Psystar Crushed In Court 640
We've been following the case of Mac cloner Psystar for some time now. Apple was just handed a summary judgement over Psystar, and as usual Groklaw has the scoop. Here is the order (PDF), though PJ supplies it in text form at the link above. "Psystar just got what's coming to them in the California case. ... It's a total massacre. Psystar's first-sale defense went down in flames. Apple's motion for summary judgment on copyright infringement and DMCA violation is granted. Apple prevailed also on its motion to seal. Psystar's motion for summary judgment on trademark infringement and trade dress is denied. So is its illusory motion for copyright misuse. ... So that means damages ahead for Psystar on the copyright issues just decided on summary judgment, at a minimum. The court asked for briefs on that subject. In short, Psystar is toast." Reader UnknowingFool adds, "There are still issues to be decided but they are only Apple's allegations: breach of contract, induced breach of contract, trademark infringement, trademark dilution; trade dress infringement, state unfair competition, and common law unfair competition. Even if Psystar wins all of them, it is unlikely to help them very much."
This comment surprises me (Score:5, Interesting)
I know. They'll say, but, but, but ... what if they hadn't used the master and just used each copy, then would it work? Sons, why do you think Psystar used the master copy? Because it's a business, and in a business, efficiency is money. That's why businesses set themselves up, to make money. The whole world is not with you on a holy war to destroy EULAs and the GPL. Even this rinkydink business wanted to make money. Theoreticals belong on message boards, not in business and definitely not in courtrooms, and even on message boards, everyone told you for years that this wouldn't work out if someone tried it. It's been tried. It didn't work out. ... coming from Pamela, who revealed that Microsoft played no small role funding the SCO debacle though bogus license purchase.
If you follow patent troll cases for example, you would know that shell business are often set up by litigants for the sole purpose of facilitating a lawsuit. Once you've acquired your defunct IP, you set up a web site to demonstrate intent to sell a product. Sure it's not strictly necessary to test the patent but it can help when it come times to assess damages, and it garners judge and jury sympathies (especially if you can get it tried in the Texas east district).
So, who was behind Psystar? Dell perhaps? There's no chance in hell a startup box builder would go to these lengths to test a legal theory. Their vested interest in the supposed business was a pittance compared to the cost to fight this, so where'd they get the money?
Obviously, Psystar was staged for the exclusive purpose of being sued .
So what if you own one of these machines? (Score:2, Funny)
Re:So what if you own one of these machines? (Score:5, Insightful)
I hereby declare Psystar to be a reverse trojan horse. Apple created Psystar so they could sue themselves and once and for all crush any thoughts companies might have of trying to produce generic Apple-compatible platforms for OSX.
Re:So what if you own one of these machines? (Score:4, Insightful)
I hereby declare Psystar to be a reverse trojan horse. Apple created Psystar so they could sue themselves and once and for all crush any thoughts companies might have of trying to produce generic Apple-compatible platforms for OSX.
this should be modded "insightful"
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How much is a Franklin ACE Apple II clone computer worth today?
Re:This comment surprises me (Score:4, Insightful)
I know. They'll say, but, but, but ... what if they hadn't used the master and just used each copy, then would it work? Sons, why do you think Psystar used the master copy? Because it's a business, and in a business, efficiency is money. That's why businesses set themselves up, to make money. The whole world is not with you on a holy war to destroy EULAs and the GPL. Even this rinkydink business wanted to make money. Theoreticals belong on message boards, not in business and definitely not in courtrooms, and even on message boards, everyone told you for years that this wouldn't work out if someone tried it. It's been tried. It didn't work out. ... coming from Pamela, who revealed that Microsoft played no small role funding the SCO debacle though bogus license purchase.
If you follow patent troll cases for example, you would know that shell business are often set up by litigants for the sole purpose of facilitating a lawsuit. Once you've acquired your defunct IP, you set up a web site to demonstrate intent to sell a product. Sure it's not strictly necessary to test the patent but it can help when it come times to assess damages, and it garners judge and jury sympathies (especially if you can get it tried in the Texas east district).
So, who was behind Psystar? Dell perhaps? There's no chance in hell a startup box builder would go to these lengths to test a legal theory. Their vested interest in the supposed business was a pittance compared to the cost to fight this, so where'd they get the money?
Obviously, Psystar was staged for the exclusive purpose of being sued .
It makes you wonder. Incidentally, it's amazing how often "you're a conspiracy nut" comes from people who have no grasp of long-term strategy and really don't know the first thing about it. The person or group who works towards a goal in incremental steps (each of which has an excuse or plausible deniability) over longer periods of time is much more likely to get what they want than the person or group who goes for a short-term, win-or-lose, once-and-for-all type of showdown. That's particularly true when what they want to get is illegal, immoral, or goes against things like tradition, social convention, or public opinion. Recognizing this reality is the first step towards truly understanding business and politics.
You're thinking too simplistically (Score:5, Insightful)
Psystar isn't a front for anyone. That doesn't mean they haven't been used by real players.
The truly powerful don't need to do anything so unsubtle as conspiracy nuts like to believe. They can take existing bit players, and give them the right nudge for the same effect.
Re:You're thinking too simplistically (Score:5, Insightful)
Psystar isn't a front for anyone. That doesn't mean they haven't been used by real players.
The truly powerful don't need to do anything so unsubtle as conspiracy nuts like to believe. They can take existing bit players, and give them the right nudge for the same effect.
