Apple Believes Someone Is Behind Psystar 606
rgraham writes "From the article on Growler: 'Apple apparently believes that somebody else is behind Psystar, which might help to explain why a major law firm would take on what seems like a fly-by-night's case; also why Psystar has been so bold in continuing to sell its products. I knew this thing felt funny. As Alice in Wonderland might put it, "It gets interestinger and interestinger."'"
Folowing the money (Score:5, Insightful)
LOUD, Crazy Loud (Score:4, Funny)
From the Legal Filing:
Online commentators have reported that Psystar's Open Computer is..."LOUD, Crazy Loud,"
Never thought I'd see "LOUD, Crazy Loud" in a legal document!
Re:LOUD, Crazy Loud (Score:5, Funny)
Interesting... pasting from the article (something alien to many slashdotters) apparently makes your comments 'off-topic'.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re:LOUD, Crazy Loud (Score:5, Funny)
Well of course. Here we are trying to have an uninformed discussion based on hearsay and speculation, and he has the outright audacity to bring facts into play!
It's downright un-American, I tell you.
Re:LOUD, Crazy Loud (Score:5, Informative)
The post was modded off-topic because his post had nothing to do with the one he replied to.
He should have left a new comment instead of just automatically replying to the first highly-modded post. This is an abuse of the comment system to get his own comment to appear as high-up on the page as possible. I have mod points and I nearly modded him down myself, but I decided that explaining another modder's motives would be of greater help.
Re:LOUD, Crazy Loud (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Folowing the money (Score:5, Funny)
I bet Wozniak finally snapped and is doing this out of spite.
Woz is The Phantom with the Glowing Eyes (Score:5, Funny)
I bet Wozniak finally snapped and is doing this out of spite.
Sounds eerily reminiscent of the end of *every bloody Scooby Doo episode* where the baddie turns out to be a supposedly amiable minor character who in reality was bitter about some business dealing and trying to subvert his former partner.
Sad thing is, I almost instantly visualised this in animated form, and I didn't even like Scooby Doo that much!
Woz would have got away with it if it hadn't been for those pesky.... um, lawyers.
Re:Woz is The Phantom with the Glowing Eyes (Score:5, Insightful)
To be fair, sometimes they added a twist where there was an obviously disgruntled minor character AND an amicable minor character. The gang would then always incorrectly pursue the disgruntled character (who likes a grumpy gus anyway?) only to be shocked, SHOCKED I TELL YOU! when the disgruntled character proved instrumental in helping them catch the real culprit, the amicable one. Also, the disgruntled one was usually an under cover cop.
Apple is behind it! (Score:5, Interesting)
Apple probably hired pystar to create a weak but precedent setting test case they could smash.
More seriously,
one can claim pystar is somehow a good value or something but this takes sheer cognative dissonance since it's impossibly far from the truth.
THat is to say, if you are buying an apple it's either for aethetics, ease of use for grandma or the volunteers at your non-profit, or compatibility, or the relatively low cost of tech support, set up, and training.
Now let's think about this. Does pystar meet any of those features? uh.... No. not one. they are loud, highly idiosyncratic, hard to keep updated, and a support nightmare, and many softwares and hardware devices won't work.
What's the market? cheapness? well certainly not at the low end. And at the high end--well it you want performance and dont care about comptibility then get a PC or a linux machine?
it's the OJ simpson defense: it does not fit.
But Apples implication that it's just a loss leader. Shove anything out the door so you can get a foot in the door makes a lot more sense.
Re:Apple is behind it! (Score:4, Insightful)
THat is to say, if you are buying an apple it's either for aethetics, ease of use for grandma or the volunteers at your non-profit, or compatibility, or the relatively low cost of tech support, set up, and training.
Or because it's a Unix that runs Office and Photoshop, and supports wireless cards and GPUs without having to compile experimental kernel modules. (Yes, Linux is getting better. No, it's not there yet).
Is it.... (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Is it.... (Score:5, Interesting)
The Gates foundation is too busy building Doomsday seed vaults [globalresearch.ca] with the Rockefeller foundation and Monsanto and genetically engineering mosquitoes [americanscientist.org].
