Psystar Lawyer Hints at Anti-Trust Defense

[jplan2008]

As of the Kodak v. Image Technical Services Inc. case, the Supreme Court no longer considers market share to be relevant when deciding matters related to antitrust.

Instead, the Supreme Court focuses on how information is used to create a monopoly, which is a Section II violation. Apple's end user license agreement (hereafter EULA) prevents the owner of the Macintosh OS from installing the Macintosh OS on any computer other than a Apple made computer.
....

I find it interesting that Apple is suing Psystar for a copyright infringement. Apple sued Microsoft using a similar approach for Microsoft's inclusion of the graphical user interface (GUI) in the Windows OS.

How did that case work out for the geniuses from Cupertino?

Actually, that wouldn't exactly be my interpretation of the Kodak case (which at the Supreme Court level only had to do with the Summary Judgment ruling, and not all the facts of the case, although Kodak eventually lost at trial). Market Power (not equal to, but could be related to, market share) WAS a significant factor in the case. The interesting point of the two cases you mention is that the "market" was NOT the overall market -- in Kodak's case, it was the market just for servicing Kodak copiers. I think this case is different enough that Apple may win the point that the market is the overall computer market. If so, then I think Psystar would have a hard time proving that Apple's practices are anti-competitive. If the market is just Apple computers, then the case is different. Clearly, Apple does have a "monopoly" on both Apple Hardware and Apple software, whether separate, tied, or bundled. So then it's an intellectual property question: do they have the obligation to license their copyrighted software, and, to the extent it's patented (my guess is that it will be highly patented in the near future -- multitouch, etc), do they have the obligation to license their patented hardware? The answer doesn't seem to be clearcut, but there is a lot of precedent that says they don't.

Maybe I'm overestimating Psystar, but I assume they've been preparing for a legal battle from the beginning -- they talked about antitrust issues back in April. Whether there are deep pockets paying the legal bills or they got the commitment from the firm to take the case for publicity and possible big contingency fees, I don't know. They definitely got some sort of advice their first day when they changed the name from OpenMac to OpenComputer. If they have prepared, I assume they DID ask Apple for a license and were turned down. Otherwise, they can't really defend their copyright infringement by saying Apple is breaking AntiTrust laws.

In the end, I think the people that think this will be good for the consumer are being naive. The likelihood of Apple's profits somehow trickling down to the consumer, like some people think, sounds to me just like other "trickle down" theories. If Apple loses this case, they wouldn't necessarily be able to solve their problem by simply "locking down the hardware," because the same criteria would probably apply to patents as copyrights. But they WOULD charge a "real" separate charge for software, with $129 being only the upgrade price. AND they'd charge a licensing fee for whatever patented hardware they use. Psystar started with a price of $400, with ads that the cheapest Mac cost 150% more for much lower specs. Their price has already gone up to $549. For a big box that doesn't have a software license that's valued at the "real price." -- undoubtedly the laptop components in the Mini are more expensive as well, not to mention design costs. I see Apple DECREASING options if they lose this case -- make all their hardware that their software needs more dependent on patented items that they could also charge a license for -- whatever the vocal minority of people who want "headless Macs" say, there is certainly no obligation by any company that they offer a wide variety of products. And, as others have said, there are added costs -- both in quality and economically for having to support a bunch of different hardware vendors. And I'm not sure how any precedent that may be set in this case would have far-reaching implications for consumers in general, like some other antitrust cases.

 

[IJ Reilly]

I agree, but I think it's harder to make the argument that Apple can prevent installation of MacOS X on any old PC if nothing is required other than buying the boxed copy, going home, and installing it. Of course, Apple will NEVER make it that easy, hence the need to modify the code.

I don't think it necessarily does. Just because photocopying a book is easy doesn't make copying it for resale any more legal than if it was difficult.

 

[IJ Reilly]

According to the article, the instructions come with the computer.