That scenario would make Paystar a "useful idiot" as some call it, which provides added deniability for the people who pull the strings. That still falls under long-term strategy and plausible deniability. My observation was deliberately worded in a simple way because understanding of this topic is sorely missing in the general public. When the audience you intend to reach is unfamiliar with a topic, you don't usually start with the most advanced material.
Things like strategy, plausible deniability, propaganda techniques, and argumentation fallacies are either not taught in the public schools or are given only the most superficial treatment. Therefore, most people either don't know about them or have no real mastery of the concepts. When they see a politician talking about an issue, they don't immediately see patterns of influence and don't ask questions like "qui bono?" That the public schools don't cover these topics is no excuse for the widespread ignorance. People generally spend far more time educating themselves about things that have much less of an impact on their lives.
This means that the general population is easy prey for what is effectively a ruling class that does have this knowledge and is in the profession of using it. This population understands the actual realities of politics about as well as the average Roman citizen understood the intent of "bread and circus".
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"cui bono?"
His name is Chaz now. Chaz.
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If it were taught in public schools then it would make such tactics a bit less effective. So, since most of the skilled practitioners of these dark arts are in power and since the "public schools" are administered by their minions, I'm not surprised that the schools are not spilling their secrets. If I knew some tricks that I could use to rip you off and/or control you and these tricks depended in part on you not knowing what they were, why would I teach them to you or even admit their existence?
And no,
Re:Provocation? (Score:5, Interesting)
If Psystar was a stalking horse then the only reason that makes sense is that someone wants Apple to lock their OS to their hardware. Apple doesn't seem too concerned by hobbyists building Frankenmacs. Their ever vigilant lawyers haven't been jackbooting down doors and dragging offenders to court. There have been instances in the past where an OS-maker has turned a blind eye to, if not actually facilitating, its OS being pirated simply to deny a competitor marketshare. Maybe somebody was worried that Apple was moving in this direction. However, if Apple is provoked into action by a startup selling Frankenmacs might they not decide to implement a TPM system to lock the OS to Macs-only? No more hobby Frankenmacs and Apple is seen as not only closed software but closed hardware too. The Technorati would be incensed and Apple would wear the black eye forever.
I would speculate that Apple is not really threatened by Frankenmacs in general. The kind of hobbyist who is technically inclined and is willing to put something like this together is probably outside of their target audience. I have known people who bought Macs not because they were fans of Apple, but because they were dissatisfied with PCs loaded with Windows. They were not technically inclined and most of their PC problems could be put into two broad categories: configuration issues and malware. They found Macs to be a breath of fresh air not because they think Apple is "hip" and "cool" but because they found its GUI to be easy and intuitive and its underlying Unix system to be rock-solid stable and not prone to malware. They felt like they found something that "just worked" and felt like that is what they were paying a higher price for. I think of these folks as Apple's target audience.
For those reasons, TPM would be a rather extreme measure. They are, at least for now, taking the "other option" of going after commercial Frankenmac producers legally instead of technologically. The precendent this sets is quite likely to discourage other companies from doing the same. The only ones left who are building Frankenmacs are doing so personally and not commercially and for the reasons I mentioned above, are probably not Apple's main market.
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No, I don't think Apple much cares, or at least they realize that suing users is a losing proposition. Apple's protection strategy is little more t
Re:Provocation? (Score:4, Interesting)
Maybe I'm not part of Apple's target market - since I use a MacBook I inherited from my wife when she upgraded - but I like Apple for many of the same reasons I like Linux (or BSD for that matter). The convenience of being able to bust out a zsh shell counts for a lot when performing operations that are actually quicker and simpler when performed from the command-line than with a GUI. I was actually somewhat (pleasantly) surprised to find that OS X in fact comes with zsh "out of the box". I had figured this would be considered an unnecessary detail on a Mac, but obviously not.
Apart from that, life with Apple is a trade-off between having everything "just work" and having an inflexible GUI of Apple's choice rather than my own.
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Re:This comment surprises me (Score:5, Informative)
Well, legally the court said in the ruling there are cases where using a master copy in the name of efficiency is acceptable. For enterprises, the use of an image to install an OS to a large numbers of computers for the sake of efficiency is fine. For example, a large company may install a volume Windows license from MS onto a bunch of computers or they may use a disc image to do an install and then replace the generic license key with a specific one after the install is over.
Psystar's use however was not because typically enterprises have agreements with the original copyright owner to do this when they buy enterprises licenses. Apple did not sell Psystar such a license and did not grant them the authority to do so.
Psystar bought from Apple a single OS X copy, installed it onto a Mac Mini, loaded it onto an X86 computer ("master copy"), made modifications to it, then used the master copy to install to other computers. Psystar said since they included a retail copy of an OS X DVD, this was all legal. The court however found that Psystar did not always include a copy and that even if it did, the computer copy was not always the same version of OS X as the DVD. (I think this meant the DVD was Leopard whereas the computer had Snow Leopard installed, etc).
Even if it was the same version, fair use does not allow for anyone to make multiple, unauthorized copies as Psystar had done. Likewise if a person made a copy (even several copies) of your software, music, etc, that might be fair use. If a person made 500 copies of each, that might not be covered.
Lastly since Psystar modified OS X to run on X86 computers, it is guilty of creating a derivative work without Apple's permission.
