Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Psystar Files Appeal in Apple Lawsuit Over Unauthorized Mac Clones
- Thread starter MacRumors
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
my secret insider sources (who also showed me the tablet but wiped my mind of all the details) revealed to me who the power behind Psystar is
uh no.
If Psystar had prevailed, Apple would not be legally able to control the hardware that the OS runs on. in effect they would be forced to allow cloning.
Forcing Apple into supporting more possible configurations, making testing and technical support much harder, eventually resulting in an OS that would be a total mess and Apple unable to provide the level of support they do now (which is rumored to be somewhere between unprofitable and a serious money drain)
depending on one's operating definition, those 'open-source people' are hackers as well. but at least they did their own work and didn't cheat off the kid at the next desk
yes but the smart move would have been to sue and get the right first. instead of flipping the finger etc.
you so sure that is how things went down.
How do you know, for fact that Apple didn't agree to the standard licensing terms and paid them. If you look at Apple's comments it sounds as though they did and then when the iphone was bigger than anyone expected, Nokia suddenly claimed that 'the same as everyone else' wasn't fair and they should get a cut of the profits. To which Apple said no (and frankly some legal minds say that making that demand violates the laws for licensing). Nokia tried to counter by saying they would drop the demand if Apple would give them free access to certain of the non GSM patents from the iphone but no way was Apple going to do that. So Nokia filed a suit.
so you are also an expert on German copyright etc.
Apple can't apply US laws overseas. they have to determine what rights they have and how to pursue them. Unless you work in Apple's legal department you can't really claim to know that they aren't doing that research with intent to pursue with all allowed vigor.
sorry try again.
the laws, as validated by the courts in all the various cases in this matter are that
1. Apple and their computers are part of the personal computing system market and are not a market of their own. As they lack any significant share of the market, the tying of the Mac OS software to those systems designed and created by Apple is totally legal
2. Regardless of the validity of the EULA, numerous copyright laws including the DMCA prohibit any other company from installing Mac OS X on non Apple machines or assisting, via knowledge or technological means, anyone else from installing Mac OS X on non Apple machines
thus no matter how Psystar was installing the software, it was illegal. as was and is the whole Rebel EFI.
sorry man but psystar is nothing like herpes.
you get herpes there's like 10 pills AND a cream
you get a case of psystar and it never goes away. neither does the itching, the burning or the rash.
okay Morph. I will see your
and raise you a
Indeed. That particular piece of jackassery (using a single copy to install on multiple machines, without even being able to prove they purchased multiple copies) was just another nail in the coffin.
You're not a doctor, and you don't play one on the internet.
If you think that there is a cure for herpes, please enlighten us.
The best hope for you if you have herpes is that you have White Blood Cells and Anti-Bodies on steroids or you become Asymptomatic.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asymptomatic
There are anti-bodies for HSV-2 but they are a genetic thing. The immune system itself doesn't know how to illiminate the herpes virus. Gene therapy has been considered but the exact Gene still isn't really known.
I dont think a judge would have gone that far. They may have ruled that Psystar could install OS X and sell it, because the measures they did have were easily defeated - but not so far as to say that Apple cannot control it.
BUT, that is not the case and Psystar lost, rightfully so.
yeah all 700 of them who actually bought a Psystar product LOL. Face it, there's no market for a mac clone, Apple tried it in the 90s legally it didn't work. All that clones appeal to is a very small majority of hobbyists. I've seen OS X running on PC's its a joke, so many things not working. I find it funny sometimes, when people say ohh everything works perfect like a normal mac accept the sound, enthernet, graphics & system updates LOL. Nothing is EVER quite as good as the real thing.
If the 768 number is true about the actual sales for Psystar, thats pretty poor since they've been open well over 18-19 months. The iMac G3 way back in 1998 when launched most likely sold more in 15 min, than Psystar sold in almost 2 years LOL
George likes killing his own creations doesnt he?
I actually don't remember starwars that well.
So i raise this,
I keep reading about "stealing" when in fact the APSL allows one to sell software licenses based on Open Source code, just like Apple itself is doing with OS X. Or are you telling me that Apple is stealing Open Source code?
Boot-123 -> Chameleon -> Rebel EFI
steal |stēl|
verb ( past stole |stōl|; past part. stolen |ˈstōlən|)
1 [ trans. ] take (another person's property) without permission or legal right and without intending to return it : thieves stole her bicycle | [ intrans. ] she was found guilty of stealing from her employers | [as adj. ] ( stolen) stolen goods.
dishonestly pass off (another person's ideas) as one's own : accusations that one group had stolen ideas from the other were soon flying.
take the opportunity to give or share (a kiss) when it is not expected or when people are not watching : he was allowed to steal a kiss in the darkness.
(in various sports) gain (an advantage, a run, or possession of the ball) unexpectedly or by exploiting the temporary distraction of an opponent.
Baseball (of a base runner) advance safely to (the next base) by running to it as the pitcher begins the delivery : Rickey stole third base.
attract the most notice in (a scene or a theatrical production) while not being the featured performer : why not be a big ham, and steal as many scenes as possible.
