Where are they selling them *from*? I'd halfway consider getting one at this point depending on the available options and such because it's going to be either (1) Cheaper than a Mac or (2) become a great collectable item after all this is over with.

I'm rooting for Apple to win this case because that means I'll see less MacOS.

AC comment 1said "If I write the software "

" am rooting for Apple here, even though I will probably never buy one of their machines. It really is a cheek of another company to think they can just leverage off the work of others, lazy fucks, why don't they just fund and write an operating system themselves."

may i remind you that infact the software licence had been payed to the software maker.

also did you forget the origins of the MS PC hardware "IBM-PC" ring any bells, your a hardware pirate "leverage off the work of others, lazy fucks" ;)

"and a user buys a license for that software then the license can stipulate that certain hardware should be used."

Well, thats pretty much playing right into the RIAAss' plans isn't it? You've stated the "legal" basis for the *stupid* system of 'zoning' for DVDs, music, software, biscuits, watching overseas TV shows before they are played in your country, etc.

Thanks.

Now, HAND BACK YOUR OUT-OF-REGION DVDs, CDs, BOOKS BOUGHT THROUGH 'GREY' CHANNELS (ie Amazon) (in best 'Halt! Kommen sie hier! accent.) (actually, what is Merkin for that? - "Spread 'em, you commie swarthy towel-head terrrrrst!")

All you lazy wipes like Psystar who can't create anything your own, should pile on for free via some government cheat-sheet (Sherman Anti Trust), steal some songs and copy a few dvd's while you're at it.... That is until some twelve year old who took the time to achieve something on their own, brings on something that sucks you all dry. Creeps.

BTW, how does it smell under the shade of someone else's ass?

Toadsticker

"a user buys a license for that software then the license can stipulate that certain hardware should be used.

As long as you are upfront that is a restriction, it really is no one else's business."

I licence is not a way to write your own laws, over riding real laws you don't like.

Ford can't make you buy oil and tires from the dealer.

Just because they say they didn't sell you the software, only licensed it, is no reason to think they can do what ever the hell they want.

By the looks of the photo, it's a bog standard assembled PC with a nice (but not too sexy) case that a lot of other companies make out of their garages and PC repair workshops, and just as some of the Linux friendly guys go out of their way to select hardware known to work with their favorite distro, Psystar have done the same for PC hardware known to work with probably an EFS bootloader and with MacOS drivers.

Remember that this is not difficult as Mac's are now glorified PC's.

Now, Psystar sell an assembled PC. They can install Linux on it. They can install WinXP on it, they could install any other PC hardware compatible operating system on it, and they chose MacOS. Why not: Apple sell the OS retail on the shelves, and you should be able to do what the hell ever you want with it as long as you do not crack off illegal copies, but an extra limtation is the licence saying that you must not install this on non apple hardware or you will go to hell (or somthing along these lines) - meaning that they are enforcing via licence a hardware lock-in to preserve a monopoly.

OK, the licence says that you must not do this and that distributors must not do this. Psystar's next step (excuse the pun) would be to sell assembled PC's and a retail box of MacOS, with a disclaimer telliing the user that they are both sold together, but they should not install the supplied MacOS CD on their hardware (along with a step by step printed installation guide).

What the user does with their 1 user licence is their business as long is it does not cause harm to the company creating the licenced content...

As Apple has done before with Mac cloners (I remember one in the mid 90's), Apple got pissey over them selling hardware cheaper than their own overpriced tat and got them shut down. Now, i'd like to see Apple do this to every PC manufacturer and assembler, as in theory, they are all capable of running MacOS....

The Devil, as Stevie has definitely got ideas above his station...

"free via some government cheat-sheet"

Don't forget that the whole copyright patent thing is based on a government cheat-sheet, as you call it. If you want to have the cake and eat it too, you're in for some shit.

Mine is the one with some international IP-treaties.

People have watching this since April.

http://journals.aol.com/davidhalko/technology/entries/2008/04/29/hackintosh-apple-clone-maker-psystar-is-born/628

I feel the need to point something out as a lot of people seem to be writing posts without actually realising what's happening here.

