would normally permit. That's the difference.
Re:Good for them... (Score:4, Informative)
None of which are in the public domain nor BSD, yet Psystar is distributing.
You misspelled "reselling".
Re:Its the restore disks that will be their downfa (Score:1, Informative)
I've been following the OXS86 scene pretty closely (as I have built a hackintosh myself). Nowadays they are at the point where you can install the retail Leopard DVD onto a PC.
There's a bit of setup work, but I bet they are looking into this closely. They may have a "setup" dvd, and then you use the Leopard install disc after the system is prepped.
Re:Futile (Score:5, Informative)
Sure, it's the right of first sale. Can I re-sell a textbook that I've underlined, annotated, crossed words out, drawn diagrams, erased diagrams, etc..? Sure. It's up to the buyer to verify that he's buying what he thinks he's buying. If he wants a pristine unmodified copy of a book, he needs to verify that before he purchases. If the buyer asks me if it's unmodified, and I lie, then it's fraud. But if I say "yes it's been modified" then it's caveat emptor -- buyer beware...
Re:Futile (Score:1, Informative)
If copyright law regards installing, modifying, and running a computer program as non-infringing use
Modifying is where they get into trouble. Legally, that's creating a "derivative work," which is definitely not Kosher with typical copyright law. If you get a binary, you can't hack it up and then redistribute it. Even if the original binary was legally obtained.
No EULA necessary.
Re:WRONG!! (Score:1, Informative)
But Psystar will argue that those discs aren't upgrade-only. The discs that come with computers shipped in a brief window between the announcement and the ship date of Leopard are upgrade discs. Those require you to restore the base OS that came with your computer, then run the upgrade. Those discs are clearly Upgrade-only, and are marked as such.
By contrast, the standard Mac OS X discs do not require an existing installation. The word "Upgrade" does not appear anywhere on the discs or packaging. Thus, Psystar will argue that these are full install discs because Apple takes no measures to ensure that they require an existing installation and does not label them clearly as upgrades.
Re:WRONG!! (Score:3, Informative)
If Apple starts trying to support every combination of 3rd party hardware out there, OSX will start having reliability problems just like Windows does.
The maybe Apple should go back to non-x86 hardware. I've been reading the stories, I know, the nerve of me RTFA and more, and I'm not sure myself, but this is really looking like a right of first sale type case opposed to copyright. Psystar is purchasing a copy of the OS, it is now theirs to do with as they please (with the standard limitations of unauthorised distribution). They are not making copies of the OS, installing and distributing an unlicensed copy, they are installing a valid, purchased OS and passing their right of first sale onto their customer. It will be an interesting case to watch unfold.
Apple will start selling "upgrades" (Score:3, Informative)
This is seriously not a big deal for Apple. If they lose in court, they will simply start selling their OS as an upgrade. And since the only way to get an "upgradable" MacOS computer will be through Apple, Psystar's business model will fail because they will not be able to claim first-sale principle. (Assuming the idea of upgrades does not get tossed, but that probably will not)
Of course, if Apple does lose, the case may change the shape of the computer industry because of implications for the EULA.
Cheers,
m
Re:Futile (Score:3, Informative)
The first case is pure copyright infringement - you can't just take a copy of someone else's copyright work and distribute (modified or unmodified) copies without falling foul of copyright law.
Yes, but you also can't take a copy of someone else's copyrighted work, make a modified copy, and then sell both the original and modified copy for the price of the original copy-- which is exactly what Psystar is doing in selling OSX pre-installed on their machines.
The thing is, it's not clear to me that the case hinges on the EULA. It clearly would if this were a case of Apple suing end-users who were installing OSX (after buying a copy) on non-Apple hardware. However, this is a case of a company selling (essentially) the OSX installation. So they are making a copy (to the hard drive) and then selling that copy. IANAL, but it seems like that's copying/distribution of copyrighted work without a license to do so. Seems like outright copyright infringement to me.
On the other hand, this "restore disk" may be an end-run around all that. If they stop offering pre-installation and sell you the hardware, a copy of OSX, and a restore disk that installs/patches OSX, then I don't see how Apple could sue them for copyright infringement. Unless, of course, this falls under some DMCA sort of thing where they'll be in trouble for providing a means to circumvent copy controls.