Re:Is it.... (Score:5, Funny)
Hmm...maybe that was Darth McBride?!? That would make sense, building a Death...err....Pystar.
It's true. (Score:5, Funny)
Off with OP's head! (Score:5, Insightful)
From the OP, it's actually "curiouser and curiouser" cried Alice, not "interestinger"
Sheesh.
Obviouser and obviouser (Score:3, Insightful)
No one claimed it was a quote from Alice, instead it is something "Alice might have said," for instance if she ran Groklaw.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
I think I can figure out who it is.
Steve Jobs. Jobs. Unemployment. Financial Crisis. 2008 Presidential Election. Barack Obama. Obama. Fox calls him Osama.
OH MY GOD. Osama bin Laden is behind Psystar. The parent poster is bin Laden!!
Re:It's true. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:It's true. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:It's true. (Score:5, Funny)
Yes! He's Spartacus! Get him!
Re:It's true. (Score:5, Informative)
I'm Spartacus and so's my wife!
Re:It's true. (Score:4, Informative)
This is madness.
Growler Groklaw (Score:5, Funny)
"From the article on Growler" ? Rob, you turned on spell check? That coudln't be!
Re:Growler Groklaw (Score:5, Funny)
For those who wonder WTF "growler" is, they meant "Greplaw"
And for those who wonder WTF "Greplaw" is, mcgrew meant "Groklaw".
Re:Growler Groklaw (Score:5, Funny)
For those who wonder WTF "growler" is, they meant "Greplaw"
And for those who wonder WTF "Greplaw" is, mcgrew meant "Groklaw".
Personally, I prefer Awklaw and Sedlaw for most of my shell prompt legal needs.
Re:Growler Groklaw (Score:5, Informative)
For those who wonder WTF "growler" is, they meant "Greplaw"
Erm, you mean Groklaw [groklaw.com] right? That's where the article from the Slashdot submission is from.
Greplaw [harvard.edu] is a different, if similar, site.
If it's true I bet I can guess who it is... (Score:5, Interesting)
These are pretty serious allegations, but if it's true it wouldn't be the first time this has happend.
Hmmm... I wonder who would have the most to gain by undermining Apple. Could it possibly be a major corporation with an infamous [linux.com] track record of attacking [boycottnovell.com] its competition by proxy [channelregister.co.uk]?
Re:If it's true I bet I can guess who it is... (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah right! Microsoft can't wait till everybody can buy MacOS X for their PC!
And what joy it would be to them if Psystar could invalidate the EULA so that Dell could then ship their PCs with MacOS X!
Re:If it's true I bet I can guess who it is... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I seriously doubt Microsoft would be behind this scam.
After reading the Groklaw article it sounds like the PCs are cheaply built with the options of Vista or Mac OSX.
No finger pointing here, but China has become pretty adept at distributing reverse engineered and/or unlocked proprietary software.
My magic 8 ball says that Apple will successfully shut Psystar down eventually, only to re-emerge under a different name somewhere else in the future.
Re:If it's true I bet I can guess who it is... (Score:5, Funny)
I wonder who would have the most to gain by undermining Apple
Isn't it obvious? The Pear has been looking for vindication ever since the William Tell incident. And don't even get them started on the whole "discovery of gravity" thing...
Re:If it's true I bet I can guess who it is... (Score:5, Insightful)
Well... The last time Mac OS had a licence for 3rd party use. Apple almost died from it. But also it can be a case to discredit the value of OS X. By opening the legal floodgates for having OS X compete on the same level that MS does gives MS and advantage as Windows tends to run better on Crappy (not necessarily slow but 3rd party rip off, or the product that do not have full functionality, eg. celerons ) hardware. And being that OS X doesn't have drivers for all the different platform options and the hardware makers already grudgingly make the drivers for Microsoft. Will make OS X run more unstable and flakier then Windows. Thus having Apple to loose a competitive advantage. However this is rather a complex marketing strategy. I would suspect the funding for the law suits were probably from companies like Dell, HP, Lenovo who just want to be able to ship OS X on their platforms so they can be Hip and Trendy too. Also not be stuck with Windows.
