Poll: Apple is suing Psystar (Mac Clone maker). Who do you want to win?

[Alida]

Apply suing Psystar? I hope Psystar wins.

I paid three grand for my Powerbook G4 and in the four years I have had it, I had to replace the hard drive three times and other things like new battery, etc.

Thank goodness I bought the Apple Care plan.

The keys on my laptop are now unreadable....

On a PC, you can build one yourself, add things, etc.

On an Apple, you have to send it in for repairs or go to an Apple Store.....no one can come to your home and fix things like PC's.

Apple needs some waking up.

I love my Powerbook. I have had a computer since the first IBM PC Junior came out. I always had Windows till I bought my Powerbook. I like being able to download opensource software.

But Apple Computers are just priced too high.

 

[PCMacUser]

I paid three grand for my Powerbook G4 and in the four years I have had it, I had to replace the hard drive three times and other things like new battery, etc.

Thank goodness I bought the Apple Care plan.

The keys on my laptop are now unreadable....

Time for an upgrade I think!

Wait for the new Macbook Pros first though...

 

[MacHappytjg]

Im just hoping apple will realize that they should make a possibly expandable mac, and something cheaper like one said make the mini with some bigger specs maybe they will realize they have to do something with the mini besides toss it...

 

[trd1282]

Really annoying

as an Architect/designer myself, I would be equally as angry to find that an individual would take my product (Mac OSX+Mac Hardware), change 1 single piece, and then completely remarket it as his own. Honestly, if psystar was really concerned about us as some of you claim, they would hack it and give it away for free. They are out to make a buck, without the legwork...very American these days.

 

[quagmire]

These two sentences really jumped out at me.

Consider this for a second: Replace "Apple" with "Microsoft" in the above sentence. Do you still agree with it?

If your answer is no, how do you respond to the charge, laid before the court, that you, sir, are an Apple fanboi ?!?!?

If MS put out a good product due to controlling everything, sure I would no problem with it.

But, as pointed out already MS is a software company and Apple is a hardware company. If OS X was able to be installed on any PC, Apple's business model would be compromised. Would they adapt? Probably. Will we be getting the same fairly well done machines as we do today? Probably not as quality, design, etc would have to be cut to remain profitable.

With Apple in 100% control of the hardware, OS X can be made as stable as possible. I bet the Psystar machine will not be running OS X as stable as Apple's hardware setup.

 

[ryanw]

my problem with psystar

When Psystar first came out i was stoked to see some cheaper, powerful options. But after I decked out the box I wanted I looked at the price. It was still several thousand dollars. It's not like I could get a killer mac pro compatible for $800. So my thought was, well, why pay "thousands" for a mac that might be obsolete soon or unsupported. Might as well save a little longer to get the real deal.

I forgot to mention, the price of the MacOSX license almost knocks out any cost savings that was gained in the lesser models.

 

[speakerwizard]

Apple has to win or it will open the flood gates, thats why they have spent to long preparing this case because of its importance, and for those saying the love osx but not apple, DUH, what do you think would happen if all these potential companies won the right, it would be the end of apple, their hardware sales fuel osX development.

 

[forgetaboutpro]

Or in other words, you want Apple's ownership of its copyrights, licenses, patents and the platform in general to be eroded by lawyers and opened up to all and sundry against their will, because they don't currently make your ideal computer, while you, as a single consumer, know better what the market needs than a company with a research and development arm that produces the most desirable IT objects on the planet.

Seems perfectly justified.

touche.

Psystar has infringed upon basic copyright laws - why on earth should they win?

 

[Cromulent]

On a PC, you can build one yourself, add things, etc.

Good luck with building a PC laptop.

You'll need it...

 

[wheelhot]

Hmm, I say Apple deserve to win this. Why? It's their OS, if they dont allow you to install on any other computer, it is their right. Yeah you can be argumentative about you bought the OS and etc.

Think of it this way, MS could say that you can't install Windows on Apple because of blah blah blah, but MS dont do that because MS dont really care bout their OS stability and they can gain more money.