First sale doesn't allow you resell derivatives (Score:5, Interesting)
That's a bunch of crap, and if that's what the decision says then First Sale law is over, at least until it gets escalated, and it will. First Sale is critical to whole long lists of industries. Using copyright law to restrict transfer of an object [blogspot.com] is an abuse... First Sale law permits you to modify things you've purchased.
If Psystar modified the OS X software and then sold the modified software (along with the computer), then they've both created a derivative work and distributed it. This should be clear cut in the courts. There is a circuit split over whether attaching a postcard to a tile and then reselling it constitutes the preparation and distribution of a derivative work, but the split is over the question of whether simply gluing the card to the tile is enough to qualify as a derivative work. In this case, modifying the software is almost unquestionably enough to constitute the preparation of a derivative work.
First sale will allow you to resell a copyrighted work that you have purchased; if, however, it's been modified enough to constitute a derivative work, you'll run afoul of copyright law. If, in the Seventh Circuit's tile case, [resource.org] the defendant had made a new piece of artwork, e.g. a collage or something with a bunch of postcard, that would likely pass the threshold for a derivative work.
If all Psystar had done was resell copies of unmodified copies of OS X along with their Hackintoshes, the issue of derivative works wouldn't come into play at all. It would be more a matter of whether Apple's EULA matters, etc. By modifying the copies, however, they opened up a big can of worms.
No, it doesn't. (Score:5, Informative)
(b) Lease, Sale, or Other Transfer of Additional Copy or Adaptation.— Any exact copies prepared in accordance with the provisions of this section may be leased, sold, or otherwise transferred, along with the copy from which such copies were prepared, only as part of the lease, sale, or other transfer of all rights in the program. Adaptations so prepared may be transferred only with the authorization of the copyright owner.
Re:No, it doesn't. (Score:4, Interesting)
"Adaptations so prepared may be transferred only with the authorization of the copyright owner."
Good point. In that case, Psystar needs to do something like the following: Sell a machine and a legitimate copy of Mac OS X to the end user. Have the end user authorize the installation of *that* copy on the machine, with any appropriate adaptations to make it work.
117(a) allows the owner to "authorize" the making of such adaptations necessary to the software on a machine, and 117(b) does not prohibit it.
Re:Section 117(a) does allow you resell derivative (Score:3, Insightful)
The court's logic seems to be that first sale doctrine does not cover copying to an "imaging server", therefore everything Psystar did afterwards was also illegal.
Which might imply Mac cloning could be legal if it was done 'by hand'. However, the court also found that bypassing Apple's lock-out mechanism violated the DMCA, which seems rather dubious to me.
(Also I have to complain. 90% of the discussion here is computards arguing Apple sucks/Apple rules/I like my iPod, and ignoring the issues at hand. Slashd
Use != Sale (Score:5, Interesting)
The simple truth is that Psystar DID have to use an image method to perform the installs, and so this should be considered a minimum necessary step towards exercising First Sale rights to do as you like with something you've purchased; but I do agree that they should have been required to use an image based on the same version of OSX that would appear in the box. First Sale law permits you to modify things you've purchased. If I am not permitted to modify Apple software, then arguably I can't even use it. And if I'm not permitted to use images to deploy OSX, then I'm certainly not even going to consider using it in the enterprise. If Psystar isn't allowed to use a custom image, then I must assume I'm not allowed to either.
Good points and I totally agree with your points on the validity of the First Sale law and it's necessity. However, you're missing a crucial point. Pystar not only modified OSX, (as is allowed for personal use), but it sold this modified derivative product, which is not protected by the First Sale law. You can use a modified product, but you can't sell. That's why Pystar lost, and lost big. I personally think that these and other copyright restrictions are too strict, but it is pretty clear in this case (summary judgement and all that) that Pystar broke it.
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I guess that means reselling all those college textbooks back to the bookstore at the end of a term is not protected by First Sale Doctrine either, if you make even the smallest mark on any page.
No, but selling copies of those textbooks is. That's the issue here.
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Underlining/highlighting a book does not change the contents of the book. However if you did change the words, then that is modifying. So if you decided that yo
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Making multiple copies of something is not illegal; only they way that Psystar had done it was. I can make multiple copies of my CDs for backup purposes. I can also transfer my music from a CD to my MP3 player for the sake of portability. These are fair uses. The law would not consider me making hundreds of copies and putting them on my friends machines likely to be legal.
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Apple x86 machines use Intel processors and Intel chip sets but they are custom MB's manufactured BY apple and therefor can have many things in them that are in fact proprietary, they might in fact have a modified custom microcode on the chips that they pay Intel to install. Just as the early Macintosh had about half or so of the OS burned into ROMS on the MB that that their OS would not even boot without.
Just as an the program for an ECU for a Ford wont work in the ECU for a Chevy OSX is not designed for j
I need a picture drawn for me. (Score:3, Insightful)
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Psystar winning would be terrible for Microsoft (Score:4, Interesting)
Microsoft is very happy with the status quo. Apple voluntarily limits itself to the tiny niche that is their own hardware. As is, they're absolutely no threat to Microsoft.
Re:Psystar winning would be terrible for Microsoft (Score:4, Insightful)
But their shareholders are not. MSFT stock is shit over the past 5 years. Compare that with Apple. MSFT shareholders are very unhappy people.
Re:Psystar winning would be terrible for Microsoft (Score:4, Interesting)
Apple could be a very serious threat to Microsoft if they changed their attitude towards businesses.