They aren't installing OS X on the system, and leave it up to the purchaser to do so. This may keep them out of trouble.

I know what it says in the article, which is why I checked their web site. It seems they are being careful not to advertise their computers as Mac compatible, or to bundle OSX, which Psystar was not smart enough to avoid. If they drop instructions on how to violate Apple's EULA into the box, though, they might not avoid being sued, or at the very least, find themselves on the receiving end a very sharply worded cease and desist letter.

 

[Industries]

You can't screw with a company like Apple and expect to get away with it. What the hell were they thinking when they created this product, anyway?

"That idea might just be crazy enough to make us some money!"

 

[Veri]

Because back then you could just turn on your computer and whip out a graphical based operating system with little to no work what-so-ever.

Dozens of organisations, some one- or two-man efforts, did what you describe between 1984 and 1987 - this was the decade where desktop computing was varied and interesting, with competition from half a dozen major suppliers (Apple, Acorn, Atari, Amiga...) and many more minor. Enthusiast magazines talked about buying an aftermarket mouse for your text-based platform and whipping up a simple UI with type-in listings (I'm thinking BBC B and AMX mouse here). On the surface, all their interfaces were similar. This is because the hard work was conceiving the WIMP GUI and designing appropriate hardware to control it, and this had been done by Xerox, inter al., starting with Engelbart's mouse.

Consider the exercise, if you're a developer, of building a simple WIMP GUI. You have embeddable square panes, with a window manager to move and resize them, into which you can draw half a dozen ready-made widgets or offer a custom drawing area; you offer a routine to cede control (in the spirit of Apple's original cooperative multitasking ;-), and return with mouse and keyboard events according to focus. We're talking about implementing the UI of System 1, not Vista and Leopard.

So I can definitely understand Psystar's right to spend an hour or two installing a kernel hack to get their product working.

It's clear that Apple spent more time on System 1's UI than Psystar spent integrating OS X into non-Apple hardware, but in both cases the majority of the intellectual effort was not made by the final retailer.

Anyway, Psystar has "hacked" the kernel and added extra drivers... this is very much permitted by the open source license under which Darwin is distributed. Like your average undersexed geek, it's also fairly easy, safe and legal: I'm running a custom compiled kernel right now, simply by tweaking and replacing the mach_kernel from source downloadable from the linked site.

But wait! Section 2B of the OS X EULA, which makes explicit that I can modify the open source components, tells me I may only run the resultant code on an Apple-labelled computer. So we've reduced the problem back to the "is it sane to restrict what people can do with stuff they've bought after they've bought it?" question, refining it to the case where "what people can do" is (i) modify open source code provided separately from OS X and substantially not written by Apple; and (ii) add more freely available source.

Let's investigate the consequences of this term further. Take /bin/bash, i.e. the command interpreter, supplied with OS X. This is a binary compiled from GPL source written by the GNU project. I am thus allowed to disassemble, tweak, give away, re-sell and eat this binary. More importantly here, I'm permitted to copy it to another non-Apple-labelled machine. I'm then allowed to recompile it from Apple-modified GPL source as provided on the Apple site, and replace the binary on my Apple-labelled machine, my non-Apple-labelled machine and (if he so wishes) my cat. The EULA appears to suggest that, if I exercise these rights under the GPL, I lose my right to use OS X.

There remains the matter of Psystar tweaking some proprietary components, e.g. redirecting software update. The argument that making a simple configuration change is creating an unauthorised derivative work is worthy of a 100 facepalm post; emacs /etc/hosts is not infringing on anyone but yourself (for the 10 seconds you'd have saved by using vi ;-) ).

 

[gnasher729]

Apple is stifling sales of ALL OTHER HARDWARE RETAILERS by forcing would-be OS X users to buy EXCLUSIVELY Apple hardware.

Yeah right.