I'm positive (Score:5, Funny)
Re:I'm positive (Score:4, Funny)
Unless osX became sentient and wanted to break free from the father
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Mac... I am your father.
In some ways, it makes a lot of sense (Score:5, Insightful)
There are lots of PC companies that probably see Windows as a bit of a stumbling block to future sales. Dell has definitely said that it would like to sell machines with OS X. Should a court rule that Apple does not have the right to restrict OS X to its own hardware, that would open the floodgates to major manufacturers including Dell and HP to selling machines with OS X. It's not that hard to imagine one of those companies throwing money at a legally separate LLC/Inc that could bring the issue before a court. Should they [Psystar] loose, small loss. Should they win, those companies get a new product to sell in a market clamoring for Apple stuff.
Re:In some ways, it makes a lot of sense (Score:4, Insightful)
ell has definitely said that it would like to sell machines with OS X. Should a court rule that Apple does not have the right to restrict OS X to its own hardware, that would open the floodgates to major manufacturers including Dell and HP to selling machines with OS X.
Sure, except you forget that Microsoft still has both hands on their balls right now. "Go ahead, sell OS X, but we won't give you OEM pricing then, you'll pay retail." Small companies like this one are the only ones that can pull this off because they don't have legions of angry shareholders and lawsuits to worry about, who would be rightfully pissed about a $100 increase in unit shipping price over an OS with a ~7% market share. Most won't even put Linux on their systems right now because of this, and Linux is free.
Re:In some ways, it makes a lot of sense (Score:5, Insightful)
I do believe a little ruling a few years ago basically said no, Microsoft CANT do that. This is why Dell and HP have been able to sell Linux and Unix systems on top of their Microsoft OEM products.
No, Microsoft couldn't contractually force them to sell only Windows. That doesn't mean they can't just say "we're not giving you a discount anymore and we're not saying why." You think people that are fired for being gay are ever told that's why? Or people that are profiled by the police are told "We pulled you over because you're black"? There's always been ways around laws that say you can't do X for reason Y, because there's always reason Z, which is what everyone will claim was the reason, never Y.
Re:In some ways, it makes a lot of sense (Score:5, Insightful)
Or maybe by someone who wants to save us from Apple's ridiculous and limiting EULA shrinkwrap nonsense.
>Should they win, those companies get a new product to sell in a market clamoring for Apple stuff.
That's true, but we also get a whole hell of a lot more consumer rights. Imagine being able to return software for a refund! Or running the software you paid for on anything you like. Or selling it. You know, the basic consumer rights we take for granted for everything except software.
Freedom to tinker and freedom to use is bigger than Apple. Much bigger.
Re:In some ways, it makes a lot of sense (Score:5, Insightful)
Psystar does not have permissions to modify OS X and resell it.
Psystar was never given permission to redistribute OS X.
Whether Apple should be forced to sell to their competitors is another matter. As it stands now, legally Apple has a case.
Re:In some ways, it makes a lot of sense (Score:4, Insightful)
I have said this before. If MS windows OS was an issue, HP/Compaq have the experience to fix it. Dell, Sony, etc and the others only flog whatever they are told to flog, so they are pretty much stuck. the only reason any of them would want to sell Mac OS machines is to have an excuse to raise the price of the machines, like they have done with *nix machines.
What we saw in the previous Mac OS licensing experiment was that it was difficult to support all those clones. I know many people whose machines worked at first, but over time become incompatible with the OS. One part of the Apple strategy is that it will only support it tech that it wants to. We no longer have SCSI. We no longer have firewire on the low end machines. We have not seen a floppy on a Mac since 1999. The strategy of the PC OEM, which is to use whatever is cheapest component at the moment, and expect MS to support it, will not work with Apple. It only works because of most offices, computers are set up as a redundant array of cheap PCs, in which any machine is expected to fail, and redundancies are built in.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
The logical suspect (Score:5, Funny)
It can only be Amiga.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
If Psystar is turning a profit, then you can be sure that Amiga/Bill McEwen aren't behind it.
