First Customer Receives Psystar Mac Clone

[k2spitfire88]

...snip

What if I'm the public water utility and I made you sign a license agreement that you have to only use Moen plumbing fixtures in your house or your water supply will be cut off? Is that FAIR? Is that REASONABLE? Or is that license an impingement on your rights as a citizen of a free country? Think carefully when you answer.

I don't think your analogy works, because Apple designs the motherboard which it runs on. So, if your water company said you have to use their own designed faucets, i think it would be a more accurate analogy.

I think a better analogy (again, a car analogy, i apologize, but that is only what i can think of)-Lamborgini has their car body, and they design their engine, and everything in it. You can't take the engine, and put it in your Chevy, and call it a Lamborgini. Your rationale is that Lamborgini's are too expensive. You like how it runs, but dont want to pay the money for it because it is too expensive for most people, so you take their engine, put it in a new body, and call it a Lamborgini, then try to sell it.

Or another way is to say put any engine (psystar crap) in a Lamborgini body (OS X) and say it is a Lamborgini, when it is not. It only looks like one

It is not only illegal, but wrong as well.

 

[milo]

Why do you think we care? Maybe Apple's "business" is unlawful in that it seeks to be a trust and/or monopoly in that they are saying a general purpose computer OS can only be run on THEIR generic off-the-shelf PC hardware. This is artificially limiting (through a license agreement) distribution of software on a public platform.

Maybe apple's business (no quotes needed) is not unlawful.

They are not a monopoly, nothing close to it.

And being a monopoly isn't illegal, much less "seeking to be one". Just using a monopoly to gain advantage in other areas.

And OSX isn't intended as a "general purpose computer OS", it's an OS designed to run on apple hardware. Sure they limit distribution. They have every right to do that, it's part of intellectual property rights.

What it comes down to is what people are willing to put up with. Governments such as the United States are SUPPOSED to be run FOR and BY the PEOPLE, not for and by BIG BUSINESS. If the people say we WANT MAC CLONES, the "Law" should be what the people want, not what Apple wants. If this is taken to court, the judges will have to rule on what's FAIR for the country, not what makes Apple the most money. Apple wrote their Eula, but it does not write the LAW. We have anti-trust laws in this country that can override any Eula someone might want to write that pretends it controls everything you do.

The law gives rights to both businesses and individuals. Do you forget that Apple employees are american citizens as well as you? I can't believe how naive some of these statements are.

What if I'm the public water utility and I made you sign a license agreement that you have to only use Moen plumbing fixtures in your house or your water supply will be cut off? Is that FAIR? Is that REASONABLE? Or is that license an impingement on your rights as a citizen of a free country? Think carefully when you answer.

It would be fair as long as you have multiple water utilities to choose from - if you don't like the agreement, you do business with the other utility. A license like that would only be unreasonable if they had a monopoly - not the case with computers where you can choose a PC if you don't like the Mac terms.

 

[Quillz]

I find Apples silence about this rather freaky. It's almost as if they are planning to do something big to take them down.

*Awaiting anxiously for Apple to make a move*

Have they taken down osx86? No, they haven't, and I doubt they will take down this company, either. Apple doesn't make its money from software sales, it makes its money from hardware sales. Mac OS X is nothing more than a "fun bonus" of buying the Apple hardware. People who run osx86 and/or buy from Psystar were never going to buy Apple hardware in the first place, so it's not worth the time, money and energy to go after these people.

 

[cherry su]

I will not debate you on these issues nor will I call you ignorant. Your opinions are your opinions and you may express them. However, having said that, I do not think you understood my basic point. The AVERAGE user (who make up the majority of users) in my opinion will not have a satisfactory experience with this "clone." Hackers and highly technical users MAY be willing to work around the negatives and perhaps they will purchase this thing. The bottom line however is, "Will enough of them be purchased to keep this company in business?" My guess is they will not and therefore, there is no need on Apples part to squash them with litigation and take the PR hit. Time will tell.

Dave

Hackers won't buy this Psystar crapintosh, they're gonna build their own hackintosh!

 

[gkarris]

Hackers won't buy this Psystar crapintosh, they're gonna build their own hackintosh!

Is it possible to build one cheaper than the $399 that Psystar is asking?

 

[Mal]

Is it possible to build one cheaper than the $399 that Psystar is asking?

Cheaper, possibly. Better quality? Almost undoubtedly. I doubt there's a hackintosh out there as poorly designed as these Psystar machines, because the people that build them themselves care about quality, even if they are looking for a cheaper machine at the same time. It isn't about the absolute lowest cost for anyone I've seen, it's about being cheaper than a Mac Pro and still being a tinkerer's dream.

jW

 

[Eric S.]