"Higher volume, lower price"? Doesn't sound like Apple to me. "Corner the $1K-plus market!" Now that's more Apple's game.
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Seriously though, a $600 computer without monitor, keyboard, and mouse is really not much of a bargain. I put together my system with a Core Duo E8400 (3 GHz), 4GB Ram, DVD DL burner, 750GB hard drive, and a Nvidia 9800 GT for less than $600 - and that includes keyboard and mouse. Which is still more CPU, Memory, storage space and a better graphics card than Apple's $800 "bargain" Mini. Configuring a Mini to as close as I could get to my machine - Core Duo @ 2.66 Ghz, 4GB
Re:Psystar winning would be terrible for Microsoft (Score:4, Insightful)
Now cram your system into 85 cubic inches, under 3 lbs., and make it use less than 100 watts.
Why would anyone looking for a cheap computer care about any of those things?
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Apple could be a very serious threat to Microsoft if they changed their attitude towards businesses.
exactly. which is why it makes no sense for microsoft to be behind psystar, who are pushing for apple to take that new attitude
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Why does MS have to be considered "cloning" Apple when Apple is never the first to implement anything? Doesn't Zune owe more to Rio than it does to Apple.? Doesn't Microsoft Store owe more to umm nearly everyone than it does to Apple? Wasn't Windows Mobile around long before the earliest iPhone rumors?
Apple has implemented existing ideas in an elegant way, but they're still "me too" products, not original ideas.
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Re:Psystar winning would be terrible for Microsoft (Score:5, Insightful)
Agreed. Apple is very good at refining the little details that ultimately make the end user experience much better. Almost every competitor seems to miss this. Incredible attention to fine details is not something you can just copy and then hope to make a lot of money from. It's a motivation that has to come from within.
Re:Psystar winning would be terrible for Microsoft (Score:5, Insightful)
To innovate is not to generate something entirely unique from a vacuum.
Innovation is defined as "making changes in something established by introducing new methods, ideas, or products."
Microsoft is accused of "cloning" because the methods, ideas, and products that they introduce do not generally constitute an improvement.
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If you were to compare Excel to Lotus 123, you might consider that being able to actually draw the cells of the spreadsheet is an improvement.
I don't suggest that MS is the king of innovation or invention, but yes, they have done both on occasion.
Re:Psystar winning would be terrible for Microsoft (Score:4, Informative)
Oh really? Why then is Microsoft trying to clone everything apple is doing?
Zune, Microsoft Store, the new "iPhone killer" windows mobile, etc, etc
Apple could be a very serious threat to Microsoft if they changed their attitude towards businesses.
Microsoft's bread and butter is Windows and Office. The iPhone, iPod, App store that you mention do nothing to dent that. MS is just trying to build a bigger business by trying to get into those markets, not to counter a threat to their cash cows.
Because that's their business model (Score:3, Insightful)
Why then is Microsoft trying to clone everything apple is doing?
Because that is their business model.
Excel to Lotus, Explorer to Netscape, C# to Java, Xbox to Playstation...the list goes on and on. It's what MS does.
It's nothing personal against Apple. That's just what they do.
Re:Because that's their business model (Score:5, Insightful)
Lotus to VisiCalc, Netscape to Mosaic, Java to C++, Playstation to SNES, Apple Mac to Xerox Alto...the list goes on and on. It's what the entire industry does.
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Xerox Alto to oN-Line System [wikipedia.org]
Visicalc to LANPAR [renepardo.com] (Warning PDF link)
It gets too hard to go much further than this because a lot of this early stuff isn't documented anywhere. But the term spreadsheet predates computers, so even the earliest spreadsheet evolved from ideas in the real world.
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But if OS X were available for purchase for your home PC, or as an alternative to Windows when you buy a Dell... you can bet you'd see Windows's share drop quite a bit.
Are you sure of that? I like OS X but I don't find it that much superior to Windows (specially the new Windows 7 which I like quite a bit).
And I wonder if most of Apple's touted "just work" features have to do with the fact that it's a closed OS running on tightly controlled hardware (thus running it on third party hardware might defeat this
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pervert :-P
More seriously, I moved from XP to OS X 10.4, and I've recently tried Windows 7. The control panel is now a complete monster! There are a couple of nice touches but there's plenty of suck too.
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It's not, but I think it's unnecessary. MS just needs to stand back and let Apple do it to themselves. Anybody knowledgeable about tech knows that Apple is just as evil as MS, and that knowledge is beginning to filter out into the general public. I really anticipate a collapse of the 'cool' shell that apple has built around itself in the next few years, and they'll have to actually begin competing on merit. They might
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keep holding your breath. That shell might and only might die when steve jobs leave the company. however apple is setting themselves up for a company without steve jobs.
The cool shell though is the fact they innovate the combined hardware/software, not just one piece of the pie, but making whole new pies. It has been shown time and time again MSFT only makes products good enough to beat the competition through brute force. Since just about everyone else gets their software from MSFT they start at a disa
That's not true at all. (Score:5, Interesting)
It has been shown time and time again MSFT only makes products good enough to beat the competition through brute force
I wish advocates of alternative anything would just be honest. Microsoft has made products that are better than their competition and sometimes they are breathtakingly so. Bill Gates may have been a ruthless businessman, but when he was at the helm, Microsoft made some good stuff.