2 [ intrans. ] move somewhere quietly or surreptitiously : he stole down to the kitchen | figurative a delicious languor was stealing over her.
[ trans. ] direct (a look) quickly and unobtrusively : he stole a furtive glance at her.
You don't need any kind of permission because source code covered by the APSL opens all the doors you need. No wonder of course since it is Apple who needs it most.
You fail at realizing that words have more than one meaning in different situations. Read the highlighted meaning.
"dishonestly pass off (another person's ideas) as one's own"
Collins Dictionary:
"To use somebody else's work without acknowledgement."
I'm sorry but the dictionary clearly disagrees with you.
Uh.. no. Psystar's claim was that the provision about installing OS X only on an Apple computer in their EULA was anti-competitive. If the court had ruled in their favor and voided the clauses in the EULA, that wouldn't force Apple to add drivers or support anything else. It just means that the clause in the EULA is voided and Apple wouldn't be able to make you agree to not installing OS X on something other than a Mac.
However, at that point, it would still be possible to tie OS X and Macs through technological means (ie, DRM) like the original poster said and not go against the judgment against them. So yes, a win for Psystar would have meant Activation Schemes, DRM and extra draconian verifications in OS X in order to prevent cloning.
The only difference would be that if you could bypass all those checks, you'd just be breaking the DMCA and not the EULA. In other words, Psystar just couldn't win and neither could the consumer from all this.
The APSL probably has attribution clauses (I'm not as familiar with that license as I am with the BSD, MIT and GPL licenses), which means that if you distribute a derivative work, you have to maintain the original copyright. Rebel EFI has no copyright notice other than their own and has tried to obfuscate its origins as much as possible.
So they are breaking the APSL, which means they now don't have a license to distribute Rebel EFI. They aren't "stealing" per say but infringing on the copyright of the original author. The APSL is the permission btw, without it, you can't distribute the open source work you are using for your project.
Open Source doesn't mean Public Domain.
What they did was lame, yes, but it does not qualify as "theft" which is what I was replying to. That and the fact that you can sell free (OSS) software, which appears to be news to many people.
No, they haven't. The operating system core was created by the FreeBSD foundation, and they've decided to give it away for free to anybody who wants to use it. Apple just customized it and called it "Darwin" and then added a GUI framework on top of it.
But that is besides the point. The point is that common sense alone dictates that an operating system manufacturer cannot be allowed to impose the restrictions on the customer that Apple tries to impose: The choice of hardware on which the customer wants to sue that software, for example.
How would you like it if all movie companies belonging to Sony would tell you that you can only watch their DVDs and BluRays on players with a Sony logo? Just dump your Toshiba, Philips or Matsushita players - you -have- to buy a Sony DVD player if you want to watch a movie from Columbia Tristar or Sony Pictures or whatever else. Really, let me know, how would you like that?
How would you like it if Joanne Rowling told you that you can only read a Harry Potter book in a coffee shop owned by her or her publishers?
Apple tries to do the VERY same thing with OS X. It is proven that their unmodified operating system can run on commodity PC hardware. After all, a Mac is just a regular PC with EFI firmware, and that firmware wasn't invented by Apple either.
There must be limits to which conditions and restrictions a copyright owner can impose on the customer who PAID for the right to use the software.
In the year 2000, Microsoft found out that their OEM and Systembuilder EULAs, which tried to impose similar restrictions on the customer, were illegal by German laws. Since then, customers can officially re-sell bundled Microsoft OEM software or transfer the license to another computer system. Some judges showed common sense here, and they made it very clear in their statement that a copyright owner has limits as to how far he can go.
I cannot wait for the day when Apple sues the German Mac cloner PearC. But apparently, Apple's German legal department has already decided that they cannot win this case, otherwise they would have already shown the bullish behavior Apple is so notorious for.
Listen. We all know that Psystar and Co sucks at best, but speaking about theft here is a step too far. Also, adding a copyright notice does not change the fact that you can sell it, which was a main point for the author of fakeSMC.kext [Netkas] who complained about it (and why I made my post here).
And I guess that the Rebel EFI folks knew that he [Netkas] wasn't going to pursue "his rights", and that was why they walked away with it. I mean it was obvious that he wasn't going to do anything, since he himself could end up in trouble with Apple [hello DMCA]. Which means what? Right! You cannot claim rights for software that is illegal to start with i.e. Apple basically already owns "his rights".
Which begs the question, really: "Who is being dishonest here?".
Duh!...
It's obvious that there's something underlying here and it surely smells foul.
How else could you explain the continuation of crawling of this little cockroach,
especially after all this stomping upon it (almost non-existing sales, no further
investors or company-expansion strategies, bad press, lost trials, etc.)
It's obvious that there's something underlying here and it surely smells foul.
How else could you explain the continuation of crawling of this little cockroach,
especially after all this stomping upon it (almost non-existing sales, no further
investors or company-expansion strategies, bad press, lost trials, etc.)