EFiX Allows Mac OS X to Boot on a PC

[Frobozz]

Nice utility

This is a great utility for hobbyists. I use a Mac laptop to get work done and have fun-- but I also have a custom built gaming PC. It would be great if I could have OS X on that PC in a dual boot configuration.

I think they need to expand their motherboard options (outside of Gigabyte). Also of note-- it seems only graphics cards that already have Mac drivers will work. I would like to see other graphics cards enabled, too.

It seems to me that they are creatively evading Apple's legal ire. They don't mess with the OS it's self, so they don't break the OS X Eula. While Apple only supports running OS X on a Macintosh, it is the end user breaking that portion of the EULA, not EFiX as a company.

So long as the code on that USB dongle does not contain proprietary Apple code (probably not,) it seems like they will be in the clear.

 

[BaldiMac]

I'm fine with a reasonable EULA. If a EULA is unreasonable, it is probably illegal and there is no reason to obey it.

Who decides what's unreasonable? You? Apple? I would say the courts. They have not found the Apple EULA to be illegal to date. I understand that it has never been tested.

Why would you agree to the EULA if it is unreasonable? If you did not agree to it, than you also give up any rights that it grants you.

 

[polaris20]

Forgive me for not reading the hundreds of posts since yesterday, potentially resulting in redundancy:

The glaring way in which EFiX could result in a lawsuit is if the included EFI firmware has anything to do with that which Apple use on Macs. If it does, this company is D E A D, so long.

The tangly way this could result in a lawsuit would be by strictly enforcing the EULA (I'm too bizzy at the moment to provide the name Apple actually uses for their licenses or to go find a copy). Apple clearly state, if memory serves, that Mac OS X is to only be run on Apple provided hardware. The end.

Yeah, except that if it's a EULA violation, it's on the individual, not EFI-X. Apple would have to go have to go after the person actually installing OSX on the computer, not EFI-X themselves.

Then there are the folks that say EFI-X facilitates breaking a legal contract, therefore they can be sued too. That's not really an open and shut case though, since there are a lot of things that facilitate breaking a law, yet they're sometimes illegal to purchase, sometimes not. Such as a police radar detector.

 

[diamond.g]

Did Apple change Intel's implementation of EFI (since they created it)? It looks like Apple's best bet is to not actually use UEFI and create their own system.

 

[oban14]

For those that think that this type of thing is a great idea I will try one more time to make a point that you hopefully will understand.

First, try to understand that OS X is sold at a price that is most likely break-even at best. Why? Because that is not where Apple makes its profit; they are not in the business of selling only operating system software.

With Apple's current pricing plan, they are sure that each person that purchases a copy of OS X also purchased a MAC computer. They reap income from the hardware sale.

The combination of the price paid for OS X and the price paid for the hardware COMBINED is sufficient to allow Apple to pay for R&D, general overhead and make a profit for its shareholders.

If you take away a major portion of the income that they derive from each copy of OS X sold, that of the hardware, Apple will not generate sufficient funds to pay for R&D, general overhead and profit for its shareholders.

If this were to happen, something would have to give. Either the price of a copy of OS X would have to be increased by the amount of income that was derived by the hardware sale that did not occur (drastically raising the cost of a copy of OS X), R&D costs would have to be reduced (no more innovative products we all love), general overhead would have to be reduced (quality engineers and programmers would be let go, again no more innovative products) or shareholder profits would have to be reduced (no more Apple) or more likely, some combination of all of these.

Does this remind you of any other company (think M$)? Do you really want another M$ instead of an Apple? That is what widespread adoption of the use of Hacintoshes would cause. Not a pleasant thought.

Dave

You know as little about economics and economies of scale as the rest of the fanbois. Congratulations?

If Apple sold one copy of OSX and no hardware, they would have to charge millions for it to break even.

If they sold 1000 copies, they'd have to charge 100,000 or tens of thousands.

If they sold 1,000,000 copies... They'd have to charge less.

10,000,000 copies?

See a pattern here? They don't need to raise their price. They just need to sell more copies.

Forgive me for not reading the hundreds of posts since yesterday, potentially resulting in redundancy:

The glaring way in which EFiX could result in a lawsuit is if the included EFI firmware has anything to do with that which Apple use on Macs. If it does, this company is D E A D, so long.

The tangly way this could result in a lawsuit would be by strictly enforcing the EULA (I'm too bizzy at the moment to provide the name Apple actually uses for their licenses or to go find a copy). Apple clearly state, if memory serves, that Mac OS X is to only be run on Apple provided hardware. The end.

