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Is Running OS X on a PC Illegal If......
- Thread starter Iku
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Iku said:
Apple doesn't sell MacOS X for Intel computers.
What you can buy is MacOS X 10.4 for PowerPC. The only computers this can be installed on are Macs, and everybody who bought one of these Macs had some version of MacOS included in the purchase price, so the regular $129 price for Tiger is the price for an _upgrade_.
When Leopard comes out, you can be sure that it will say "upgrade" on the box. I don't think that Apple would be selling MacOS X for PCs. If they did, I would expect a price like $399. You might as well buy a MacMini.
But why? Why can we run Windows on a Mac perfectly legally, but not OS X on A PC? Of course, Apple would lose some money on that, becasue people would stop buying Macs, and go for PC's cuz PC's are cheaper... Wow, I kind of just answerd my own question.
Whoop, 100th post for me!
Whoop, 100th post for me!
Cassie said:But why? Why can we run Windows on a Mac perfectly legally, but not OS X on A PC? Of course, Apple would lose some money on that, becasue people would stop buying Macs, and go for PC's cuz PC's are cheaper... Wow, I kind of just answerd my own question.
Whoop, 100th post for me!
This is simply not true. Apple and third parties constantly prove that like for like hardware is cheaper from apple than, say, dell! Plus build quality is overall excellent.
Apple don't offer Mac OS X for PCs because they'd have no control over driver creation, etc, which would cause crashes and essentially eventually ruin their reputation as a stable system. Mac OS X is so stable, in part, because it knows the hardware it's running on very well.
Cassie said:But why? Why can we run Windows on a Mac perfectly legally, but not OS X on A PC? Of course, Apple would lose some money on that, becasue people would stop buying Macs, and go for PC's cuz PC's are cheaper... Wow, I kind of just answerd my own question.
Whoop, 100th post for me!
because that is there software agreement. to use it you have to have the hardware. apple sells the hardware to make the big money.
you can install windows because MS is a software company and buying windows is just for another computer. MS doesn't make any hardware at all.
It's not just that.Cassie said:
OS X on random PC hardware means that Apple would have to support lots more hardware that the limited choices they actually offer for sale. One reason OS X tends to be more stable than Windows is that they don't have to worry as much about random driver interactions and other such things that can be a problem on Windows. (They don't have to be an issue, but it comes up more than once or twice).
This would drive up the cost of development and testing of OS X which wouldbe bad for all of us.
EDIT: Spacemagic beat me to it.
B
gnasher729 said:
This is at least the second time you've said this in a thread. What makes you think that Leopard will say "upgrade" on the box? Not that it really matters, but none of the previous OS X releases have said that, and there's nothing different about Leopard.
Apple, but they are unlikely to go after anyone except the hackers.wchong said:hmmm who cares really?
They will likely go after anyone who sells a "package" aka, a PC, Mac OS, and the hack as a Mac Clone.
Heck they stepped on the guy hard for trying to put together upgrade Macs in their own cases.
SpaceMagic said:
Hardware is more expensive from Apple, go try to build a Dell with the specs of a MacBook Pro. It is hard especially since Dell has updated its entire line to Core 2 Duo.
A while back when Apple's hardware was comprable to the top/mid-top of the line Dell's the price was reasonable especially if you add in size, weight, battery life, etc. The build quality, well, that could go either way.
There would be a large drop in Mac sales if they made OSX for PCs. I would venture to say that the drop would be primarilly from "switchers."
generik said:Not only is it a breach of the EULA, it is illegal as in DMCA illegal, or PMITA prison kind of illegal.
EULA sez:
But, it's not exactly criminal. It's a violation of the license agreement. All that means is they can stop you from using it that way (and maybe make it expensive).
Le Big Mac said:
But the violation of the EULA results in violation of the DMCA, which is most definitely criminal.
WildCowboy said:
Actually there is nothing in the DMCA per se that enforces the clauses in a EULA, however the circumvention of a copy protection mechanism (if the big brother chip can be called that) is a violation of the law under the DMCA.