Apple on the other hand, dont allow people to install on any other computer because they want to be in complete control. Yeah you can say they are being a complete a** by doing this but hey it is their software.

How would you feel if people port your software into another OS without your permission or consent?

I think its time for Apple to change their EULA.

Apple has to win or it will open the flood gates, thats why they have spent to long preparing this case because of its importance, and for those saying the love osx but not apple, DUH, what do you think would happen if all these potential companies won the right, it would be the end of apple, their hardware sales fuel osX development.

Exactly, so to those who whine a lot of about apple overpricing their hardwares (Psycrap especially), think of it this way, if Apple cannot get money from their hardware, there wont be a next OS X. It will be the end of OS X and you guys only have MS or Linux to rely into, which is bad.

 

[MacGeek7]

I want Apple to win, but I also think that this should show them what they need to add to their desktop lineup. There's a reason that Psystar was selling these: there was a demand. Apple needs to tap into that demand (pricing point and specs) to prevent this from gaining strength again.

I agree completely - I can think of a couple families that I know that would like to purchase Macs to replace their PCs but even the Mac Mini is just a little too expensive.

 

[tonie]

Good luck with building a PC laptop.

You'll need it...

Why would he need luck to build a PC? Just because you paid $2K for your MAC and he can get the same specs for $800?

 

[SeaFox]

I want Apple to realize why people would have bought these computers:
- Mac mini price
- iMac/better-than-iMac hardware

Solution?

Make the Mac mini taller/wider, put a 3.5" drive in it, add a decent GPU with 128MB (ask Blizzard what they think is "decent", based on World of Warcraft, Starcraft II and Diablo III) and push the RAM limit to 4GB and voilà! Most of us will be extremely pleased.

And since a 3.5" drive costs less than a 2.5" drive, it should offset the cost for the GPU, so the Mac mini should stay at its current price point.

Not everyone wants to buy all-in-one computers.

Notice there is no option on this poll for the consumer to win.

I wouldn't even care if it was a little more expensive (like $100 or so). As long as it's expandable but not as huge as a Mac Pro.

 

[arjaosx]

He / we may not know what's better for the entire market, but we know what hardware WE need. Apple doesn't offer that. I reserve the right to break the EULA at the cost of losing official Apple support for the product if I so choose.

What PsyStar did (distribute modified copies of OS X) was obviously wrong, but the concept of allowing a user to choose where (s)he runs software (s)he purchases should be upheld.

-Clive

Yeah and the hardware you need is available everywhere, you can even make somebody make it for you and to run it you have the option to use Windows or Linux.

Let OS X alone, it was made by Apple for the computers they make that cater to a certain market and this market does not include you.

Yeah, not everyone wants an all-in-one computer but is everyone gamer?

Psystar is company with questionable motives thugs in disguise pretending to champion choice. What they are actually is the height of hypocrisy and piracy undermining the right to ownership.

If Psystar wins and sets an ugly precedent, I will go into their homes (Psystars owners for sure will be rich) live there and rent out a vacant room in their own home, why because I believe its not being used and a lot of people cannot afford a decent home. They will not be able to kick me out even though they own the house because the law will uphold Psystar's reasoning that it is okay to steal someone else's property, open it up and earn money just because someone else cannot afford the same house. Oh and I will charge the owner for being unfair because they were able to buy a great house and many people cannot.

Now what if Psystar wins and make it big, will they not have their own R&D section? What will happen if they come up with their own inventions? or they just have a wait-for-Apple's-R&D-people-to-come-up-with-something department and steal it?

Of course if that happens Apple will surely die, what becomes of OS X then? What will you put into those ugly boxes if Apple decides to kill OS X.

Wow all that because you want to save few bucks...sometimes it helps to think far and wide.

Or maybe realise that you are not in the particular market segment that Apple wants to serve. If you want OS X bad enough, wise up on spending and save a little a month, don't steal.