Hang on a mo, Psystar are actually shipping products, and on schedule too. That definitely rules out Amiga.
New Logo? (Score:4, Funny)
Hmm (Score:5, Funny)
I think Jobs has been hitting the egg nog a bit early this year. Wizard of Oz stuff and backroom deals is really more the providence of large corporations like the one he's a member of, not small businesses that are trying to find a niche to grow in. But at least the fanboys who go along with this line of thinking will look even more ridiculous than usual, which is a nice stocking stuffer for those of us that have gotten about as sick of these "Hi, I'm a PC" commercials as the whistling guy on about "natural male enhancement". Heh. "Mystery men out to ruin Jobs!" Really, sometimes the right hand (marketing) doesn't know what the left (legal) is doing with that company...
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Happy Coca-Cola Christmas!
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
I think you're being a little naive (and the mods too) because this looks precisely like what happened with SCO
I'm not being naive, I'm trying to avoid slashdot turning into a forum where people have had their sense of humor surgically removed. Sacred cows make the best hamburgers, and Apple's fanbase is just too tempting of a target. nom nom nom.
But if we must be serious... Why sue Apple in a "dramatic way". Well, has anyone sued Apple in a boring and non-dramatic way recently? No. Apple's lawyers are legendary. Suitors routinely stage reenactments of Custer's last stand in the courtroom. Why would you try to stay
I had to see da wiki (Score:5, Informative)
I haven't heard of this particular bruhaha or indeed, Psystar itself. TFA had few clues, it was apparently not its first blog about Psystar. So if anyone else is curious, I'll quote and link [wikipedia.org]
Re:I had to see da wiki (Score:4, Insightful)
Every time I see that "Honda/road" analogy I just want to grab the guy from Psystar who said it by the collar and shake him senseless for making such a craptacular analogy.
A more apt analogy might be "Imagine that Honda created some ECU programming that yields 15% better fuel efficiency. Instead of developing their own programming, Hyundai backwards-engineers the Honda ECU into their cars and buys the Honda ECU's on the aftermarket. Hyundai then advertises that they are running the Honda ECU efficiency program and Honda takes them to court."
It doesn't even have to be efficiency. Maybe the ECU makes the motor spew fire or something, but it makes a lot more sense than the ill-formed "Honda/Road" analogy.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
This is a common practice (Score:5, Insightful)
Who would want to support this? (Score:5, Interesting)
Do you suppose it might be someone like Dell interested in testing the waters anonymously?
Not saying it's Dell or HP but I know they are in a bit of a pinch lately and I'd bet they believe they could out-compete Apple on margins and use their name-recognition to get the unwashed masses to switch. Imagine a Dell that could run Linux, Windows and OS X out of the box for $500.00. People would be switching left and right. Many Windows users could give a crap about aesthetics or build-quality so they'd not hesitate to go with Dell. Also, Pystar is selling servers, which is another area Dell is big in that could benefit from a broader selection. Apple would lose for sure unless they started selling OS X client for $500.00 a pop and server for $1000.00. But Dell would never risk "testing the waters" themselves, so when they see this little upstart come along, it's in their best interests to support them and help them succeed.
Re:Who would want to support this? (Score:4, Insightful)
6. Get sued to hell and gone by shareholders and the SEC who just found out they diverted money off the books.
Apple watches their SEC filings -- and they have to disclose where all their money goes as a publicly-traded company. If its discovered that Dell directly financed this company and didn't disclose it in their SEC filings, their next investment will be in Crisco.
Biased much? (Score:5, Insightful)
which might help to explain why a major law firm would take on what seems like a fly-by-night's case
I have no interest in Psystar's products but that doesn't mean they're illegitimate. The biggest allegation I've heard on Slashdot is of them pirating OS X, but I've seen no proof that they've sold more copies than they've bought. I don't get the double standard of why Compaq's cloning of the PC was good while Psystar's cloning of the Mac is bad, other than Steve's reality distortion field.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
I don't get the double standard of why Compaq's cloning of the PC was good while Psystar's cloning of the Mac is bad...
Because IBM was big and evil and Apple isn't, so we get to apply different standards based on our whims.