Originally Posted by Eric S.:
They'll make at least as much profit as they would have by just setting up as a shop that just produced PC clones. How many people would even have heard of them then?

Will they? At least on the windows side, they and microsoft both support the configuration. And even if they end up selling more OSX boxes than they would have sold windows boxes, that doesn't mean they'll sell enough to make any profit, they can still end up losing money (and going out of business).

Psystar is offering Leopard in addition to Windows (and Linux). So how could they make less money by offering something in addition to what they would have offered anyway? Unless you think that a negative public response will keep potential Windows customers away (which I doubt - at least as many will now know about them as will be likely to be scared away), or Apple manages to put them out of business (which Apple has shown no inclination to do, as yet). My guess is that the publicity alone will be a major win for Psystar's business, which was nowhere before - it can hardly be worse.

I don't get why people are so convinced that offering OSX is automatically going to mean they sell a bunch of these. Especially when they offer no support and tell users it probably won't work right ("We have not found any software incompatibilities with the standard OS software but we cannot guarantee that any of the software on your computer will work in Leopard.").

If the systems are for real, they will sell a bunch. A certain amount of people just follow buzz, and this has generated a lot of buzz. Others will want it because there is no Apple product in this niche. If there are serious support and upgrade issues, sales will likely plummet. But if they can ship them they will sell a bunch before that happens.

And, their $399 price is with no OS, once you add Leopard the box is $549, only $45 less than the base mini.

But it's not a mini. It's more powerful, expandable, and easier to upgrade. And I continue to maintain that Apple could sell a lot of systems if they offered a product like this. But, the Mac Pro aside (and few people need that kind of performance), Apple has been reinventing itself as a consumer appliance manufacturer. It's significant that they removed "Computer" from the company name. They used to excel at products in this range; now they don't want to bother with them.

 

[gnasher729]

The problem with that seems to be that the EFI emulator was originally distributed with no license at all, so depending on when Psystar got it they may not be legally constrained by his current wishes.

If it was distributed with no license at all, then nobody has the right to make any further copies. You can only ever make a copy legally if you have the permission of the copyright holder. If the author says nothing, then Psystar has no permission. Now that the author has said "no commercial copying", they have even less permission

The only difference may be that Psystar could claim that they _believed_ they had permission, because other people made copies. And now they cannot make that claim anymore. That would be the difference between damages and triple damages.

 

[Eric S.]

If it was distributed with no license at all, then nobody has the right to make any further copies. You can only ever make a copy legally if you have the permission of the copyright holder. If the author says nothing, then Psystar has no permission. Now that the author has said "no commercial copying", they have even less permission

I haven't seen anything definitive on how the EFI emulator was originally released. It could very well have been with some language like "here's a piece of software; please use it and let me know if it works." In which case it's probably pretty much fair game. It doesn't matter what the author says about it after they obtained it.

Whatever the legal situation is, since Psystar hasn't paid any attention to Apple's EULA, it's not surprising that they won't pay any attention any license the EFI emulator may have either.

 

[gnasher729]

Does the EULA actually say that? For that matter, is the Leopard EULA online anywhere, or somewhere on a mac with Leopard installed? I haven't been able to find it.

I said: Apple's EULA effectively means that you can only install Leopard on machines that have been bought with an earlier version of MacOS X already installed, and only on machines where Apple has already made some profit when the machine was purchased originally. No, the EULA doesn't say that explicitly. It says you can only install Leopard on an Apple-labelled computer. Now apart from the jokers who think putting an Apple sticker on a Dell makes it an Apple-labelled computer, unless you are a genius who can make Leopard run on an Apple II computer, the consequences of the EULA mean exactly what I said.

 

[k2spitfire88]

Apple has been reinventing itself as a consumer appliance manufacturer. It's significant that they removed "Computer" from the company name. They used to excel at products in this range; now they don't want to bother with them.

I thought it was because they wanted to show that they were a personal electronics company, not just a computer company

 

[scrambledwonder]

Silence!

Apple remains silent . . . save for one, blood-curdling order issued by Steve Jobs . . . "Release the hounds."

 

[Much Ado]

Apple remains silent . . . save for one, blood-curdling order issued by Steve Jobs . . . "Release the hounds."

"Release the software update" seems more likely.

How much is the cost to send these things back for 'support'? $50?

 

[milo]

Psystar is offering Leopard in addition to Windows (and Linux). So how could they make less money by offering something in addition to what they would have offered anyway? Unless you think that a negative public response will keep potential Windows customers away (which I doubt - at least as many will now know about them as will be likely to be scared away), or Apple manages to put them out of business (which Apple has shown no inclination to do, as yet). My guess is that the publicity alone will be a major win for Psystar's business, which was nowhere before - it can hardly be worse.