 

[arjaosx]

Hmm, I say Apple deserve to win this. Why? It's their OS, if they dont allow you to install on any other computer, it is their right. Yeah you can be argumentative about you bought the OS and etc.

Think of it this way, MS could say that you can't install Windows on Apple because of blah blah blah, but MS dont do that because MS dont really care bout their OS stability and they can gain more money.

Apple on the other hand, dont allow people to install on any other computer because they want to be in complete control. Yeah you can say they are being a complete a** by doing this but hey it is their software.

How would you feel if people port your software into another OS without your permission or consent?

I think its time for Apple to change their EULA.


Exactly, so to those who whine a lot of about apple overpricing their hardwares (Psycrap especially), think of it this way, if Apple cannot get money from their hardware, there wont be a next OS X. It will be the end of OS X and you guys only have MS or Linux to rely into, which is bad.

Precisely, whiners may not like the idea of defending a big companies like Apple, but they do have ownership of the product and let us respect that. Psystar supporters are just backing this company up because they have their own selfish motives.

And about Mac hardware prices, do some research and try to compare spec-by-spec Psystar's boxes and comparable Macs and you will find considerably less difference in cost but will get a significant advantage in performance, mind you that OS X works perfect because it was specifically engineered for a specific hardware.

 

[CWallace]

Right now I have "no opinion" because I don't know how Psystar is getting OS X to run on their hardware.

If they can do it totally external from the OS X codebase (using drivers, emulation, and etc.) then Psystar has only broken Apple's EULA (in my view) that requires OS X to be installed on an Apple-branded computer. I don't begrudge Hackintosh owners their hobby, so in such a case, I would be inclined to vote for Psystar, though I do have worries what a large and vibrant clone market could do to Macintosh sales and Apple's ability to keep improving the line.

If Psystar has de-compiled the OS X codebase, edited and modified it to allow it to work with their machines, and then re-complied it to sell it with their computers, then they have violated the DMCA, copyright law and perhaps patent law. In such a case, I hope Apple wins and puts them out of business.

 

[Apple Ink]

Leave everything!
All I want is for Apple to use Intel's 'E' series of processors in something!
E as in e8500 etc., represents the desktop class processors which Apple currently doesn't employ in an of its mac range!

 

[PowerFullMac]

I hope Pystar wins, apart from a EULA Apple have very little legal ground to sure them. They actually want to sue them under "unfair competition", why not sue Sony and Microsoft under those grounds, too?

If Pystar wins, its a big step forward in getting our opinions heard, we will be showing Apple that if they dont give us what we want we will go elsewhere to get it!

 

[nplima]

Notice there is no option on this poll for the consumer to win.

I wouldn't even care if it was a little more expensive (like $100 or so). As long as it's expandable but not as huge as a Mac Pro.

Just have a look at the results at Geekbench. The consumer has already found a way. There are plenty of OS X benchmarks associated to CPUs that aren't sold by Apple. http://browse.geekbench.ca/geekbench2/similar/68624/6

Maybe one day Apple will be interested in selling OS X regardless of the hardware it runs on, the difference being the definition of who gives tech support to what. "Purists" and professionals would still prefer to get the whole package from Apple, other customers would have options they don't have today.

 

[ihabime]

I hope Pystar wins, apart from a EULA Apple have very little legal ground to sure them. They actually want to sue them under "unfair competition", why not sue Sony and Microsoft under those grounds, too?

If Pystar wins, its a big step forward in getting our opinions heard, we will be showing Apple that if they dont give us what we want we will go elsewhere to get it!

Actually, I think Psystar winning would have the opposite effect, Apple would simply lock the OS down with DRM. So far Apple has done nothing to stop the OSX86 community from putting OSX on any machine they like, but if they lose control of their OS in court, they will lock it up.

After Snow Leopard comes out, they'll only have a handful of chipsets, graphic cards and configurations to support, that would make it incredibly easy to lock the OS to the hardware and then in all future macs put a TPM chip on the motherboard. That would kill the OSX86 community, at least now you can get other hardware, without support.