And Daimler-Benz is stifling sales of ALL OTHER CAR MANUFACTURERS by forcing everyone who wants to drive a car with the famous Mercedes star to buy EXCLUSIVELY Daimler-Benz cars.

But you didn't answer the question: How is Apple preventing other computer manufacturers from competing? I'll give you an analogy so you may better understand what "competing" mean: Do you think you can compete with Mike Tyson in the boxing ring? You can. It will take him five seconds to smash all your bones and you six months to recover in hospital, but you can compete with him. You won't win, but you can compete. You can't claim Mike Tyson is anti-competitive by beating you to a pulp. The law protects your right to compete. It doesn't protect your "right" to win.

Or you open a restaurant twenty meters away from the best restaurant in town. Nobody prevents you from doing that. You are allowed to compete. If they post their menu and prices and it is ten times better than yours, and all their customers leave happily while yours are throwing up their food, that is not anti-competitive. If the refuse to give you their recipes so that everyone who wants to eat Mama's Original Pasta with the Secret Tomato Sauce has to go next door instead of your restaurant, that is not anti-competitive, that is competing. What about Coca Cola refusing to publish their trade secret recipe? Shouldn't Pepsi sue them, because everyone who wants the Coca Cola taste has to buy their product?

What Apple is doing by selling MacOS X exclusively to Macintosh users is what they should do: It is competing. It is an obvious fact that when you compete and produce a product that is better than your competitors', they will sell less. That is what competition is about. Look at that idiot's show "American Idol". They ask candidates "what is your unique selling point"? Apple says: It is MacOS X. It is completely legal to beat the competition, and Apple can do whatever they want to beat the competition.

 

[Fanon]

Psystar is modifying MacOS. Not only does it violate Apple's EULA, but it infringes upon Apple's IP. If installing MacOS was as simple as buying a boxed copy and installing it on any PC, there'd be a lot of Mac users! But it's not that simple, so let's be real about what Psystar is doing.

I didn't say anything that wasn't real. EULAs don't hold up in court, so that's irrelevant.

 

[r.j.s]

... EULAs don't hold up in court ...

Proof?

 

[gnasher729]

I didn't say anything that wasn't real. EULAs don't hold up in court, so that's irrelevant.

EULAs _do_ hold up in court. They have been held up in US courts repeatedly. What doesn't hold up is putting terms into a EULA that fall foul of consumer protection laws, and even such things would only be invalid against consumers, not against a company like Psystar. For a company, a EULA is absolutely one hundred percent binding. If you can find any reference to a court case where a EULA was ruled invalid between two companies, please tell us.

 

[n8mac]

Competition is a good thing.
If Psystar makes a Mac Clone better than an Apple Branded Mac, then it would just push Apple to do what they do best.... innovate and excel.

If psystar wants to compete then why don't they just make their own OS?

 

[Clive At Five]

I made my music, Apple made OS X. They are both intellectual property.

I decided I didn't want my music on CD, Apple decided they didn't want OS X on Dell or other non-Apple hardwares.

I decided I only wanted to make it available online, Apple decided they only wanted OS X on Apple-branded hardware.

People who like my music, but don't have a computer, want to listen to my music. People who like OS X, but don't want to buy Apple's computers, decide they want it anyways.

If you didn't get it the first time, I doubt I can adequately explain it to you now.

Apple requires a prerequisite purchase of their hardware before use of their IP (OS X). You, for example, do not require purchase of a special audio player that only you sell in order for a user to listen to your music. That is what this case is about.

The fact that a user requires internet access to attain your media is irrelevant. The Internet is a distribution medium. Apple's hardware is not. It's an artificial, unneeded prerequisite to using OS X.

If you do not understand how your analogy -er... "hypothetical situation" differes from this, I cannot help you.

(Hypothetical situation FAIL! )

*runs*

And Daimler-Benz is stifling sales of ALL OTHER CAR MANUFACTURERS by forcing everyone who wants to drive a car with the famous Mercedes star to buy EXCLUSIVELY Daimler-Benz cars.

