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'OpenMac' Promises $399 Headless Mac... But Not From Apple
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Though the update states they have changed the name of the "OpenMac" to the "Open Computer," that name change is only surface deep. If you click any of the pictures on the Open Computer page, their captions still retain the name "OpenMac."
Huh? I don't think that's an accurate comparison.
Huh? I don't think that's an accurate comparison.
This may be the breath of fresh air apple needs; so computer people will be interested in apples again; not MALL PEOPLE
Because that's just what the Mac community needs, elitist geek snobbery and "Macs are only used for high end graphics, audio and video" mindsets, which in the end deter would be developers from porting their popular consumer apps to OS X.
The same geek snobbery has done the Linux community no end of favours.
Skype 3.6 on a par with Windows? Do me a favour. They've only had 2.0 stable for a month, and Skype are one of the better companies when it comes to porting their app to non Windows platforms.
IANAL, but my understanding is as follows:
Under copyright law, you are not allowed to make any copies of copyrighted materials unless you have explicit rights granted to you
The EULA grants you explicit and very specific rights as to what you can and cannot do with the aforementioned copyrighted material
If you are found to be in breach the EULA, you lose the rights granted to you in that EULA
If you then copy the contents of the install DVD (including installation to a hard disk), you are in breach of copyright law.
Of course, this would depend on the EULA being found to be a binding contract but breach of copyright law is (in many countries), a criminal rather than civil case
As an aside, if Psystar do win their argument that EULAs are not enforceable, it will have massive repercussions across the whole industry: If EULAs can't be enforced, then what's to stop large corporations buying one copy of (say) Office and installing it on their 20,000 desktops? It's a breach of the EULA to do so, but if they're found to be unenforceable, where does that leave software houses?
As a final point, I would have more sympathy with Psystar if they'd actually developed or were supporting any of this - it looks like they're using the EFI V8 emulator commercially without the permission (or even acknowledgement) of the author, and refer customers to the insanelymac forums for tech support (a fact that has raised a few hackles on that site!)
This thread is funny!
Illegal? Is it really illegal? Has any court ever ruled on the enforceability of Apple's EULA? I am sure one might be asked to soon, and it will be interesting to see how that works out.
Haven't Apple 'clones' been built and sold before?
Going back as far as the Apple II, I think I recall a company that made a box that housed both an Apple and PC clone in one system. I cannot remember the name of that one but I think it was a European concern that manufactured it.
I can see the people who buy these $399 machines tossing them the first time they call Apple Support for an OS problem !!!!
Illegal? Is it really illegal? Has any court ever ruled on the enforceability of Apple's EULA? I am sure one might be asked to soon, and it will be interesting to see how that works out.
Haven't Apple 'clones' been built and sold before?
Going back as far as the Apple II, I think I recall a company that made a box that housed both an Apple and PC clone in one system. I cannot remember the name of that one but I think it was a European concern that manufactured it.
I can see the people who buy these $399 machines tossing them the first time they call Apple Support for an OS problem !!!!
No Geforce for my Mac Pro
Well, looks like Steve has shafted me with my Geforce 8800 upgrade for my "Ancient" Mac Pro.
So I'm very tempted to take a punt on this, if it all holds true after a few weeks.
Well, looks like Steve has shafted me with my Geforce 8800 upgrade for my "Ancient" Mac Pro.
So I'm very tempted to take a punt on this, if it all holds true after a few weeks.
You're referring to Apple vs. Franklin, where Franklin used the Apple ROM without permission and even went so far as to claim it wasn't coded by Apple, but was "Apple compatible".
The court found in favour of Apple as it was proved by entering a secret debugging code known only to the Apple engineers that the ROM was indeed coded by Apple and therefore a violation of intellectual property rights.
I would expect any litigation brought by Apple against Psystar to reference this judgement as part of the argument to have Psystar's case thrown out of court.
Very good point and certainly an oversight on my part.
I think that the end user going through the trouble of installing OSX on a non branded machine is still in that gray area along the lines of ripping a music cd with copyrighted content. However I do agree that Psystar has probably ventured a little too far into the unknown with this.
I have a feeling this particular case is not going to result in definitive EULA laws. The software companies do have much to lose even if it is just an off chance that the results of taking this to court end up unfavorably for them. Most likely this will be settled out of court. I'm sure Apple's legal team could overwhelm this company and whoever represents them with paper work. Also Psystar may come to realize they aren't standing on much more than the twinkie defense.
The two closest parallels I can draw with software content would be music and video. We have seen the RIAA and MPAA take somewhat similar approaches to protecting copyrights. Certainly the RIAA is known to be a little tenacious but as far as I have heard they still aren't actively seeking to stop individuals from ripping cds and burning backup copies, both of which are technically breaching your rights as a consumer (not upheld in court... yet). As far as video, it seems most companies are now seeking ways to offer legal digital media on their dvd's which suggests to me they are more willing to expand the rights of the consumer.