FWIW, I support Psystar, too. I'd love a Mac at less than Mac prices.
Not True (Score:4, Informative)
You write that Apple "granted permission" to the maker of Franklin and then yanked it. That's simply not true [wikipedia.org]. Not even close.
In Apple Computer, Inc. v. Franklin Computer Corp., the 3rd Circuit found that Franklin did so without any permission from Apple, but Franklin's logic was that you can't copyright something software isn't written down on paper. They copied ROMs that had no equivalent for sale on paper, ergo they didn't need to ask permission and Apple couldn't stop them. The circuit court ruled in favor of Franklin, because there was no legal precedent allowing software to be copyrighted, which is how it got bumped up to the circuit court, who ruled for Apple.
Obviously, Apple was right here. Without copyright for software, we'd have no GPL and the open source movement would still be stuck at the "freeware" stage.
Eponysterical!
Re:Biased much? (Score:5, Informative)
The deal is that Compaq reversed engineered IBM's BIOS -- the only part of the design that was a trade secret. Everything else with the PC was very well documented and easily reproduced. The BIOS calls were already well documented. All Compaq needed to do was come up with a fully compatible BIOS without using IBM's code. Compaq came up with workalike BIOS using clean room techniques (or was it Phoenix technologies or some other shop -- I don't remember). I'm sure IBM fought tooth and nail, but they obviously weren't successful.
As for Apple vs. Psystar, it's quite different, the issue is that Psystar is violating Apple's software license agreement (that the OSX software will only be used on Apple-branded hardware). There are software checks in OSX to verify the hardware is Apple's, which means that Psystar would have to patch OSX to bypass those checks, and then distribute the modified code as their own OS.
Had Psystar somehow reverse engineered OSX with clean-room techniques to produce their own fully compatible workalike, this might be a very different case.
Also, copyright laws have changed quite a bit since 1981. I don't know if Compaq would have been able to legally clone the PC with today's laws.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
The difference is Apple fanboys and their bitter tears.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
I don't get the double standard of why Compaq's cloning of the PC was good while Psystar's cloning of the Mac is bad
Not good cloning versus bad cloning-- legal cloning versus illegal cloning.
IBM wanted to get a machine on store shelves quickly back in 1981, so they built an open system that was easily copied. The only proprietary thing about the IBM PC was the BIOS, which had to be clean-roomed. The Compaq BIOS was designed from scratch to mimic the genuine, copyrighted IBM BIOS in function, but other than
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
the companies that were making clones banded together and standardized on a new open architecture (the ISA bus, IIRC)
No, the ISA bus was already out there (it was the 16-bit AT bus). The So-called "Gang of Nine" created the EISA bus, which was also backwards compatible with ISA cards.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Try it with a Harry Potter book and see how far you get.
Comment removed (Score:3, Funny)
Power Computing (Score:5, Funny)
That's right, Power Computing. They thought they could force their way back into the 3rd party Apple market. And they would have done it, too, if it weren't for those meddling Cupertino lawyers.
Comment removed (Score:4, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
I don't know if I'd say they were "excellent". They were more powerful than comparably-priced Apples, though. I had to deal with about 150 Power Computing clones many years ago. While they were a good value, they were nowhere near as reliable as the Apples from the same timeframe. Not to
Conspiracy (Score:5, Funny)
The Rothschild family, in order to destablize the US economy consipired with the Free Masons and the Illuminati to draw out Apple into a court case with Pystar to get anti-trust measures against Apple. The Skull and Bones and Pathagarians partnered to get the 'proper' judge and law firms involved because Steve Jobs refused to cowtow to the Grand Viceroy of the Pathagarians at a secret meeting in Prague.
Once the Osirians and Golden Dawn are placatied by Jobs with the seasonal sacrific they may interviene on behalf of Jobs but that depends if the New Dawn are not stopped by the rebel Crowley and the Keepers of the Flame. Since the New Dawn and Golden Dawn have been fighting since the 1950s after Crowley defected from the Golden Dawn!