Ziggy, this one's for you: ANALOGY PERTINENCE = FALSE!

Just stupid, really... stupid. For one, the hood ornament is not intellectual property... a trademark, yes. Two, Mercedes isn't selling hood ornaments over the counter. Three, if they did, they most likely aren't forcing the consumer into an EULA stating that one can only install it on a Mercedes vehicle. Since it's a trademark, they may, but it would be legal to do so. IP is a different story. Mercedes can't force the end-user of a Mercedes engine built using a proprietary design to install it only in a Mercedes vehicle.

Analogy SUCCESS.

But you didn't answer the question: How is Apple preventing other computer manufacturers from competing? I'll give you an analogy so you may better understand what "competing" mean: Do you think you can compete with Mike Tyson in the boxing ring? You can. It will take him five seconds to smash all your bones and you six months to recover in hospital, but you can compete with him. You won't win, but you can compete. You can't claim Mike Tyson is anti-competitive by beating you to a pulp. The law protects your right to compete. It doesn't protect your "right" to win.

Analogy fail. You are obviously choosing not to understand. Apple sells hardware (A) and OS X (B). If you buy A, B comes bundled with it, which is fine, legal, whatever. If you buy B, however, Apple dictates that you cannot use it unless you've also bought A. That means that if I would've otherwise bought the OS's host hardware from Dell, I now cannot because B is tied to Apple's hardware, A.

Apple is taking hardware sales that would've otherwise gone to Dell because an unrelated product, B, is artificially tied to product A.

The heart of the argument is that A and B are not naturally related, as, say, the specialized xBox 360 hardware and its OS. B is capable of running perfectly fine on generic hardware as the hackintosh community has shown us. Therefore A and B are not naturally related, and Apple is simply using B to sell the unrelated product A. This is anti-competitive by legal definition. Look it up.

Or you open a restaurant twenty meters away from the best restaurant in town. Nobody prevents you from doing that. You are allowed to compete. If they post their menu and prices and it is ten times better than yours, and all their customers leave happily while yours are throwing up their food, that is not anti-competitive. If the refuse to give you their recipes so that everyone who wants to eat Mama's Original Pasta with the Secret Tomato Sauce has to go next door instead of your restaurant, that is not anti-competitive, that is competing. What about Coca Cola refusing to publish their trade secret recipe? Shouldn't Pepsi sue them, because everyone who wants the Coca Cola taste has to buy their product?

Analogy FAIL, FAIL, FAIL. None of the examples you provided involve using one product to drive the sales of an unrelated product.

What Apple is doing by selling MacOS X exclusively to Macintosh users is what they should do: It is competing. It is an obvious fact that when you compete and produce a product that is better than your competitors', they will sell less. That is what competition is about. Look at that idiot's show "American Idol". They ask candidates "what is your unique selling point"? Apple says: It is MacOS X. It is completely legal to beat the competition, and Apple can do whatever they want to beat the competition.

OS X is entitled to compete with other OSes. Apple's hardware is entitled to compete with other hardware. But since the OS and hardware are two separate entities (not naturally related as explained above), Apple cannot legally use the success of one to manually force the success of the other.

That is being anti-competitive.

-Clive

 

[IJ Reilly]

Apple sells hardware (A) and OS X (B).

No, Apple sells Macintosh computers, which consists of hardware + operating system. This is where your analogy fails, which unfortunately, is right at the start.

 

[Clive At Five]

No, Apple sells Macintosh computers, which consists of hardware + operating system. This is where your analogy fails, which unfortunately, is right at the start.

Wrong. Apple sells Macintosh computers, but ALSO OS X is a stand-alone product at every physical Apple store. It has its own listing in the online store aand is even resold individually by countless retailers around the globe. It can feasibly be purchased without ever having purchased a Mac.