MS BASIC was way better than other BASICs made by other computer companies. String arrays? Geez, on Atari Basic you had to fake them.
DOS was better than CP/M. It was quicker to learn, and, had a pretty spiffy version of BASICA with it, for its day.
FoxPro (bought by MS), was way better than the dBase (bought by Borland). And, Access was a better desktop database than anything else out there.
Windows of the DOS extender series was better than any other DOS task extender series. For that matter, Windows 95 is hands down superior to Mac OS 8 and Mac OS 9 and Windows NT blew OS/2 completely out of the water. OS/2, single message queue on the desktop, puhlease.
Excel was better than Quattro, and I'm sorry, Word was better than Word Perfect for Windows, by far. My favorite Word Process was Samna AmiPro, which, probably would have ruled them all had Lotus not bought them and screwed it up.
Yeah, everyone can cry fowl over Netscape being destroyed by Microsoft, but Microsoft IE 4 had a fully programmable DOM and an AJAX XMLHttpRequest.. what did Netscape have... you could script a form, had document.write for everything else...a half-assed buggy email, and a billion bugs.
Visual Studio was way better than Borland's C++ IDE was by around 2.0 of Visual Studio.
It's pretty simple. Microsoft is good, at times, especially when Gates was running the show. And there were many times Microsoft, despite all of these "advantages", competed, and flopped... does anyone remember PhotoDraw? That little gem was actually pretty innovative, but, Adobe crushed it like an insect. Now we have Silverlight going up against Flash, and lo, Silverlight is still not reliable in Firefox and didn't have drop shadows. WTF. They lose, and deservedly so.
And, Microsoft lets the XP franchise languish, releases Vista way too early, and so loses market share to Linux. Microsoft prices things off, and so, WinNT Server loses to Linux. Microsoft, after a brilliant run from IE4-6 (yeah, one time, 6 was the best... almost 10 years ago?), but now, can't catch a clue with IE8 and so FireFox and now Google Chrome and Safari are now gradually crushing them.
And now Visual Studio seems ever more confused, while Eclipse and other IDE's start to look better, and I switched.
Conspiracies, monopolies, all of that, can be an advantage, but really, only for so long. In this society, it is product that matters,
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Ok I have mod points, and since there is no mod "You are full of it" I will have to reply, although I am sure that i will be hit for it...
FoxPro (bought by MS), was way better than the dBase (bought by Borland). And, Access was a better desktop database than anything else out there.
FoxPro was a dBase clone and the only thing it did better was a compiler, and a pretty slow one at that. Early versions of Access were a piece of crap. If DataEase had not bet the farm on OS/2 then they would have smoked Access so badly that MS would have been forced to buy the company, wait for it.... Oh yes they did try and buy the company once, but Arun Gupta ( rip )
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Look, Daddy! I reformatted your windows partition as ext3!
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Apple's not at the Microsoft level. Remember that hundreds of PC manufacturers are legally selling computers with Windows with and without Microsoft's blessing. There is an open and competitive market for PCs and PC components, keeping prices low and pushing innovation forward. Even though Windows is non-free and closed-source software, it has still created a vast hardware ecosystem with low barriers to entry.
Nobody can say this about Apple, who are still working to the 1960s proprietary hardware business
Re:This comment surprises me (Score:5, Insightful)
And yet Apple is reaping profit hand over foot, during a economic depression. Why fix what isn't broken. They obviously have something that Microsoft does not. "Cool" and "Hip" will only go so far. If there is nothing of substance to back it up, then after a few months, the hotness has worn off, and people drop them in droves. This obviously is not happening. Apple continues to increase it's market share, even in these bad economic times.
I can guarantee you that if MS finds any manufacturer that isn't properly licensing Windows, they would be wiped from the map. The difference here being that MS licenses it's OS for resale. Apple does not. The only barrier to entry is to buy an Apple Mac, which are about the same price as any other comparable piece of hardware from a PC manufacturer (not a whole seller mind you, but a manufacturer).
If I recall, it's the Microsoft market share and profit that is shrinking. Apple is doing just fine on it's "1960's proprietary hardware business model', whatever that means. It's just a closed system, nuts to bolts. Nothing wrong with that. Thousands upon thousands of manufacturer's produce a closed product.
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Apple seems to be doing quite well, in fact better than any other competitor in their market sector. Apple is an OEM computer and consumer electronics company.
For example, Apple's market cap is greater than the next two competitors combined (hp + dell). Apple vs. HP vs. Dell Market Cap [wolframalpha.com]
It really needs to be drilled home that Apple is a hardware OEM, not a pure software company. They should be compared to other hardware oem's that provide similar services and have have similar user support and manufactur
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I disagree. I think the PC revolution started when Compaq made the first clones of the IBM PC. Before then, there were home computers, but all of them had proprietary designs and clones were effectively illegal. After Compaq, the door was open to a huge number of manufacturers, all making "100% IBM Compatible" computers that would run the same software. This - the competition and evolution that it created - propelled the PC to worldwide success. The revolution could not have happened without an open platfor
Not first-sale doctrine: Psystar altered OS X (Score:5, Informative)
All this goes to show is that, contrary to the statements of some Slashdotters, Psystar did not re-install OS X as-is. They replaced key segments, including the bootloader and kernel extensions, in order to get it to install on commodity hardware. That makes Psystar the distributors of a derivative work, thereby violating copyright laws. This is not about the EULA:
"Psystar infringed Apple's exclusive right to create derivative works of Mac OS X," the ruling reads. "Specifically, it made three modifications: (1) replacing the Mac OS X bootloader with a different bootloader to enable an unauthorized copy of Mac OS X to run on Psystar's computers; (2) disabling and removing Apple kernel extension files; and (3) adding non-Apple kernel extensions."