If only the Sons of Liberty would put an end to this maddness with the help of the Neo-Templars! In the mean time we'll have to rely on government alien-hybrid psychics to try and mentally manipulate the court...
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Fear not, noble friend! By the time the Hashashin reach you, the Mossad will already have killed you!
Then we'll have a deathmatch over who gets the exclusive right to wear those kickass white robes.
This Just In... (Score:5, Funny)
Apple realizes that companies are run by people.
No Bias Here (Score:4, Interesting)
So, Apple apparently believes that somebody else is behind Psystar,
Apple also initially believed Psystar did not exist. Apple has a bit of a blind spot to the capabilities of a garage startup. That may seem surprising, since they were a garage startup. But then, it's been three decades of anti-competitive lawmaking and sanctification of the megacorp since then.
which might help to explain why a major law firm would take on what seems like a fly-by-night's case;
Yes. 'cuz god forbid a decent law firm would represent a pissant. If we can't rely on the legal system to prejudicially inhibit the growth of disruptive startups, we'll be throwing the doors open to unrestrained justice, treating small firms as though they have the same rights as our most honored entrenched divas.
also why Psystar has been so bold in continuing to sell its products.
Indeed - how dare they continue running a business which they believe to be both legal and profitable, despite the fact that they have so clearly upset The Steve?!?
I knew this thing felt funny.
Which thing? Your wild editorializing and doe-eyed acceptance of Apple's press-release-by-court-filing?
I'm not saying that what Psystar is doing is necessarily in compliance with the law, but come on - this is a conspiracy theory. If Psystar was backed by some shadowy CABAL, their first address wouldn't have been a house (which lead to Apple's hypothesis that the whole company was a hoax).
Here's my question: What is going to happen when Psystar can't produce these back-room ne'er-do-wells? Will Apple press discovery and demand that Psystar prove a negative, that the conspiracy is not?
"Apple alleges that it believes" (Score:3, Funny)
Errm, what?
Don't assume the backer wants Psystar to win (Score:3, Informative)
I think Microsoft would be willing to pay quite a lot of money for a legal precedent in favor of shrinkwrap EULAs on operating systems, especially if they can make Apple look like the bad guys each time they call on the precedent.
Re:Awwww... (Score:5, Funny)
Vista sales weren't very good, maybe Microsoft figured they could make more money selling macs.
sounds familiar (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:sounds familiar (Score:4, Funny)
I wonder what MS's gonna do next? Release all their Xbox games for the PS3 to hurt Nintendo?
Re:sounds familiar (Score:5, Interesting)
it's a baiting scam. first they sell a couple million psystars with OSX, then when justice says all of those copies must be wiped from the hardrives and returned to apple, owners will have to replace the OS with vista.
they annoy apple senselessly AND cash in a couple million sales. win-win for redmond
Re:Awwww... (Score:4, Interesting)
Look to Amazon software top 10, you will be really surprised.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/bestsellers/software/ref=sv_sw_0 [amazon.com]
First is MS Office (yes, true) and second is MS Office for MAC! MS makes huge money from OS X software sales. If you remember the best, optimistic market share of OS X is 10%...
Norton Antivirus at #3 of that list should be very alerting for a sane OS vendor BTW.
ps:it is a dynamic list so it may change
Re:Awwww... (Score:5, Interesting)
QUESTION:
Why is it illegal to clone Apple Macintosh computers, but it was not illegal to clone the IBM PC? Why is Apple protected, but IBM was not? What's the distinction?
Re:Awwww... (Score:5, Informative)
QUESTION:
Why is it illegal to clone Apple Macintosh computers, but it was not illegal to clone the IBM PC? Why is Apple protected, but IBM was not? What's the distinction?
Because IBM made the mistake of not getting an exclusive license to DOS.
Re:Awwww... (Score:4, Interesting)
This is a very interesting part of computer history. Basically IBM used a whole lot of off-the-shelf stuff in the IBM PC (both the hardware and MSDOS). A few other companies realized that they could get in on the game, but they needed the BIOS which IBM would never give them.