The Macintosh = Products A + B... but OS X is just Product B. Apple sells both.

-Clive

 

[Clive At Five]

IMercedes can't force the end-user of a Mercedes engine built using a proprietary design to install it only in a Mercedes vehicle.

Analogy SUCCESS.

My apologies, this is actually also an analogy FAIL as Mercedes doesn't sell engines over the counter like Apple does its OS.

The best example really is Ziggy forcing his multitudes of fans to buy a special audio player in order to listen to the songs of his they already purchased.

-Clive

 

[Sun Baked]

My apologies, this is actually also an analogy FAIL as Mercedes doesn't sell engines over the counter like Apple does its OS.

The best example really is Ziggy forcing his multitudes of fans to buy a special audio player in order to listen to the songs of his they already purchased.

-Clive

But they do sell their old tooling and do license their engines to other manufacturers, and this is how the Daewoo got the old Mercedes inline 6 powertrain in their vehicles.

 

[Lord Blackadder]

Wrong. Apple sells Macintosh computers, but ALSO OS X is a stand-alone product at every physical Apple store. It has its own listing in the online store aand is even resold individually by countless retailers around the globe. It can feasibly be purchased without ever having purchased a Mac.

...But it is sold as an upgrade for Apple hardware running an older version of OS X. Apple has never permitted installation on non-Apple hardware.

From the EULA:

2. Permitted License Uses and Restrictions.
A. Single Use. This License allows you to install, use and run one (1) copy of the Apple Software on a single Apple-labeled computer at a time. You agree not to install, use
or run the Apple Software on any non-Apple-labeled computer, or to enable others to do so. This License does not allow the Apple Software to exist on more than one computer at a time, and you may not make the Apple Software available over a network where it could be used by multiple computers at the same time.

You can argue this point as much as you want, but I think the EULA will hold up in court.

Apple wrote the OS and designed the hardware, and deciding to make them inseparable is not anti-competitive because many other equally capable OS/hardware combinations exist.

 

[LethalWolfe]

The heart of the argument is that A and B are not naturally related, as, say, the specialized xBox 360 hardware and its OS.

I can't play Smash Brothers on a PS3, Halo 3 on a Wii, or God of War 3 (when it comes out) on a 360 for no other reason than than Sony, MS, and Nintendo refuse to to make those games for their competitors. Are they all guilty of being anti-competitive as well?


Lethal

 

[BenRoethig]

Wrong. Apple sells Macintosh computers, but ALSO OS X is a stand-alone product at every physical Apple store. It has its own listing in the online store aand is even resold individually by countless retailers around the globe. It can feasibly be purchased without ever having purchased a Mac.

The Macintosh = Products A + B... but OS X is just Product B. Apple sells both.

-Clive

As much as I despise agreeing with IJ Reilly, he is correct here. The version of OSX sold is an upgrade version. There has never been a boxed version of the Mac OS that is not an upgrade to the OEM copy sold with an Apple or licensed computer. However, does that mean we should be happy about Apple trying to make decisions for us or that we should mindlessly follow Apple's lead as some around here do? Abosolutely not.

 

[LethalWolfe]

As much as I despise agreeing with IJ Reilly, he is correct here. The version of OSX sold is an upgrade version. There has never been a boxed version of the Mac OS that is not an upgrade to the OEM copy sold with an Apple or licensed computer. However, does that mean we should be happy about Apple trying to make decisions for us or that we should mindlessly follow Apple's lead as some around here do? Abosolutely not.

The intent might be to use the boxed copies of Leopard as an 'upgrade,' but you get the full version of the software in the box. It doesn't require there to be a previous version of the software present in order to install it.


Lethal

 

[IJ Reilly]

As much as I despise agreeing with IJ Reilly, he is correct here. The version of OSX sold is an upgrade version. There has never been a boxed version of the Mac OS that is not an upgrade to the OEM copy sold with an Apple or licensed computer.