Psystar 'buy' a copy of OS X to put on each of their machines, they arn't stealing or copying the DVD of just one. This might be against the law or it might not but it's hardly lazy or immoral. Buying an OS and putting it on someone else's hardware is how Windows works and that has many advantages as well as disadvantages to that model.

The issue isn't about stealing anything. It's about whether a company can make and sell a stand-alone OS and then legally stipulate that you can only use it with Hardware that they say you can use it with.

It is of course best for everyone on the planet (except perhaps Apple accountants) that Psystar be allowed to do this, afterall people who like buying from Apple can continue to do so and people who like modified systems (without warrenty) can do what they want to do. This is just another option for consumers with Apple been paid for the part of the machine that is Apple's.

There has to be some truth behind the company's claims its OK.

For example, Dell got into trouble for not letting users put their own ram in by themselves without voiding the warranty.

If the petrol companies signed a deal with a big car company that said you can buy petrol but only put it in company X's cars, would that be legal? THEY are selling the petrol so surely they can do what they like with it?

Paris, because she is as clueless as I am

When apple built their own machines (not just produce pretty PC clones) the EULA was solid. Their software would only run on, and should only be run on, their machines.

Now Apple is selling PC clones with a boot rom that allows you to run their OS and anybody elses OS's. (have your cake and eat it).

Is it unreasonable?

If you buy a ford car and want to stick a honda engine under the bonnet I think fords response would be "good luck to you". You certainly would invalidate any ford warrenty.

However if as a car manufacturer I were to set up a company which converted fords to use honda engines and then sold them on as the "Ford BD". Would Ford disagree?.

To a point this already happens (AMG & Brabus Mercedes). But has to be with the manufacturers agreement.

I would suggest that the EULA is unfair as it prevents individuals running MAC-OS on a PC (buy your ford and stick a honda engine in it, good luck to you).

However as for covenverting PC's to run Mac-os and making money out of it. Sorry without the agreement of the manufacturer I think that is wrong.

Sorry Psystar I think you are on to a looser here.

"they could have stated that you can only get Mac OS with a Mac ... and then sold upgrades that required a registered piece of hardware before they'd work "

Which is effectively what they do - the EULA for OS X says that it can only be used on a Mac, which originally came with a copy of OS X. The only differences are that the box doesn't say "UPGRADE ONLY" on it, and that the enforcement is only via a license agreement rather than anything more intrusive *surely a good thing!)

There's no way that Psystar can "win" here - even if they can get a court to agree that they're allowed to sell machines with OS X installed, Apple could then label the current boxed product as upgrades (with no effect on their customers) and sell non-upgrade versions at a higher price - perhaps comparable with Windows Vista Ultimate.

Software vendors should not be able to impose any conditions beyond what the normal copyright legislation does (like banning making copies to sell or give away).

I mean, in what other technology do you get this kind of silliness? Time again for a car analogy: suppose Ford cars came with an EULA that forbids me from hanging furry dice in it? Or from driving after drinking tea? The complaints Apple makes are in the same class.

>By Anonymous Coward<

>If I write the software and a user buys a license for that software then the license can stipulate that certain hardware should be used. <

Not under English law it can't!

Statute law explicitly voids any conditions or restrictions that you can't see until after purchase (unless, very specifically, you are buying a bus or train ticket with conditions on the back...)

The only restrictions on what you do with software etc. after you buy it are the most basic copyright ones like not making & selling copies without permission.

All other licence conditions etc. that say you must/must not do XYZ or the licence is void, or that you can't transfer it from one machine to another are absolutely meaningless.

This also covers any 'conditions' relating to online activation of software; they are irrelevant - You bought it, You can use it!

I may be in the minority, but I think Psystar is in the right here.

I find that more and more software makers try to force trough their EULA terms that are unacceptable or would be considered unacceptable to consumers in the real world. If I buy an OS once I paid for it I consider that instance of the OS is my property and that I should be free to do with it whatever I damn like!

What apple (and others in the software sector) seem to be wanting to do is re-write the rules of commerce and ownership to: "We sell you something but we still own it and we still control what you can do with it once you have bought it. Actually you gave us money for nothing."

If I buy a piece of windows software and I manage to make it run under Linux with Wine I don't see an issue (as long as I don't go crying to the manufacturer for support if something breaks), nobody will refuse to sell the software to me just because I don't own windows. Apple is actually discriminating against owner of non apple hardware! Either they don't sell the OS to anyone or they sell to everybody!