It should be interesting to see where software companies will make their stand. As I myself have noticed it seems they have been by far the most lenient almost to the point of letting some piracy exist almost freely (such as the distribution of video game ROMs from non current platforms).
edit} I also wanted to make clear that dwelling in that legal gray area does NOT mean you are being completely legal in your actions, it just hasn't been proven to be illegal and that gray area can certainly change to being very black and white.
How is it an insult. Lets be brutally honest, only a small subsection of people actually buying them (mostly people on the forums for one) are going to have any clue what they are getting.
Its just a computer to them, nothing more nothing less, it could be filled with jelly and they wouldnt know better as long as it did what they wanted it to.
Because they've giving them an all singing, all dancing, all multimedia content producing machine at a premium price, with DVD making software that....can't actually make DVD's.
It's like giving a car a steering wheel, but no front wheels.
Doug
Thats fair comment but your making out like this is going to be a disaster for everyone that ever bought a Mac Mini.
Another problem the forums seem to have, they are a pool of people out of which most have a higher than average knowledge about computers hence try to pick holes in everything Apple does. The computers Apple provides are more than adequate for the huge majority of people buying them, that is all that really matters to them, not some computer geek wanting some precise graphics card yada yada yada...
Also try and quote me properly.
Oh really? I would put down the slightly extra performance of your HackinCrap in favor of a Mac that doesn't require the headache of searching forums for patches every time Apple releases an update or for when a reformat is necessary.
You will always GET what you PAY for in this lifetime, don't try to make your Hackincrap out to be this great solution for many because it's not.
Nicely said.
Not so fast. Ford engines were used in non-Ford vehicles. Quite unlike Apple's lockdown of its segment of the computer market as linked in this thread to an earlier attempt at selling Mac compatibles with genuine Apple parts.
However, Apple is dealing in computers, not cars. Those markets are totally different and not easily comparable, but, unfortunately, the horizons of too many posters in Macrumors rarely extend beyond cars and I Hate Bill Gates. If you wanted a better comparison, you could have looked at the enterprise computing market - eg. Solaris. If you wanted to run that, you had to buy Sun's overpriced Sparc hardware with proprietary memory, until Sun produced an Intel variant.
Not only do YOU fail, but you get an extra pointed deducted for yet another Lame Car Analogy.
Its not vaporware in the sense that they are using off the shelf parts. Whether you can really trust is surveillance equipment reseller that uses software against the will of the owner to sell you a computer is another. still, hopefully this is a wakeup call that all is not well in Paradise.
If they want to keep using card analogies, I have to liken OSX to a practical hydrogen engine. Apple aka Ford can keep it to themselves, but at the end of the day, its only going to slow down adoption and hurt them. No car or computer company can serve all users and its best to have a backup plan should this turn out to be a fad. Plus, Microsoft can't more vulnerable than they are now.
I'm not sure I'd want to buy one of these "OpenMac" things but I sure hope this works to show Apple just how insanely much us mere mortals want an affordable headless Mac-tower.
Probably if you can hack it enough. Better make a call to the Hackintosh Fanbois. Im sure they can tell you in fewer than 40 steps. Also even if you do get it running an update im sure will require another Hackintosh Fanboi call.
Come on then Hackintosh Fanbois tell me I'm wrong that this system will work flawlessly for the bog standard computer user who only has basic knowledge.
No I'm not. I have not said, inferred or suggested that. What this should do is snap into focus how underforming, overpriced and underspecified the Mac Mini is.
Doug
And how there is also a gaint gap between the family-focused iMac and the super professional Mac Pro. Most other computer makers have a couple of steps (including Apple before it game Ive gone wild) in between.
I went thru about 30 pages and no one brought this up so far. Does the OpenMac aka Open Computer make OS X any snappier?
Depends on the CPU.
My Macbook doesn't work flawlessly. My Macbook Pro doesn't work flawlessly. The tens of thousands of threads in this very forum demonstrate that Macs do not work flawlessly. Indeed - given that you've already stated this forum has contributors of a higher than average IT awareness, it's somewhat revealing that there are so many trouble shooting threads in this place.
Mac's are not trouble free. This hackintosh will not be trouble free either - but that renders it no better or worse than it's overpriced Mac cousins.
I fail to see why some object with such vitriol to someone prepared to demonstrate what value for money can be when deployed as a Mac platform . I can only presume it's peoples refusal to admit that we, as Mac purchasers, are getting the shaft from Apple.
Look I understand that point, but what I am saying is that doesnt matter, virtually every person that bough one doesnt have a clue anyway. Can you see where I am coming from.
A Mac is good maybe not because of its blistering specifications, but because it does just work in comparison to its Windows counterparts. The huge majority of people buying them dont have a clue whats under the hood and couldnt care less.
Which brings me around to this Open Mac computer. It isnt going to work the way a genuine Mac will, hence decieving normal people who dont know as well when buying it. Yes I know on the website it does state that there may be problems but it doesnt exactly ferociously push the fact. In the scheme of things that alone I think is very wrong.
That is a very good and valid point you make, but seriously when are you ever going to be patching your kernal or something like that just to install an update on your genuine Mac. In the general scheme of things your Mac is going to work far better than this Open Computer whatever it is and you have to admit to that fact.