Sure, they may make more money than if they just sold windows machines. But that still doesn't mean they will be profitable or successful. I don't doubt they'll sell a few, but I don't know if it will be enough for them to actually make a profit on their business. And sure, they have more publicity now, but you really think what people see is going to make them want to buy a PC from them? Would YOU trust them enough to buy a PC from them?

Publicity only translates into profits if the products are something people want to buy. And based on what they have showed, I don't think they are. I guess a few clueless people may buy from them, but I'll bet that won't last long and will be killed off by bad reports from buyers.

If the systems are for real, they will sell a bunch. A certain amount of people just follow buzz, and this has generated a lot of buzz. Others will want it because there is no Apple product in this niche. If there are serious support and upgrade issues, sales will likely plummet. But if they can ship them they will sell a bunch before that happens.

I'd agree that their best shot is selling as many as they can before bad word of mouth gets out. But I don't think they'll be able to get out a significant number that fast (even if there are that many orders, which I doubt), and I don't really considering selling a bunch fast followed by a plummet to be a successful business.

But it's not a mini. It's more powerful, expandable, and easier to upgrade. And I continue to maintain that Apple could sell a lot of systems if they offered a product like this. But, the Mac Pro aside (and few people need that kind of performance), Apple has been reinventing itself as a consumer appliance manufacturer. It's significant that they removed "Computer" from the company name. They used to excel at products in this range; now they don't want to bother with them.

My point is that they hype being cheaper than the mini, while they're only slightly so. I do agree that it would be great to see apple offering more in this price range, but "they used to excel at products in this range"? When was that? The only product even close to this range has been the mini, and I'd hardly describe it as excelling although it has been a bit more competitive at various times.

 

[cheekybobcat]

Even if there is a significant difference in price between the Psystar and Apple computers, I would still stick with Apple made hardware. I would only consider a non-Apple hardware computer if I were using it to just do random stuff on such as putting on music and surfing the web. Otherwise, I would rather put the cash down for an Apple hardware computer running OS X.

I hope most people remain loyal to Apple though. I would hate to see OS X all over the place while Apple sits in the corner and cries.

 

[rjohnstone]

If it was distributed with no license at all, then nobody has the right to make any further copies. You can only ever make a copy legally if you have the permission of the copyright holder. If the author says nothing, then Psystar has no permission.

How wrong you are.
A license is NOT required to use any piece of software.
If the creator of a piece of software (EFI for example) puts it out there for the general public to use with NO WRITTEN TERMS OR CONDITIONS OF USE (a.k.a. a License), it is fair game for anyone to use for what ever purpose they see fit.
Copyright law 101 my friend. Protect your rights from day one or risk losing them completely.

Now that the author has said "no commercial copying", they have even less permission
The only difference may be that Psystar could claim that they _believed_ they had permission, because other people made copies. And now they cannot make that claim anymore. That would be the difference between damages and triple damages.

Wrong again.
The creator can add terms and conditions on the software at any time, however it has NO impact on those copies that already existed prior to the new terms.

The creator cannot retroactively revoke a license that never existed in the first place.

Also, the creator would have to enforce the new terms equally or they could be ruled invalid by a civil court.

No one has been able to answer the key question... Did the EFI emulator have any prior license attached?
Was it covered under GNU or GPL?
If so, those licenses still permit commercial use as long as credit and the source code is included.

 

[Eric S.]

Sure, they may make more money than if they just sold windows machines. But that still doesn't mean they will be profitable or successful. I don't doubt they'll sell a few, but I don't know if it will be enough for them to actually make a profit on their business.

Of course, you can't guarantee profits. If you could, it would be easy for everyone to make money. That depends on a lot of factors, like how efficient their business practices are. All I'm saying is that the free publicity will lead to more sales than they would have generated otherwise.

And sure, they have more publicity now, but you really think what people see is going to make them want to buy a PC from them? Would YOU trust them enough to buy a PC from them?

At this point no, but the jury's still out. If they show that they really can ship these systems, if some reviewers have kind things to say about them, if support issues seem to be handled, I would consider it. Some big ifs, but in general I would treat it like any other purchase. The fact is that I would like to have a system like this. Apple would be preferable but it doesn't sell one. And I probably don't have the time or inclination to follow the online instructions to build one myself.

Publicity only translates into profits if the products are something people want to buy. And based on what they have showed, I don't think they are. I guess a few clueless people may buy from them, but I'll bet that won't last long and will be killed off by bad reports from buyers.