It is similar to entering into a shop to buy a Nike sweatshirt and finding a big label on the one you want that says "we don't authorize you to wear this sweatshirt with non Nike sneakers".

Would you consider this acceptable?

Absolutely not!

Once you bought it it's your property, you wear it with whatever you want as long as you consider it fits well, why would it be different in the software world?

<start rant>

It's amazing how blind a lot of you Macintosh users are.

You actually agree and find it holy that OSX being limited to an <engage emphasis>"apple-labelled"</disengage emphasis> as a good thing? So, then therefore if I wanted to get a MacPro, and change that nasty chassis that you get, keeping the components inside and replacing the chassis, say, with a LianLi case it will void my license by violating the EULA for OSX? Do you see any sense in that?

Apple don't limit the hardware, that's important to stress, just the thing that holds all the hardware inside. Apple DO NOT make hardware, not any of it, not the CPU, the RAM, the hard drives, not the crappy graphics cards they provide (usually a £35 128MB ATI Radeon on machines less than £1.5k). They don't make any of it whatsoever. Magical part is that they just simply run the motherboard on EFI rather than BIOS. Not exactly miraculous is it?

The whole thing is a joke. Apple don't want to open their anti-competitive OS market. If you go onto the Mac forums, either at Mac Rumors, or the apple site itself, you can see why the users are how they are. I salute Psystar for what they are doing, bending over Steve and showing what a c*nt he really is. If you look at their site, they have an entry level machine for around $300 USD, and they say it rivals the performance of a MacPro in accordance to benchmark results. Why can't apple achieve that?

Browsing through the Mac forums is like watching their users being brought up in Post War Germany. Flock of mindless drones who know no better.

So who's more to blame? Microsoft for not challenging the practices of Apple after being bent over by the European Commission constantly for being "anti-competitive".

</end rant>

Psystar get my support. I wish they win with a passion.

Good theory, but impractical.

If you start by trying to get Apple's license declared unreasonable, Apple can simply procrastinate. After about five years you will have spent money on lawyers, will have made no income, and might have made some progress on the license. Apple can then make some trivial changes to the license and kick the process back to the start again.

Apple want to sell kit to people with money to burn. It is their choice. Psystar want to sell to a different segment of the market. They could both profit by negotiating an agreement. Instead they are throwing money at lawyers.

If I were Apple, I would want at least three Psystars competing each other out of a profit in the cheap and crappy segment of the market. That way, I could sell more profitable upgrades because Psystar and friends are effectively subsidising the hardware, and I could keep the high profit hardware segment by maintaining a reputation for quality.

At least there is no mandatory Apple tax on laptops.

Ahh, that'll explain all the proprietry hardware Apple are now using then - gfx by Nvidia (you didn't make that, did you Apple), motherboards by someone else (Asus ?!?), hard drives by someone else (who cares)

So, with all the clearly generic kit, you now think Apple make their own kit - from scratch - without any influence or input from *anyone* else ?

As I can buy generic kit of a similar specification for far far less than Apple want to resell someone elses' generic bundle of kit for, why can't I use software paid for and built to run on generic hardware ?

Mine's the one with "soon to be running OSX on a £115 Proliant ML115" on the back...

All you fan boys and frothy-mouthed zealots who are claiming that its fine for Apple to abuse their position to make more money from punters by forcing them to buy their branded products should remember two things:

1) If the manufacturer of your car told you you could only play CDs in it that had been purchased (at a vastly inflated price) from them otherwise you'd be breaking the license agreement for it, you'd shit bricks and be up in arms in a nanosecond. Certainly in the UK, car manufacturers used to try this kind of thing by invalidating warranties if you didn't have servicing done in their overpriced dealerships, usually by some poorly trained, spotty and dis-interested YTS trainee even though independants are often better and use exactly the same parts. They got a kicking for this and they are no longer allowed to do it. I see very little difference in this case.