Columbia Data Products eventually came up with their own version of the BIOS by having one team of engineers reverse-engineer the IBM BIOS and write a specification. That specification was given to a totally separate team to implement. This so-called development method was designed so that IBM could never claim that the CDP BIOS was a direct copy of theirs even though it was pretty much exactly compatible down the to register level. [wikipedia.org]
Of course, this was all before software methods could be patented - it is likely that any company doing something similar today would be sued.
Re:Awwww... (Score:4, Informative)
IBM Compatible [wikipedia.org]: "IBM PC compatible computers are those generally similar to the original IBM PC, XT, and AT. Such computers used to be referred to as PC clones, or IBM clones since they almost exactly duplicated all the significant features of the PC architecture, facilitated by various manufacturers' ability to legally reverse engineer the BIOS through clean room design."
Re:Awwww... (Score:5, Informative)
I always thought the problem was with the software (only allowed to run on a mac) and not the hardware.
Pystar is selling software on the clones, I seem to recall that being the basis of the case.
Re:Awwww... (Score:5, Insightful)
QUESTION:
Why is it illegal to clone Apple Macintosh computers, but it was not illegal to clone the IBM PC? Why is Apple protected, but IBM was not? What's the distinction?
ANSWER:
The IBM PC was generic hardware with an operating system owned by Microsoft, and Microsoft didn't have any agreement that precluded them from working with other companies. OSX is an operating system owned by Apple which Apple is not willing to license to other companies.
Re:Awwww... (Score:5, Informative)
You can "clone" a Mac all you want. Hell, at this point the Mac brand is more or less a clone of a PC anyway. Copy it and sell it all you want, just don't use any Apple branding on it. The kicker here is the software. OS X has a nice friendly EULA which stipulates that the software can only legally be run on Apple brand hardware. Despite the fact that you are buying a program to do with what you please, and it only takes a minor amount of circumventing to allow it to run on non-Apple hardware, it is illegal nonetheless. That is, if you believe EULAs are binding in the first place.
No comment on that.
Re:Awwww... (Score:5, Funny)
Just don't break the seal and open it up the other way around. Have a toddler / pet kick up the keyboard until the I agree button is pressed, and there you go, no agreements between you and them.
My parrot is now very good at pressing the I agree button :)
Re:Awwww... (Score:5, Funny)
Nah - as long as you don't "Break the seal", PETA should leave you alone :)
Re:Awwww... (Score:4, Informative)
In a (very boiled-down) nutshell, IBM completely lost control of the platform. Same thing happened to Apple with the AppleII, but Apple learned and introduced some technical protections with their next product line -- the Macintosh. One thing they did was to include system software in ROM hardware, making it much harder to reverse-engineer.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macintosh_clone [wikipedia.org]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_PC_compatible [wikipedia.org]
Re:Awwww... (Score:5, Informative)
Cloning a PC wouldn't be legal either if IBM hadn't screwed the pooch on getting the first product to market.
First of all, IBM massively underestimated the potential for growth of a microcomputer market. They held the idea that Big Iron was the only true definition of computing, and that things like the Apple ][ were hobbyist toys that would never amount to anything. They made the further mistake of assuming that if a market for 'toy' computers did start to become worthwhile, they'd have plenty of time to develop and ship their own product.
They were wrong in both cases.
When IBM finally decided to sell a PC, they were of the opinion that Apple was 6-12 months from getting a lock on the microcomputer market. If IBM couldn't put a product on the shelves by that time, there wouldn't be much point in trying.
So they tasked an engineer with the job of creating enough of a product to hold a space in the market while the designers put together something really good. Being a good engineer, he did a baseline critical path analysis, and learned that with all the forms, paperwork, and meetings, it would take something like 18 months to ship an empty box with "IBM PC" printed on it. Actually designing a computer to put in the box, shopping for parts suppliers, building an assembly plant, and all those other little details would just push the ship time farther out.
So, faced with the choice between losing a new market entirely or skirting around standard procedures, he proposed a radical plan: design a machine out of off-the-shelf parts, and contract third-party assembly shops to do the construction. That would allow IBM to put a product on the shelves within the 6-12 month deadline, but it would also create an enormous risk: anyone else who wanted to enter the market would be able to do exactly the same thing just as quickly, and just as easily. In fact, it would be even cheaper and easier for the me-too competitors, because they could skip the R&D phase and copy IBM's hardware design more or less verbatim (a process that came to be known as 'cloning').