Well, we'll see. I agree that they don't appear ready for any high volume sales and service operation.

My point is that they hype being cheaper than the mini, while they're only slightly so.

I thought they were comparing them to the Mac Pro, not the mini.

I do agree that it would be great to see apple offering more in this price range, but "they used to excel at products in this range"? When was that?

I'm thinking 1990s to early 2000s. It seems there was a good range of expandable systems where it was relatively easy to add/replace memory, disk drives, and CPU. Would you not agree?

The only product even close to this range has been the mini, and I'd hardly describe it as excelling although it has been a bit more competitive at various times.

I don't think of the mini in this class at all. It's basically a closed system, a laptop in a box, with a laptop disk drive but an underpowered CPU. Aside from price it is not attractive at all.

 

[dejo]

If the creator of a piece of software (EFI for example) puts it out there for the general public to use with NO WRITTEN TERMS OR CONDITIONS OF USE (a.k.a. a License), it is fair game for anyone to use for what ever purpose they see fit.
Copyright law 101 my friend. Protect your rights from day one or risk losing them completely.

Where'd you get your copyright law degree? A Cracker-Jack box? You may want to go do some more research about copyright, the Berne Convention and how copyright is automatic.

 

[MagnusVonMagnum]

And, their $399 price is with no OS, once you add Leopard the box is $549, only $45 less than the base mini.

How can you compare what is the equivalent of a mid-range tower (functionality wise, especially with the ability to add something like an 8600GS or 8600GT) with a clunker like the Mini that couldn't compute it's way out of a paper bag graphically or in terms of hard drive performance?

Based on the "FrankenMac" article at MacWorld, I'd say if you put about $700 into this thing total, you could have something that's beats out everything but an 8-core MacPro overall. That just goes to show how Apple artificially limits its cheaper computers on purpose to push you towards the expensive models that they make more money on. It's time Apple learned that they need to compete on all platform levels, not just the high-end. The $700 PC I built last November can run any game out there and just about any other software I could possibly need to run. Why is it I have to buy a computer that costs over $2000 to get the equivalent functionality from Apple? It's mostly because they don't put good graphics cards on anything but the MacPro and most recently the top of the line iMac whereas any $399 Dell can have a good graphics card put in it and be able to run 3D apps with at least reasonable ease.

 

[MagnusVonMagnum]

Maybe apple's business (no quotes needed) is not unlawful.

They are not a monopoly, nothing close to it.

Who said Monopoly? I said anti-trust laws. If you want a Mac, you can buy the MacOSX software at Best Buy but then you can't use it in a general clone hardware even though it's IDENTICAL to Apple hardware in every respect other than the EFI replacement for bios??? Give me a break. It's an ARTIFICIAL limitation and amounts to "because we said so". You know full well that argument would NEVER fly with Microsoft if they tried to do the same at this point, so why should it fly for Apple? Because they're the small fry? That's no excuse. It's the same thing regardless of their market position.

And OSX isn't intended as a "general purpose computer OS", it's an OS designed to run on apple hardware.

That's 100% BS. "Apple Hardware" *IS* clone hardware now!!! You can't get any more general purpose than that! It's a clone that runs their OS and they say you HAVE to buy that hardware from APPLE because they'll make more money that way! Well too freaking bad! A clone is a clone and if the ONLY reason I can't run their OS on it is their EULA, they've got a real legal problem on their hands. Like I said before, I hope this is challenged in court. Apple losing (and they would lose) would just open the floodgates for cheaper more reasonably configured Macs. If Apple needs to raise the price of OSX to stay in business, so be it. It's better than having to pay through the nose for generic parts and getting charged 2-3x their value for them. You can easily build a Hackintosh for $700 that will do nearly everything a 4-core MacPro can do for almost 1/3 the price. If Apple had special hardware, that would be one thing. But there's NOTHING special about apple hardware these days. It's generic PC technology.

Sure they limit distribution. They have every right to do that, it's part of intellectual property rights.

They have NO right to tell you what kind of PC you can put it on. Show me one law that supports their right to do that. Anti-trust laws were written to prevent such things. Microsoft had the Department of Justice after them for simply packaging their browser WITH the operating system, let alone doing that PLUS forcing you to buy their hardware to boot.

The law gives rights to both businesses and individuals. Do you forget that Apple employees are american citizens as well as you? I can't believe how naive some of these statements are.

I can't believe how naive YOU are. You seem to think just because a corporation has lobbying power that they should be able to do WHATEVER THEY WANT to WHOMEVER THEY WANT and that's simply that. And because it's Apple, they should get praised for it to boot from all you fanboys.