Next issue: Apple being stuck doing tech support for unsupported hardware.

We all know perfectly well that if you buy into the EFiX game then you are going to be suck in the Infinite Loop of The Blame Game. No way is EFiX going to support your Mac OS X problems! "It's not our software man! We only support the hardware add-on! Call Apple!". Then you call Apple and they ask for your hardware SERIAL NUMBER (Yes they do!) and you have to come up with some fraudulent number you grabbed off the net. If you fail to deliver, Apple grab your phone number for the purpose of identifying your ass so they can add you to their lawsuit, then tell you go to talk to the EFiX folks, it's their problem, it's not Apple hardware. If by chance you make it through Apple's grilling, you have just made yourself a PARASITE on Apple, having them pay for tech support you in no way whatsoever deserve because you broke the law and tossed MOSX on IBM derived PC hardware, you little scumbag.

So, I'm just saying, you know, like, save your ass and be assiduous dude!

They could simply say "use this software on Apple branded hardware or you get no support." Pretty simple, huh? There is no way Apple is going to start suing end users, get over it.

Who decides what's unreasonable? You? Apple? I would say the courts. They have not found the Apple EULA to be illegal to date. I understand that it has never been tested.

Why would you agree to the EULA if it is unreasonable? If you did not agree to it, than you also give up any rights that it grants you.

So if a court ever confirms it to be legal, maybe I'll feel differently. But I probably won't. I'll stick to the spirit of the EULA - one copy for one computer.

 

[netkas]

looks like efix site has /. effect, cuz of gizmodo's post.

and about legality.

Forcing user to break EULA..... it breaks only DMCA yeah ?

how much countries have DMCA? uhm, only one iirc.
and since art-studios(efix developer) located outside of US , they need to care abotu dmca ?

secodn about dmca, afaik, if u can prove legality usage of ur thing, then it dosnt violate DMCA.

so efix is fancy bootloader to boot OS from multiple hard drives, have a legal usage, no dmca violation.

 

[Digital Skunk]

Funny, HP and Dell overnight the parts, and a technician comes onsite the next day to repair. For simple stuff, I replace the part myself.

That's what they're done for me as well. Even with the crappy 1-year basic warranty.

Offers subject to change, not combinable with all other offers. Taxes, shipping, handling and other fees apply. Dell reserves the right to cancel orders arising from pricing or other errors. Limit of 5 systems per customer please.

How long ago did you get your system? Both HP and Dell only gave us the onsite repairs and service with the workstations, and even they wouldn't get it done as fast as the Genii at Apple.

Also, there's no software coverage to be had from Dell or HP or Acer since they don't make the software.

And I haven't been able to find any info about international coverage. Very important since I am interested in that Mini 9 with Ubuntu.

 

[Eidorian]

How long ago did you get your system? Both HP and Dell only gave us the onsite repairs and service with the workstations, and even they wouldn't get it done as fast as the Genii at Apple.

Also, there's no software coverage to be had from Dell or HP or Acer since they don't make the software.

I have a Dimension 3100 and E521 that have gotten nearly next day on-site love for the first year.

 

[johnasmith1914]

HP sent a guy to fix my hp pavilion laptop while i was in Dakar, Senegal.

I had bought about 30 hp laptops, and one of them would not power on after about 4 months usage.

hp's service is pretty solid.

 

[gehrbox]

I'd buy one of these if I didn't already have a speedy iMac.

How long will they be available and how long before Apple patches OS X to look for specific motherboard hardware and bricks this device? Depends on Apples findings after they research what these guys are doing to make OS X run.

 

[nanofrog]

How long ago did you get your system? Both HP and Dell only gave us the onsite repairs and service with the workstations, and even they wouldn't get it done as fast as the Genii at Apple.

Also, there's no software coverage to be had from Dell or HP or Acer since they don't make the software.

And I haven't been able to find any info about international coverage. Very important since I am interested in that Mini 9 with Ubuntu.

Perhaps it was due to corporate/enterprise support rather than consumer. I've had good experience with HP and Dell as a corporate client (very recent). As a home/individual user, it wasn't as good (within the last 4 mo).

Just a thought.

 

[johnasmith1914]

i'd grade hp's service as being a little bit better than apple. Dell, on the other hand, is a bit worse than apple.

 

[daveporter]

You know as little about economics and economies of scale as the rest of the fanbois.

I will refrain from name calling and denigrating you, however, you have not made it easy. The tone of your post is inappropriate and hostile; that type of attitude serves no purpose and does not foster discussion and debate, only hostility.

What you are trying to describe is the effects of marginal cost on the cost of goods and services.

