Psystar to Challenge Mac OS X EULA?

[MacRumors]

InformationWeek spoke to an employee of Psystar, the company responsible for the previously reported $399 Mac Clone. The employee known as "Robert" claims that they will challenge Apple's Mac OS X End User License Agreement (EULA) which specifically prohibits the installation of Mac OS X on non Apple-branded machines.

[Robert] also said Psystar believes Apple's prohibition against third-party installations might not hold up in court: "What if Honda said that, after you buy their car, you could only drive it on the roads they said you could?"

Robert said Psystar will continue to sell the OpenMac system, despite the fact that it appears to violate Apple's EULA. "We're not breaking any laws," he insisted.

Indeed, Apple's EULA agreement is not cast into law, but simply represents an implicit agreement ("contract") between the user and company. The enforceability of EULAs, however, has been a subject of much debate, and a true legal challenge would be very interesting. That being said, Robert's loose use of the word "monopoly" and car/road analogy does not necessarily inspire confidence in his legal prowess.

Of note, Psystar has changed the name of their Mac clone from "OpenMac" to "Open Computer", presumably due to trademark issues surrounding the use of the term "Mac".


Article Link

[flopticalcube]

Of note, Psystar has changed the name of their Mac clone from "OpenMac" to "Open Computer", presumably due to trademark issues surrounding the use of the term "Mac".

Round 1 to Apple.

[basesloaded190]

this should be exciting to watch..not really sure what to think about this yet

[gkarris]

Has anyone ordered one?

[Cybix]

Psystar are about to enter a world of pain....

[tsd]

My prediction: Psystar will fall.

[Sun Baked]

Yes, all the legal prowess of a drunk trying to talk his way out of a DUI.

[Cromulent]

It is not the act of installing Mac OS X on a PC that is the problem. It is the breach of contract that is the problem.

Apple do have legal grounds in that instance. I'm no lawyer but I'm fairly sure Apple will come out on top with this one.

[gphoto]

This should be very, very, interesting.

[mrgreen4242]

Originally Posted by flopticalcube

Round 1 to Apple.

Hardly. Trademark issues and contract law have nothing to do with one another. I hope Psytar succeeds, personally. I feel that EULA are out if control and someone needs to smack some sense into all companies that think they are "licensing" you software when they sell you something.

[g00k]

lol round one for apple XD
that was quite obvious how can they be so stupid and put a mac part in their product name?
but still robert seems confident...

[daveman235]

Interesting.... part of me wants to see apple win....but at the same time part of me wants apple to lose.

you think apple will atleast up the hardware and drop the price in the mini line?

[!¡ V ¡!]

Lets forget for a moment that they are "testing" the Mac OS on a home machine PC, its the extent that they are selling it that just draws up legal concerns.

Doing it as an experiment is one thing, doing it for profit is another.

[Drumjim85]

Good for him! Hope he wins. But apple has a lot of money and can afford to draw out a law suit.

[job]

I'm a little confused why so many people want Apple to succeed here.

I'd much rather be able to install OSX onto a computer that I could build for hundreds less and still get the same great experience of using a Macintosh operating system.

If Psystar succeeds, isn't that a win/win for consumers? Apple can still sell high-end, beautifully designed hardware for those who want it and hobbiests and budget-minded individuals can still use Mac OS.

[g00k]

up the hardware... i guess so, an upadte is coming.
dropping the price? hell no its apple

[kkat69]

I find it hard to believe that if the 'anti-trust violation' this guys speaks of exists how is it that there are no 'other' clones out on the market, and why big name system manufacturers haven't included "Mac Compatible" system along with their "Linux Compatible" systems yet this small insignificant IT consulting company is going to take on Apple in this case.

Sure flame on with "because nobody wants Macs" yet we as Mac users clearly know and demand lower priced Macs. Dell/HP/IBM could easily fill this void and could have long ago if this persons claim actually held water.

I feel his analogies aren't exactly sound. If Honda made the car AND made the roads then sure they can restrict you to drive on ONLY the roads they drive on. Similar to Cable companies. Just because there's cable going to your house doesn't mean you can go and get any cable company provider, your restricted since Cox or Comcast layed that cable down.

If I understand this guy correctly and I think I do. We can sue ANY software company simply because they restrict us to use a particular OS because they are monopolizing us to a particular OS. We can sue Apple because we can't run iLife in Windows. We can sue Microsoft because we can't use Visual Studio or .Net in OS X.

I know that was far fetched but I was trying to prove a point.

MS Licensed and developed/architected their software/OS to run on almost any platform. Apple does not and their OS is designed to be used with it's hardware, well within their legal right. Same with some system at one time could only run on SPARC processors and not Intel processors. Sun Solaris, Unix, etc. These are OS's with particular requirements.

I think we might see probably one of the first legal battles of a EULA.

[clevin]

only end users can break EULA, they didn't break any EULA, nor laws.

[Syrus28]

On Gizmodo, they posed the example of Microsoft prohibiting the installation of Windows on anything besides Dell computers...

I dunno about this one...

[dguisinger]

Originally Posted by mrgreen4242

Hardly. Trademark issues and contract law have nothing to do with one another. I hope Psytar succeeds, personally. I feel that EULA are out if control and someone needs to smack some sense into all companies that think they are "licensing" you software when they sell you something.

If you overturn EULA, open source agreements like GPL could easily go with it; for many, those only appear during the install of a linux distro. Also, it says on the outside of the box that it is subject to the software license agreement included in the package. The software license agreement is in the booklet, meaning you never have to take the disc out to even read it.

[150hp]

I am looking forward to what ever transpires here.

Fun to watch...

[Bradley W]

_

[rfaulder]

"What if Honda said that, after you buy their car, you could only drive it on the roads they said you could?"

If Honda designed that car for a specific type of road that they built, why not? You chose to buy it….

[inkswamp]

Originally Posted by flopticalcube

Round 1 to Apple.

Round 1 to Psystar's marketing people.

Good god, did you just miss all the free advertising they got when the news of this hit every tech site out there like a tidal wave? They could remove every mention of Apple from their site right now and people would probably still buy this machine for the intended purpose. There aren't a lot of people out there right now who don't know what this is and overnight this move put Psystar on the map. Did you know who they were two days ago?

[Mykbibby]

As FSJ would say... Mocshe has been dispatched