I fail to understand how Psystar is even within light years of being right on this issue.
Re:Not first-sale doctrine: Psystar altered OS X (Score:4, Insightful)
I don't like what the RIAA is doing. I haven't bought any RIAA music in almost 10 years now. I also haven't downloaded any music. I don't try to rationalize some weird shit reason that says it is ok for me to simply take what I want because they won't offer it to me on the terms I want. The same goes for software. I VERY rarely buy software, and I pretty much restrict most of my software to F/OSS stuff. There are a few software package that I have bought, but rather than downloading, I wait for a deal where I can pay the price I want, or I find another product. It is that simple. This insane entitlement mentality is getting disgusting, and is ultimately what drives much of behavior the whiners usually throw tantrums about. Tell me that the RIAA behavior is anything other than greedy entitlement bullshit...just the same as the idiots downloading music.
These battles are escalating battles between large groups of spoiled brats that think that they deserve whatever they demand on the terms they demand and they will go to great lengths to force their demands.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I imagine if you tried to sell the modified GM vehicle, GM would come after you with their lawyers.
Carroll Shelby, Mopar, and Magnuson Moss think you're full of crap.
Remember the Slashdot rules: even if any other physical or software manufacturer would be publicly flayed for committing an act, it's Right and Good and Justified if Apple does it.
I'm typing this on a Mac, probably the last Apple product I'll ever buy because of the crap they pull.
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It's even worse in the courts. Apple fanboys everywhere sitting on all those judicial benches.
I shake my angry fist at you Apple fanboys judges!
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I imagine if you tried to sell the modified GM vehicle, GM would come after you with their lawyers.
If they did, GM would lose. There's no question that you have the right to buy a car, modify it, and resell it, just like you can with any other piece of physical property.
That's why this ruling against Psystar is so baffling: with a car, the legal issues are straightforward. With software, although you are allowed to make modifications like the ones Psystar made, and even to have a third party make them for you, if you're going to run a business like Psystar's, you have to be very careful about exactly how
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I think the problem comes in when you image dump it to a bunch of commodity hard disks and sell hundreds of machines from the one copy you bought on the single cheapo Apple computer you bought.
First-sale allows you to sell that one copy, or possibly put it in one new machine, not open up a distribution center.
Psystar's boneheaded defense was that first-sale lets you, vis-a-vis, buy a $16 factory-recorded CD and a spool of a hundred 50-cent CD-Rs, and sell the "new product" at half price, turning a $7.50 pro
Re:Not first-sale doctrine: Psystar altered OS X (Score:5, Informative)
The court rejected 117. Partially because Psystar's lawyers suck. (emphasis mine)
Re:Not first-sale doctrine: Psystar altered OS X (Score:5, Informative)
Jesus Fucking H Christ. You are like the 10th moron in this thread who quotes part (a) of that section, but is completely utterly incapable of reading on to part (b). If you actually read part (b), it expressly prohibits resale of the modified versions.
Are you all aiming for the Selective Reading of the Year Award or what?
Keeping score on Groklaw bias (Score:5, Funny)
Let's see:
Anti-SCO - check
Anti-MS - check
New entry Pro-Apple - check
This is why I don't send money to Cupertino (Score:3, Insightful)
(I'm not familiar with the details of the Psystar case and so I don't know if this company did anything wrong or not. Neither do I really care. This post is not a defense of Psystar.)
I cut my teeth on an Apple II+ way back when 64k was a lot of memory.
So why don't I like Apple today?
Because they seek to monopolize the markets created by their products.
Many years ago I bought a Quadra 700 on the cheap because its hard drive was dead. I had a good SCSI drive that I planned to use with it. Then I found out that unless my drive came from Apple, the MacOS partitioning and filesystem tools would pretend it didn't exist. Looking for help, I received many lies from Mac fanboys about how SCSI was just an electrical standard and that the Mac SCSI devices used a different command set. That was a flat out lie that is easily falsified. That they would insult me with such an obvious canard was astonishing. If someone likes a particular product then that is fine. But when they LIE in order to promote it or to obscure its flaws, then that is just plain disgusting.
Apple specifically created their filesystem tools to kill the 3rd party market for hard drives and other peripherals such as CDROM drives.
This wasn't a singular example either, but part and parcel of that company's nature. I won't purchase products from a company that tries to prevent me from purchasing complimentary products from anyone else.
Apple is continuing with this tradition today by tying their operating system to Apple branded PCs. There are people at work who use Macs and it would be nice to be able to support the platform. But doing so requires that I go out and purchase a new computer, at a significant price hike, just so I can run their operating system. If the hardware was different, such as it was back in the PowerPC or 68k days, then that would be understandable. But the hardware is not different. These are standard PCs with special hardware included that their OS searches for before it will allow itself to be installed. Same story as the hard drives with tags in the firmware.
So I just don't buy anything from Apple. I don't buy their computers. I don't buy their MP3 players. I don't buy their phones. I avoid them. I tell anyone who asks me to do the same, and I explain why.