2) Look inside your precious Mac and see what the badge is on the CPU - Intel. Did Apple invent that, or design it, or build it? Did they fuck as like. To paraphrase the first commenter, they are merely leveraging the work of others, the lazy fucks. Why don't they get off their arses and design their own CPUs, north bridges, south bridges, PCI busses, GPUs, memory...........oh wait a minute, its because there's no profit in that. THAT IS THE WHOLE POINT MORONS. Do you really think Ford, GM, BMW, VW, Renault, Citroen or any other car manufacturer makes every component in their cars? Of course not, they buy them from specialist manufacturers because that is the most cost efficient way of doing things, and you'd be the first to whine about the price if they did go ahead and make everything themselves.

Frankly, I reckon the manufacturers of all the ancillary hardware used by Apple should stipulate in their licenses that they may not be used for Macs and that way they'd die out and we'd be free of the odious smugness that ozzes from every pore of the self-righteous Apple sheep.

Safari for windows being pushed out with their itunes update a few months ago.

It had a EULA that said it could only be installed on apple hardware.

So, in essence what a lot of complete d!ckwads are saying is that it is ok for apple to make all itunes updaters (some many millions of people I imagine) petty criminals, but it is not ok for someone else to do what they do.

If Apple is happy to distribute their software onto Windows PC's under a license stating that it is installed on apple branded hardware, then I have to assume that ALL windows PC's are now apple branded hardware by their definitions.

After all its all the same hardware underneath the case. INTEL cpu's NVidia/Radeon GFX, etc etc. SAME STUFF as any PC.

I hope that psistar fux them up in court.

AMG & Brabus Mercedes are something completely different. There are lots of companies that will change the engine in your car. It is a complex process, but can be done. The only ones I can think of off the top of my head is there are people selling Smart cars with 'busa engines and Lotus's with Honda engines (or they were until Lotus started doing it themselves).

The difference with AMG & Brabus is to do with the complexity of the German laws and the different Tax regulations to do with being classed as a car manufacturer or a tuner.

Also, changing the engine would not void your whole warranty, only the parts affected by the change. For example, if you change the engine you would not always be coverd for drive train problems, unless you can prove that a problem was due to a fault by the original manufacturer, but if, say, one of your doors fell off, you would be.

The other difference is a car maker is selling a whole car. Apple is clearly selling two products. Bundled, but still two distinct products. If they only sold the OS with the computer then fine, but they don't.

Bit of a bad analogy with the Ford, Honda thing.

On the other hand, if you were to fit said Honda engine to a Ford and call it your own brand (therefore not using Ford's trademarked name) eg: Fonda (TM) I don't see how either party could complain when Ford had willingly and freely sold you the car, and Honda willingly and freely sold you the engine.

It would be no different to buying an Arial Atom which comes from the factory with a Honda Vtec engine as standard.

Mines the one with the Fonda Moncord (tm) keys in.....

There were several Anti-Trust cases between IBM and various plug compatable manufacturers in the 60s.

IBM lost every single one of them. This ended in a supreme court "unbundling" ruling stipulating that IBM (and therefore any other hardware or software manufacturer) must sell the hardware and software as separate components to anyone who wants to buy them at the going market rate.

Some of the cases were so close to the Apple situation ( IBM refused to sell its operating system software to a plug compatable manufacturer ) that Apple will need to take this all the way back to the supreme court to get it overturned.

As for the "Apple being creative" comments its BSD unix with pretty windows, the only thing apple created was the bitmaps for the icons.

Paris because .. we'll always have Paris.

This case has nothing to do with an EULA. It just happnes to be a good way to defend yourself.

The entire point of the rejection, and court action by Apple is to stop people like Psystar using OSX on something which is not L1 (verified).

The Apple world works because much like server gear, and top end hardware everything is verified to work. Of course, if Apple starts selling boxed copies of it's much famed OSX next to, say, Vista then problems begin.

People start putting OSX on their own machines. OSX starts to show flaws, security issues, stability problems and more far beyond anything it has found itself in before because the hardware it is working with is simply not verified for the operating system. There is no doubt Psystar will fight this. I hope they win. I want to be able to buy OSX off the shelf. I want an end to the lies of Apple. I want a level playing field.

Will Psystar win? I doubt it. If they did win, and OSX was forced to be in the end user world for custom builds...then the entire Apple empire comes crashing down.