So they built the whole thing around a chip which could only be sold by IBM: the BIOS.
The BIOS was a computer program burned into ROM. IBM held the copyright on the program, so nobody could legally duplicate that chip. But the BIOS was also tightly integrated with the hardware. Without it, the rest of the computer was just a box of random components. But those components were arranged in such a specific way that it would be hell to try to design a compatible product that wouldn't require IBM's BIOS to run. In one version of the fantasy, IBM wouldn't have to build computers at all, they'd just license BIOS chips to all the other companies that wanted to build hardware.
Then along came a company called Compaq, which reverse-engineered the IBM BIOS, and built a legally clean BIOS of their own from the reverse-engineered spec.
IBM sued, and lost. Compaq's legal team had done its homework on maintaining the 'virginity' of the coders who wrote the cloned BIOS.
At THAT point, IBM lost all control of the PC hardware market. And since their OS had also been outsourced to a little company up in Seattle, they didn't have any hooks left in the product.
So in answer to your question: it's legal to clone a PC because IBM was lumbering, stupid, arrogant, in a big hurry, and not thinking very clearly when it spent tons of money pushing a design into the market that could be ganked away from them almost overnight. In the process, they handed half of their market dominance to Microsoft (whose OS became the only thing that made the hardware a 'PC') and the other half to cloners like Compaq.
Re:Awwww... (Score:5, Informative)
The sticking point was always the Mac ROMs, since those contained Apple's proprietary / copyrighted code.
Any company could slap a 680x0 chip, some RAM, and other misc. parts onto a motherboard and call it a Mac emulator board... but the Mac ROMs were the tough part, and they were essential.
IIRC, there were Mac emulator boards for the Amiga and Atari ST, but you had to transplant the ROMs yourself (from your old Mac).
Apple did actually license clones at one point, but only for a brief period of time...
Re:Awwww... (Score:5, Informative)
I keep pointing out that Apple didn't file against Psystar until the pro-EULA decision in the WoW Glider case came through.
Too bad you are wrong then. Yes, the news of Apple's suit came out on July 15th, a day after the Glider decision. However Apple filed its suit on July 3 [zdnet.com]
Re:Awwww... (Score:5, Insightful)
I would think Dell, HP, Toshiba, Sony etc. not MS, whose world domination strategy still centers around Windows.
Re:Awwww... (Score:5, Informative)
From an earlier Groklaw article:
http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20081019133549359
P.J. definitely has a point here. As such, Apple may have a point in their filing. The question is, how far abstracted from Psystar are the parties that Apple is really looking for?
Re:Awwww... (Score:5, Interesting)
PJ can be a little paranoid sometimes. God bless her, she's got a good heart, but it occasionally outraces her brain.
Then again, have we seen this yet?
Re:Awwww... (Score:5, Funny)
There, fixed that for you.
~Microsoft
Re:Yes THEY are all in on it (Score:5, Insightful)
Seriously it could be any one of a number of reasons. Lawyers are like dance hall hookers - you got the money they got the time so the fact a high price firm gets involved means little really.
The size of a company's bank account is usually proportional to their size. High-priced lawyers tend to want lots more money that a small company like Psystar likely has unless they have a puppetmaster.
Re:Let the conspiracy theories fly (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, but when talking PC MANUFACTURERS, Dell and HP have a serious competitor in Apple. Much of that attractiveness that Apple has compared to their offerings is in their operating system. In effect, Apple can manage to jack up the price and offer an extremely limited number of hardware options, but still pull in sales due to an advantage that Dell and HP simply don't have access to.
Eliminating that advantage would do a lot to drive some Apple customers to Dell and/or HP. At the same time, a lot of people with Windows systems that they don't want to replace might jump at the chance to replace it with a Mac(TM) by Dell or Mac(TM) by HP.
Either way, if this decision went in favor of Pystar, I don't see it being anything but good for the other major computer manufacturers.