If they ever change their tune and stop playing keep away, then maybe I'll reconsider. Till then they can blow me.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Apple specifically created their filesystem tools to kill the 3rd party market for hard drives and other peripherals such as CDROM drives.
If you buy the correct brand, the part would work. For example, Pioneer DVR 115/106/107 were the correct brand in the G3 era for DVD drives. Notice how they are not "Apple" brand. Outside of stuff apple never expect most people to change, I have never had any tricky hardware problems. The worst issue I ever went through was when my B&W G3 needed firmware flashing to allow G4 processors because they were explicitly blocked. Apple seems to be particularly strict about the CPUs. Other stuff...seemed t
I'm confused (Score:4, Interesting)
In any other case the slashdot crowd would be raging and the megacorp who crushed the small upstart's website would be hacked, but wouldn't be visible because of the simultanious DDoS attack. Only because the megacorp is Apple and the rules with them are somehow different.
Seriously. Find me another case where Slashdot cheers a EULA being upheld. Find me another case where a DMCA attack is applauded. Listen up ya numbbuts, EULAs are always evil. The DMCA is always evil. Even when Steve Jobs is crushing a small competitor. What Pystar was doing may be illegal (I'd argue that point though) but I double dog dare any fanboy to stand up here and defend the MORAL position Apple took.
Either what Apple sells in those boxes are full copies of OS X or they are upgrades. Apple insists they are full copies when it suits their arguments AND equally insists they are mere upgrades when they need to crush Pystar. Make up yer fracking minds.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
it's unlikely they'll ever release the death grip and let the world play with OS X.
The real question is: do they even need to in order to maintain their ridiculous profit margins?
They've almost died on PC sales several times (Score:3, Interesting)
Their real profit these days is the iPod/iPhone/iTunes segment. Which they would make approximately zero on if they were only available to Mac users.
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
The Mac division is very profitable, and it is growing. I'd estimate the installed base (not market share) of Macs in North America at about 20%. Take a look at any Apple quarterly earnings report to see it for yourself.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
While Apple's revenue does not entirely depend on their computer sales anymore, I wouldn't say that computer division isn't profitable. According to Apple's financial statements [apple.com], they are experiencing sales growth as well as profit growth in computer sales. Overall desktop sales are down but laptop sales are up.
As for real profit on units, Apple makes on the average more per computer than they do on each iPod and iPhone. They sell more iPods and iPhone than computers though.
Re:Which is why their computer's confuse me (Score:4, Insightful)
Why in the world would Apple want to do that? They would (like Microsoft) have to support every POS computer ever cobbled together. For a couple of bucks. Apple can barely do upgrades on the two dozen or so models they actively support - every time Apple brings out a point release or even a security fix, it manages to hose various systems.
If they had to support everything, it would look like.... Linux. Command line patches everywhere. Pleasant hours troubleshooting Bog-knows-what. Nope. They're smart doing exactly what they've set up.
Re:Which is why their computer's confuse me (Score:4, Insightful)
Undoubtably the iPod was and still is the coolest MP3 player. But you miss the point of WHY it became the coolest. Because it was the best. Because it had a great design, Because it had a great UI, because with iTunes it was the easiest to use. Normal people (i.e. not geeks) didn't want to piss about dragging MP3 files around to external disk drives, manually managing directory structures. They just want to rip their CDs in the easiest way possible and have the music appear on their iPods automatically. Let the computer take care of the administration grunt work.
Clearly you are entirely unaware of Apple's financial results, which even in the recession continue to outgrow pretty much everyone else. They don't need any business advice from you. They know far better than you do what is good for business.
Re:Which is why their computer's confuse me (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't need to "convince myself". I know better than you do because I bought one, and I know why I bought one. You didn't make that choice, and you're imagining reasons for whay other people (that you despise) did so. Which is rather ignorant of you.
The irony here is that you are the one who is arguing like an emotional sorority girl.
Re:Too Bad (Score:5, Insightful)
You're right.
The single vendor lock-in is just killing them. They were doing so well when they allowed others to build Mac clones, they should just go back to doing that. Jobs was obviously an idiot for cancelling the scheme - if he hadn't the company may have been a household name by now, instead on teetering on the brink of disaster.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Even assuming I agreed with you regarding whether or not Apple gave licensing a "real" chance (which I haven't yet decided, but leaning towards not), I don't see any compelling reason for them to roll the dice (again) on such an experiment, considering both their present commercial performance AND reported customer satisfaction.
But, for the sake of entertaining a thought: what specific choices on Apple's part regarding the handling of licensing Mac OS would have constituted giving it a "real" chance?
Re:Too Bad (Score:5, Insightful)
Meh. Apple is pretty happy where they are. If their hardware suits you and fits your needs, buy it as necessary. Otherwise, avoid it. Many many people have a hard time doing that. If Apple finds themselves needing to change because of this down the road, they will. It's that simple.
If you're building a hackintosh, good for you. Tinkering with things like that can be fun. But please don't start acting like Apple is supposed to support you. Don't install it on production machines. The hacking part of the hackintosh is supposed to be half the fun anyway. But that is it.
apple needs non aio systems and mini is weak pro i (Score:2)
apple needs non aio systems and mini is weak pro is very over priced.