It would be fair as long as you have multiple water utilities to choose from -

It would, eh? What if they all said you had to use their plumbing fixtures to get their water? Too bad? Go dig a well? Give me a break. The point is the water has NOTHING to do with the faucets it's being sent through any more than MacOSX has anything to do with the hardware it's being run on beyond driver compatibility.

if you don't like the agreement, you do business with the other utility. A license like that would only be unreasonable if they had a monopoly - not the case with computers where you can choose a PC if you don't like the Mac terms.

But what if I don't want a PC? What if the software I want to run is only available for MacOSX? Too bad? Pay up? That's BS and you know it. If the situation were reversed and we were talking about Windows, everyone would be screaming foul and stating how awful/stupid Microsoft is and go get 'em, but because it's Apple and some of you worship Apple, they can do no wrong. Should WINE be illegal on Linux because it's trying to screw Microsoft out of OS sales so you can run PC apps without buying Windows? Here we have a situation where the consume IS buying MacOSX, but Apple says too bad, you ALSO have to buy your generic PC from *us* or you can't run it. That'd be like Kitchen Aid saying you have to buy your oranges from them or you can't make an Orange Julius with the blender they just sold you. It's in the blender's Eula, after all.

 

[mixel]

Magnus: Why don't they have a right to tell you what machine you can run their OS on?

I mean.. That makes no sense. They developed it for their hardware. They make no claims to support other hardware, and don't want to support other hardware. This model works for them and people buy into it. They haven't abused it in any way.

There isn't any law against only supporting your own hardware, they don't force anyone's hand.

 

[rjohnstone]

Where'd you get your copyright law degree? A Cracker-Jack box? You may want to go do some more research about copyright, the Berne Convention and how copyright is automatic.

Have you ever read it? Do you actually understand it? I doubt it.
I've had my fair share of copyright experience over the last 20+ years in the music business. It's NEVER that simple.

Software falls under literary works, which must pass scrutiny for plagiarism before any litigation can be brought with regard to infringement.

The author (netkas) of the PC_EFI emulator used other copyrighted works to create this derivative work.
He fails to acknowledge the hard work of Intel engineers who wrote the base code in the first place.
I see no acknowledgment from him to Intel or the UEFI Forum, nor do I see the original copyright claim and disclaimers that Intel attaches to the EFI framework.

Intel currently holds the original copyrights to EFI and still retains the IP rights to EFI and the EFI framework. The UEFI Forum currently manages and promotes the EFI standard.
And to quote a post from netkas.org.

“Am I the only one who finds it hilarious that the author of software that is designed to violate a company’s licensing agreement is annoyed that another company is using that software in violation of his own licensing agreement?”

Oh the irony.

 

[BenRoethig]

Magnus: Why don't they have a right to tell you what machine you can run their OS on?

I mean.. That makes no sense. They developed it for their hardware. They make no claims to support other hardware, and don't want to support other hardware. This model works for them and people buy into it. They haven't abused it in any way.

I would say raising tower prices over a grand is abusing it. Make no mistake about, if you want the superior Mac OS, you are at the mercy of Apple and what machine they want you to have, whether it fits your needs or not.

There is no "their hardware" anymore. Apple isn't using PPCs nor their own chip sets anymore. Apple uses the same intel chipsets as everyone else. The only differences between what Apple makes and a machine from a premium PC manufacturer. That's why the hackintosh thing works. Once you get past the firmware difference, which is going to be tricky as hell, the same drivers that support the iMac or Mac Pro are going to work with other machine on that platform. If anything we've learned there a lot of things with OS level support, like ESATA, that Apple just doesn't use.

Does it have its limitations, yes. Anyone who is using Nvidia, AMD, VIA, or SIS (if there is anyone still using the last two) chipsets or CPUs can toss their dreams OSX running right out the window and video card support is going to be limited to what has OSX drivers. But I'm going to say this once and for all, if licensed and using EFI firmware there would be no compatibility issues for a intel based machine without the Apple logo. Reliability, however depends on the parts used in the motherboard.

 

[opeter]

I fully agree with BenRoethig and MagnusVonMagnum!

I hope, that the situation will change soon, so you can run MacOS on every self build or brand PCs out of the box.

 

[Mal]

But what if I don't want a PC? What if the software I want to run is only available for MacOSX? Too bad? Pay up?

Either buy a Mac or build your own computer and figure out how to make OS X run on it. The problem isn't when you try to run OS X on another computer, though of course Apple has every right to deny you any support. The problem comes when you then turn around and sell that hacked OS to someone else. Then you're dealing with illegal distribution of intellectual property, and copyright infringement, and a whole host of other issues.

jW