There are both elastic and inelastic costs of goods and services; inelastic costs do not not respond to the marginal cost theory as you have stated.

With goods with subsidized price points (like Apple has with OS X) where the true production costs are spread over related items (hardware in this case), marginal costs have no bearing what-so-ever. In essence, unless Apple collects both parts of the cost of the product, they loose money on each copy of the software no mater how many copies they sell. Reduced marginal costs only help reduce sales and overhead costs when the production components of the costs (elastic costs) are a large portion of the total costs of the item being sold AND the item is sold as a prime product and not a loss leader,as OS X is. OS X is in essence a marketing tool to get folks to buy a Macintosh.

What you suggest here is that if you lose $10 on one copy of a piece of software, if you sell 1,000,000 you will suddenly become profitable. Lots of businesses have tried this trick and all are now out of business.

Your premise is wrong.

 

[netkas]

developer's interview , translation from russian.

http://tinyurl.com/efixinter

 

[johnasmith1914]

What you suggest here is that if you loose $10 on one copy of a piece of software, if you sell 1,000,000 you will suddenly become profitable.

if someone sells 1,000,000 OSXs for $10 less right now in this moment of time, then they won't make a profit?

 

[matticus008]

Additionally, though, using a legitimately obtained copy of a piece of copyrighted work in ways that are not codified as part of the exclusive rights of the copyright holder, does not constitute copyright violation and therefore can be done without needing to enter into an agreement with the copyright holder.

Yes, but you must return to the beginning. Among the exclusive rights granted to a copyright holder are the right to make and to authorize copies and to control distribution, among others of lesser relevance.

Legitimately obtaining the copy requires compliance with their specifications. By ignoring the terms of distribution and copying that facilitated your receipt of the copy, you don't have lawful possession.

§117 is a response to a specific case stemming from a fairly unusual situation based on the newness (at the time) of computers in general, and persistent storage drives in particular. It is still only engaged once you have established that the copyright holder gave you lawful ownership of the copy.

Violating the terms of a contract is not a crime. It's a civil infraction.

One need not commit a crime to do something illegal. Where do you people get this idea?

There's no law setting out punishments for contract violation. The contracts themselves include violation caluses.

The contracts specify damages. The law establishes liability and what damages may apply. Contract law is extensive.

IMHO, no software maker wants to take their EULA to court b/c most know that many of the clauses are so anti-consumer, etc... that they will be struck down.

Very few clauses are ever struck down that don't conform to a specific set of "greatest hits" familiar to everyone practicing in the field--e.g., binding arbitration. The truth is that there are hundreds of these cases every year, and there's not a huge list of invalid SLAs. Even the "I agree" attacks have never worked in court without some additional extenuating circumstance. No court has ever thrown out an SLA just because it was an SLA (whether Internet people would call it a "EULA" or not).

 

[daveporter]

if someone sells 1,000,000 OSXs for $10 less right now in this moment of time, then they won't make a profit?

You missed my point. What I said was if Apple loses $10 on the first copy of OS X they sell (unless they also sell the hardware) then selling 1,000,000 copies only results in a loss of $10,000,000, not a profit (providing no hardware is sold for any of the 1,000,000 million copies of OS X sold).

The point is that Apple spreads the cost of producing OS X over both the price you pay for OS X AND the price you pay for a Macintosh. Therefore, if Apple no longer sold hardware they would loose their shirts if they sold OS X at the same price as they did when they sold hardware too.

I hope that this helps. This is a difficult concept for many people to understand. We have all been told that if you sell more units costs of production come down and you can either make more money by selling at the original price or cut your price and still make money. The reality is that this is not always true as many new business owners learn often too late. That is one of the reasons so many new businesses fail in the first two years.

 

[kabunaru]

Who really sees Mac OS X coming to PCs?

Maybe some day Apple will make that choice.

 

[johnasmith1914]

they loose money on each copy of the software no mater how many copies they sell. [...] What you suggest here is that if you loose $10 on one copy of a piece of software...

did you know "lose" and "loose" are two different words? i don't want to insult you or anything, i only want to point it out so you don't make that mistake in the future, on a resume or something... maybe english is a second language for you.

 

[johnasmith1914]

if Apple no longer sold hardware they would loose their shirts if they sold OS X at the same price as they did when they sold hardware too.

that's obvious to everyone who has ever bought a mac or ever looked at the prices and the specs. clearly apple is making massive amounts of money on the hardware that you can buy anywhere else by making you buy it from apple at an extra cost if you want to use os x.