So if crApple wins , does that mean that all the copyleft material used in the core of leopard now becomes copyright and thus all the Berkley BSD/UNIX Linux fanatics and end users will be subject to a tax assessment from the Cupertino pirates , how evil is that !

Now we know why crApple is so consistent with the abuses of the DMCA Act that be for sure in order to take control of all open source by stealth !

There are plenty of car companies that buy cars, do things to them and then sell them on, without the original makers permission.

If this was Microsoft doing this, for instance if the only mouse and keyboard that would work with windows are microsoft ones; then the world would be up in arms and they would be fined a gazillion dollars. Because it's apple it must be ok.

Amdahl already did this with mainframes... IBM refused to licence their then MVS operating system to Amdahl on pretty much the same grounds that Apple are using.

Amdahl screamed unfair.... And IBM lost. and Amdahl made the competition for IBM. IBM finally killed them and other competitors by moving to a new 32bit architecture that Amdahl didn't have the funds to develop competing systems for.

Apple sell very expensive boxes. There's very little in them that isn't bog standard PC architecture. There's no real technical justification in their stance - just financial, by protection of a (small) monopoly. Fair competition would be good.

I'd love to see apple put their money into making OS/X available for any of the pieces of kit that Linux and XP run on. Would make Vista's problems look trivial for a long time. But they won't. Lock-in and exclusivity are their game. But it isn't going to happen - unless challenges like this succeed. Too much money to lose.

I think Apple are being very clever here - Sexy O/S. Sexy, but way overpriced hardware. Restricted hardware set to minimise support issues. And a clever marketing campaign to convince people that buying on looks is cool, even if it's costly....

& before you ask, I run a mixed & legal XP/Linux setup at home. Now to wait for the Apple fanboys to vent their rage as I've attacked their holy grail.

Title says it all really, imagine Windows HP or IE for DELL, I mean damn, they slapped MS around just for putting a browser in the OS.

I hope Jobs gets his comeupance on this one, since the last apple i bought was a granny smith, and that ended up in the bin cause it was rotten in the core.

I beleive that going back to the IBM PC clone, if their boot rom or whatever is reproduced (however it's done) then they can't do squat about it. IBM lost to 3rd party vendors over bios code, so Jobsie should loose to. But then the law is a funny thing - never seem to side with the logical.

Mines the one with the flameproof liner :)

"It really is a cheek of another company to think they can just leverage off the work of others, lazy fucks, why don't they just fund and write an operating system themselves."

It really is a cheek of Apple to think they can just leverage off the work of others, lazy fucks, why don't they just fund and manufacture a CPU/Motherboard/RAM/Video card themselves.

If you think MS are using anti-competitive business pactices, then Apple take it to a whole new level.

If you agree that Psystar is violating the law by running OSX on non Apple hardware, do you then agree that using a Logitech mouse, a Dell monitor, an HP printer are all uses of OSX with non-Apple hardware? Do you think Apple then has the right to perform checks of ALL your hardware and shut down it's product if it finds non-sanctioned equipment? Are you O.K. with the fact that Apple can amend it's EULA at any time and hold you to the new terms without a refund if you then decide you don't like them? Are you also O.K. with the fact that as Joe Consumer, you don't know what the EULA is until you buy the product, get it home, open the box, break the seal that says you agree to the EULA(still, without being presented with the full terms!), and begin installing?!??! At this point you can't take it back to the place where you purchased it, because they won't refund opened software. Like a previous poster said, the EULA can state whatever it wants, but there is no saying it's legally binding until it's challenged. I hope Apple loses this one, as it will set a precedent for all other consumer electronics suppliers. If Apple want's to control their product, they could act as the sole distributor and require a serial number for purchase of upgrades. Many other companies follow that model and nobody gives them press time at all.

They could use an open-source BSD derivative, tweek the front end to look like a mac (as we've seen soooo many times), then all they need to do is write a nice bit of code to allow mac programs to run on it.

Ok so that is the tricky part, but its only one program...the Samba and Wine open source projects did it to interoperate with MS stuff so its possible.

Let em argue about licenses I have mac and linux, if i dont want to spend the cash on a (pointlessly) white laptop then i dont, i'm not going to buy a mac wannabe, I'll not have a mac.