I think the best thing users can hope for from the psystar fiasco is Apple realizing there's demand for such things and maybe opening up the lineup a bit, maybe a low end 1 CPU motherboard version of the Mac Pro going for 17-1800 or an expanded mini with a real GPU, but no slots. I don't think there's a chance for anything like a lowend slotted xmac anytime soon, it just doesn't fit the way Apple works, lower margins mean less in the warchest for buying chipmakers and companies with big multi-touch patent portfolios.

 

[englishman]

It would be a disaster if Apple won.

There would be nothing then to stop Microsoft locking their sw down to their own hw.

Thinking about it - it could be a good thing in the long run as we would all end up using Open Source on any hw we liked.

Psystar are not stealing - they are paying for each and every copy of OSX - and they are never passing it off as their own.

What do you think Apple's motives are for suing - they are not the good guys in this.

Psystar are providing a service, and expect to get paid for it - I bet their profit margins are much smaller than Apples, which are high due to dubious business practices - they are having problems in Europe with locking their phone to certain providers and making extortionate profits.

They try and stifle any criticism too, where they can - put something vaguely critical on their discussion forums - and see what happens.

 

[ihabime]

It would be a disaster if Apple won.

There would be nothing then to stop Microsoft locking their sw down to their own hw.

Thinking about it - it could be a good thing in the long run as we would all end up using Open Source on any hw we liked.

Psystar are not stealing - they are paying for each and every copy of OSX - and they are never passing it off as their own.

So you're saying you'd like the GPL, BSD and MIT licenses invalidated? Cause you know that big long document that comes with virtually every linux program, that you're supposed to read but don't? That's the GPL, a software license and it allows the creator or owner of the intellectual property to control what you can do with their IP. It's the same as a EULA. Without it Apple, Microsoft or whoever could take the source, compile any changes they want and sell it as their own without contributing back to the community.

 

[englishman]

So you're saying you'd like the GPL, BSD and MIT licenses invalidated? Cause you know that big long document that comes with virtually every linux program, that you're supposed to read but don't? That's the GPL, a software license and it allows the creator or owner of the intellectual property to control what you can do with their IP. It's the same as a EULA. Without it Apple, Microsoft or whoever could take the source, compile any changes they want and sell it as their own without contributing back to the community.

Psystar are not selling it as their own - they are paying fair and square - look, this is not legal/sw stuff - its just common sense. If Psystar or anyone, change OSX, recompile and pass off as their own that's bad - I agree with you - but they are not. Apple benefits fairly for each and every Psystar sale - Apple are unfairly trying to prevent this.

 

[ihabime]

Psystar are not selling it as their own - they are paying fair and square - look, this is not legal/sw stuff - its just common sense. If Psystar or anyone, change OSX, recompile and pass off as their own that's bad - I agree with you - but they are not. Apple benefits fairly for each and every Psystar sale - Apple are unfairly trying to prevent this.

They're violating the software license, EULAs have been upheld in the courts as a legally binding contract. The Apple EULA states that you can only use it on Apple branded hardware, it's as simple as that.

Apple hasn't stopped anyone from doing it for personal use, but Psystar was reselling it on non-Apple HW. Like I mentioned, maybe Apple will learn from this and expand it's offerings, but I just can't see how defending its property makes them the bad guy.

It's the same thing as suing a manufacturer for using the GPL and not redistributing the source code.

 

[englishman]

They're violating the software license, EULAs have been upheld in the courts as a legally binding contract. The Apple EULA states that you can only use it on Apple branded hardware, it's as simple as that.

I agree its as simple as that - it may be legal or illegal when gone through in court - but the point is - its unfair.

So either Apple wins - that's bad.

Or Apple loses - that's good.

Its simple - lets see if the law supports Psystar or Apple - if Apple does win - the law will need to be changed IMO.

In the UK there are many times cases where companies have unfair restrictions/stipulations - the test is always what is fair and reasonable.