 

[Clive At Five]

if someone sells 1,000,000 OSXs for $10 less right now in this moment of time, then they won't make a profit?

Apparently it's not sticking that the price of developing Leopard does not scale with the number of copies sold. Let me restate it in a way that all might understand.

Cost = $100,000,000 flat development cost (an estimate erring on the side of caution) + $1.50 packaging cost (per unit) * N (number of units sold)
Revenue = $130 * N (number of units sold)

So basically, sell a million copies and Apple is set. Apple does that opening month of each new OS deployment. That means the additional 14 million copies being sold are 99% profit. Apple literally cannot lose money on OS X. even a few hundred thousand hackers who don't buy the hardware will barely put a dent in Apple's bank account.

Besides, if Apple doesn't want people to "misuse" OS X, they shouldn't sell it in stores.

"Available only via paid software update" would solve all of their problems.

And would force me to actually go out and buy an effing Mac.

-Clive

 

[daveporter]

did you know "lose" and "loose" are two different words? i don't want to insult you or anything, i only want to point it out so you don't make that mistake in the future, on a resume or something... maybe english is a second language for you.

Thanks, that is what happens when you let a spell checker make spelling changes on the fly without your intervention and then not reading the post carefully before one hits submit.

 

[johnasmith1914]

Cost = $100,000,000 flat development cost

maybe it could cost more to have developed OS X?

I read somewhere that if Linux developers had actually been paid for the time they worked on developing Linux, that it would have cost Billions.

 

[sflocal]

It's really unfortunate that people will come up with every excuse as to why they have a sense of entitlement in regards to OSX on a PC. Is it simply pure ignorance? It's really sad that a few vocal players may end up ruining it for the rest of the legitimate users.

Just because I can walk into a store and purchase an OSX box does not mean I can install it on my PC. Licensing/Ownership-jargon aside, a purchased OSX CD is an "upgrade" CD, and not an OEM CD. Just because Apple decided to include the entire OS on the CD (as opposed to just the upgraded binaries) is besides the point. The CD is meant for installation on an existing Apple-branded machine that already has an Apple OS. Whine all you want about conspiracies, greed, or doing-evil part of Apple, but that is the simple fact.

Apple is a hardware company. They are not interested in supporting other hardware configurations. Who cares that you can build a "better" machine for "less" money. They really don't care.

This would be a moot point and possibly in Apple's best interest if they just decide to remove the ability to purchase OSX at a retail/online store and only allow it as a download to a real Apple Computer and have the binaries locked to that particular Apple machine so that the buyer can copy the binaries to a CD for recovery or to purchase it at a store providing the machine's serial number and have the CD made there.

If no one can buy it shrink-wrapped, then it pretty much eliminates this discussion and Apple can go back to R&D instead of throwing money at the lawyers.

This is not specific to Apple. Any other hardware company would do the same thing.

And don't try to apply this to Microsoft. They are a software-only provider with a different business model. And in the case of the Xbox, would you honestly believe they would sit idling in the back if someone figured out a way to install the Xbox system on a non-xbox console or PC?

 

[daveporter]

Apparently it's not sticking that the price of developing Leopard does not scale with the number of copies sold. Let me restate it in a way that all might understand.

Cost = $100,000,000 flat development cost (an estimate erring on the side of caution) + $1.50 packaging cost (per unit) * N (number of units sold)
Revenue = $130 * N (number of units sold)

So basically, sell a million copies and Apple is set. Apple does that opening month of each new OS deployment. That means the additional 14 million copies being sold are 99% profit. Apple literally cannot lose money on OS X. even a few hundred thousand hackers who don't buy the hardware will barely put a dent in Apple's bank account.

Besides, if Apple doesn't want people to "misuse" OS X, they shouldn't sell it in stores.

"Available only via paid software update" would solve all of their problems.

And would force me to actually go out and buy an effing Mac.

-Clive

You are assuming that the cost of development of OS X is the total cost that needs to be recovered in sales. This is not correct. The cost of overhead and profit also need to be included. Also, you assumed that the total cost of OS X is a value less then the potential income from the sale of retail copies of OS X; again this is not rational. Why would M$'s costs for a copy of Vista be so much more then OS X if you were correct? Do you really think that the cost to develop OS X is somehow less then Vista? No, the answer is that the cost of OS X is spread out over the price of the software ($129) and the portion of the cost of a Macintosh allocated to the remainder of the cost of developing OS X.

I give up, there are those of you that will never get it since it does not support your view that if you don't like what limits Apple sets on the use of its intellectual property you will just steal it and you see no problem with that. What has happened to our society?