Either way MacOS installed on a PC wouldn't work right 100% depending on the drivers required to run your devices, and even for a cheap bloke like me I wouldn't do it
MacOS isn't THAT great to justify going to such lengths to do it, I will gladly run Windows XP with all the supposed spyware/malware problems that some posters always refer to (which I strangely never had a problem with) than to use MacOS where the sound wouldn't work, or random kernel panics will happen from time to time.
generik said:
Absolutely...installing OS X on a second Mac (provided the machine and OS version are compatible) would just be a violation of the EULA, but installing it on a PC would also involve a violation of the DMCA because you'd be circumventing the "technological measure that controls access" to the copyrighted work (ie. the OS).
It's like getting really tasty cereal for $0.10 a box. But it's only edible when you put it in a special milk from the same company that costs $15 a gallon. Perhaps the proceeds from the milk sales even subsidize the cost of producing the cereal. Regardless, the company is using the cereal to drive up sales of milk, and then take profits off the milk.
I'm sure that while Apple cares how much of the personal computing market share they hold (bigger market share might encourage software companies to develop more) the bottom line is that they make fat profit margins on hardware sales. I'm sure that computers like the iMac are highly profitable for Apple; not only are they priced at the upper end, they are not as upgradeable as the Mac Pros. What if you could buy a cheap Dell, install OS X, and then cheaply do-it-yourself upgrade it for several years? That's a lot of money lost for Apple.
I'm sure that while Apple cares how much of the personal computing market share they hold (bigger market share might encourage software companies to develop more) the bottom line is that they make fat profit margins on hardware sales. I'm sure that computers like the iMac are highly profitable for Apple; not only are they priced at the upper end, they are not as upgradeable as the Mac Pros. What if you could buy a cheap Dell, install OS X, and then cheaply do-it-yourself upgrade it for several years? That's a lot of money lost for Apple.
There is like a million steps to install OSX on a PC, I'd hate to go through all that crap just to illegally install OSX. I don't even want to know how the performance would be and how stable it would be and all that crap.
OSX->Apple
Windows->Dell, etc.
and leave it that way.
OSX->Apple
Windows->Dell, etc.
and leave it that way.
balamw said:
I doubt that's the real explaination, if that's the case Apple can always contract out manufacturers who make PC containing specific components known to be compatible, and market that brand as a no frills Apple compatible brand.
Fact of the day is Apple just wants to make maximum money, end of story, all this "it will hurt us" blah blah nonsense is just fanboy talk.
Iku said:
You can certainly do so on a curiosity level. The legality of it has been touched on by other people. It uses illegally distributed Apple code and is therefore illegal to use. I ha... er, I mean a friend who I don't know really well has tried OSX86 on a number of occasions and even on hardware that's virtually identical to the same-class Mac (all m...um, his new PC's are in fact very similar to the current Macs under the skin, simply because I... he's bought the best PC's around), it hasn't been as stable nor futz-free as a Mac. For me it's not workable. It would have been great to mix the superior support of Dell's business support and their more conservatively designed (read: more reliable) hardware with OS X. But it still needs a lot of work and defeats the object of the 'just works' OS X - so it depends on whether you want it as an everyday thing or just out of curiosity.
generik said:
And you don't think that will drive up the price of the OS or those "no frills Apple compatible brands" ???
generik said:
Yeah 'clones'.
We've been here before Jobs returned to Apple. I think it's still probably a workable idea but I suspect the time is not right and that it would have to be done on different terms to last time.
in what country?
it may be that in some countries an EULA that prevents you from using a legal copy on different hardward is not valid. i think in germany it would be legal to install it on a PC as long as you don't circumvent a copy protection.
is there a lawyer around to confirm/correct?
it may be that in some countries an EULA that prevents you from using a legal copy on different hardward is not valid. i think in germany it would be legal to install it on a PC as long as you don't circumvent a copy protection.
is there a lawyer around to confirm/correct?