People do not want to be stuck with one screen and the mini is weak and priced high next to other systems Laptop cpu 2gb ram, on board video, 160GB hd at $600?
where is the $1000-$1500 system the imac are poor priced there $1200 for on board video? $1,499.00 and only dual core + 4670 graphics with 256MB? you can get core i7 systems with screen and better video card at that price. $2000+$200 for a core i7 imac? and only 4850 graphics with 51
Re:I agree, but it's not that simple (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:I agree, but it's not that simple (Score:5, Insightful)
Much less so (Score:3, Funny)
If you buy a copy of Windows, you can transfer it to a machine from any other vendor.
Further, you don't need to tie yourself to Windows at all anymore. If you develop for .NET, you can transfer to any system that supports that at any time.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
So long as OS X is tied to a single vendor, it's absolutely irrelevant to any reasonable person
Windows is also tied to a single vendor - Microsoft. If they screw up - like they did with e.g. Windows ME and Vista - it doesn't matter how many OEMs can deliver the hardware to run it on. Linux is multivendor - and not tied to a specific hardware company - but compared to Windows and Mac it has strengths and weaknesses. It's not the only relevant one.
Re: (Score:2)
...except for all the reasonable people who have needs which do not change much, if at all, and for which almost any single vendor suits them. See, what you did there was take an proposition in which the operative word was "my" and conflate that with a proposition in which the operator is "any reasonable person". You are a specific case, accept that we're not all the same, acknowledge that people with needs other than yours are reasonable, and you'll see why your argument is rubbish.
I have a friend who onl
Re:Too Bad (Score:4, Insightful)
Oh yeah, don't forget CUPS, WEBKIT, and a few other useful tools.
Darwin is not OS X (Score:2)
All the interesting bits are either proprietary, or written by someone else.
Re: (Score:2)
That is entirely dependant on your definition of "interesting". I couldn't give a rat's shit about their window manager, but Webkit is slick stuff that I use every day.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Webkit is based off of KHTML, but if you have ever actually used both of them it will become immediately obvious it is not just a set of bugfixes. We are talking about a boatload of additional functionality.
For the record, I am not an Apple fanboi. I'm a card-carrying linux using, mac hater.
Re:Darwin is not OS X (Score:5, Informative)
Grand Central Dispatch is interesting, written fro scratch by Apple, and open sourced. You lose.
Re:Too Bad (Score:5, Insightful)
OS X is a decent operating system, but few people can be satisfied by a single hardware vendor. Might as well write off Apple as a player now, as it's unlikely they'll ever release the death grip and let the world play with OS X.
This statement seems silly on the face of it, and would benefit from some, you know, supporting evidence.
Mac's marketshare has been steadily increasing for quite some time now. Not to mention that I know lots o' Windows folks who swear by HP/Dell/Sony (pick one) for their personal computers, and Unix/Linux admins who will only buy Sun or SGI or whatever.
Even outside of the computer realm, people become enamored of particular brands all the time - be it automobiles, televisions, appliances... whatever. And once they lock themselves into that mindset, it is not easy for them to change their opinions.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
This statement seems silly on the face of it, and would benefit from some, you know, supporting evidence.
My experience every time:
I pick an Apple model I could use, and compare to a similar PC - no big difference.
I pick the PC I want, try to find something Apple has matching that - Apple loses bigtime.
The only explanation I have for Apple's success is that people don't feel the difference... computers like all have a gigahertz multicore processors, gigs of memory, terabytes of disk hundreds of GPU shaders, all sorts of ports and wireless and whatever. That only form factor and software really matters, the lim
Re: (Score:2, Flamebait)
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Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Write off Apple (Score:2)
Ya the business model Apple uses will never work. Ya..
Re:Too Bad (Score:5, Insightful)
Who are these few people that you speak of? If you mean slashdotters, that might be true. The average person buying a computer doesn't care. They mostly care if the computer they are buying will work for them. They should care more about these things but they don't.
Yes, we've heard the death knell of Apple before. That may have been closer to being true ten years ago when Apple was in deep trouble. Today they are sitting on $34 billion in cash. That doesn't account for total assets, that's just cash.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:The only thing lamer than this verdict (Score:4, Interesting)
Exactly. WTF is up with this quote from TFA:
And to those who argue that all that matters is that open source is a better way to develop code, let this case be a warning message. Apple makes fabulous code. Of course, the BSD community did a lot of it for them, but Apple makes it all just work for end users, and they do that beautifully. So no one can argue that for end users it is not fabulous code. It is.
Huh? How is this case a warning message to the people who argue that FOSS is a better way to develop code? I think PJ has lost it and from reading the rest of the articles on the site, seems to have become a rabid anti-MS Apple fangirl.
And she comes across as pretty weak in the law department as well. Look at how she skirts an important question
I know. They'll say, but, but, but ... what if they hadn't used the master and just used each copy, then would it work? Sons, why do you think Psystar used the master copy? Because it's a business, and in a business, efficiency is money. That's why businesses set themselves up, to make money. The whole world is not with you on a holy war to destroy EULAs and the GPL. Even this rinkydink business wanted to make money. Theoreticals belong on message boards, not in business and definitely not in courtrooms, and even on message boards, everyone told you for years that this wouldn't work out if someone tried it. It's been tried. It didn't work out.
Erm what? Can't she shed some light on a very relevant and interesting theoretical instead of evading it just because it can be against her conclusion that Psystar got crushed? I don't see any insight in her article, just meaningless gloating that Apple won.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
please explain when psystar did create an altered derivative work?
Also you have the right to do whatever you want to software installed on your computer, the only thing that could possibly be illegal is distribution.