But then, if they go through all the trouble of creating a "restore disk", then I'm not sure what would stop people from pirating that restore disk and using it to install OSX on some other hardware vendor's product. It would be pretty ironic if they tried to use copy protection and copyright law to protect their restore disk.
Re:Futile (Score:2, Informative)
No, you don't. I wish people would read 17 USC 117 sometime.
(a) Making of Additional Copy or Adaptation by Owner of Copy. -- Notwithstanding the provisions of section 106, it is not an infringement for the owner of a copy of a computer program to make or authorize the making of another copy or adaptation of that computer program provided:
(1) that such a new copy or adaptation is created as an essential step in the utilization of the computer program in conjunction with a machine and that it is used in no other manner...
Long story short, to make copies to install and run a program (eg disc to HDD, HDD to RAM, RAM to CPU cache) does NOT require a license because it is expressly PERMITTED by 17 USC 117.
Drivers are not what makes windows suck (Score:1, Informative)
It's bloatware, the windows registry, bad ui etc etc etc
Drivers for third party hardware is way way down on the list of windows suckitude.
Re:WRONG!! (Score:3, Informative)
http://www.boygeniusreport.com/2008/03/28/os-x-first-os-to-be-hacked-in-pwn-2-own-contest/ [boygeniusreport.com]
http://news.softpedia.com/news/Mac-OS-X-Hacked-Vista-SP1-Hacked-Ubuntu-Linux-Survives-Unscathed-82079.shtml [softpedia.com]
http://news.zdnet.co.uk/security/0,1000000189,39375171,00.htm [zdnet.co.uk]
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13579_3-9906001-37.html [cnet.com]
On day two things turned around when contests were allowed to instruct contest organizers to visit a web page or open an email. Within two minutes Miller had prepared his exploit code and instructed organizers to visit a web site. Game over. Miller had seized control of the MacBook Air and landed himself a nice prize, seemingly using a hole in Safari as contestants were only permitted to take advantage of preinstalled software.
The attackers didn't have direct physical access so much as taking advantage of the weakest element of security, the user.
Comment removed (Score:3, Informative)
Re:WRONG!! (Score:2, Informative)
Why is it insightful to stereotype Mac users (or even specifically the fanboys) as whiny, shallow, pseudo-intellectual, metrosexual, idiotic, and gay?
You sir need to spend more than 10 minutes in the presence of Apple fanbois.
LK
Re:Question (Score:1, Informative)
Apple is a hardware company. People don't seem to understand this. The only reason they write OS X is to sell their hardware. Most of their R&D is paid for by their hardware sales. They don't make enough money on OS X for it to be profitable to them to sell separately for generic beige boxes and lose out the money on their hardware revenue.
As others have also indicated, they also have no desire whatsoever to start supporting Psystar's POS hardware. What happens when a first time mac user buys a Psystar clone, has it crash on them constantly because Psystar threw 2 GB of "ValueRam" in it at $40 and it crashes all the time? "Macs suck, I bought one once and it was horrible, I'm never trying them again." From what I recall reading, Psystar also can't properly tie their thermal management hardware into the OS, and the fans consistently run in an unmanaged (ie, loud as fuck) state. So much for Apple's brand image...
Btw, for those of you who hope Psystar wins, if that really does happen, Apple is likely just to stop selling their OS separately, and only offer it with brand new machines. Let's see what happens when Psystar has no more retail copies of OS X to sell.
In the mean time, IANAL but let's think of how Apple might go after these guys. Dilution of brand, misappropriation of trade secrets, increased support costs to Apple due to Psystar customers calling Apple for support on an unsupported product, modifying their proprietary OS, violation of the DMCA (Psystar would have had to reverse engineer one of Apple's kernel extensions (Don't steal Mac OS X.kext if I recall correctly) to get it to even run violating the DMCA, etc. etc. The list goes on. Make no mistake about it, Apple is going to try to have these guys for lunch. They have to.