What a nice way to put it. I do hope you are kidding.

The intent might be to use the boxed copies of Leopard as an 'upgrade,' but you get the full version of the software in the box. It doesn't require there to be a previous version of the software present in order to install it.

But again, this does not obligate Apple to allow this upgrade to be installed on any hardware the buyer might own. You can also install OSX on multiple Macs from the one disc. Does this mean that license restriction that you can only install it on one is invalid?

The mistake being made here is that the ability to do something, even easily, does not constitute a right to do it.

 

[ZiggyPastorius]

Wrong. Apple sells Macintosh computers, but ALSO OS X is a stand-alone product at every physical Apple store. It has its own listing in the online store aand is even resold individually by countless retailers around the globe. It can feasibly be purchased without ever having purchased a Mac.

The Macintosh = Products A + B... but OS X is just Product B. Apple sells both.

-Clive

So what you're essentially saying here is: If Apple decided not to sell OS X as a stand-alone product, they'd be perfectly within their right? If they only included it with the computer, they'd be fine? I would think so, yes. So, essentially, what you're saying is that by Apple allowing customers the convenience of being able to buy an upgrade to their computer, or have the ability to reformat if something goes wrong, they are killing their last resort to their right to make Macintosh + Mac OS X their product? If that's not exactly what you're saying, I'd like to hear you defend another reason. I personally don't view Mac + Mac OS X to be unrelated products.

I mean, if Johnson & Johnson made a toothpaste + toothbrush combo, where the toothbrush had a non-harmful chemical that made it melt if it used with any other toothpaste...no matter how great the toothpaste was at whitening, wouldn't you just use a different toothbrush and toothpaste and not buy bulk of the product (to be a reseller like Wal*Mart), except chemically remove the chemical that makes it melt, and sell it as "usable with any toothpaste"? I really wouldn't give a ****. By the way, that was a half-joke

Now that I hear that other part, by the way, I kind of see where my analogy fails. However, it only fails with regard to that part of the case. Another example is: My music is all Creative Commons licensed...meaning people can remix, et cetera. If I choose to allow people to remix my music, but only via a computer (as it is electronic music), does that mean I'm forcing people to buy an unrelated product (a computer plus a program to do it with) just to remix my music? After all, isn't everyone entitled to the ability to remix my music if it's a limited-open license? That's not a very solid analogy, but just a bit of food for thought.

Another one I'm thinking is: On a similar note to my first paragraph...If someone decides they like the track "Escargo" off my album "Something More Creative," and only want that track...am I forcing them to buy an unrelated product (a full CD including all the other tracks they don't want) if I don't make my songs available as single tracks? That seems to fit pretty well with your points about being forced to buy an unrelated product.

My apologies, this is actually also an analogy FAIL as Mercedes doesn't sell engines over the counter like Apple does its OS.

The best example really is Ziggy forcing his multitudes of fans to buy a special audio player in order to listen to the songs of his they already purchased.

-Clive

Just a few things to point out: I have like 3 fans, not a multitude and all my music's free, now and always.

Support me if you'd like (not financially, just as a listener).

 

[gnasher729]

Clive, you keep repeating this nonsense. But you haven't and you cannot answer the one question that is relevant: How does anything that Apple does prevent anyone else from competing?

It doesn't matter one bit how you interpret Apple's actions. The facts are: 1. Psystar is illegally distributing Apple's software. 2. Apple isn't doing anything that prevents or hinders competition. 3. Even if Apple did, that wouldn't give Psystar any right to distribute Apple's software.

 

[Clive At Five]

But they do sell their old tooling and do license their engines to other manufacturers, and this is how the Daewoo got the old Mercedes inline 6 powertrain in their vehicles.

Interesting!

...But it is sold as an upgrade for Apple hardware running an older version of OS X. Apple has never permitted installation on non-Apple hardware.

As much as I despise agreeing with IJ Reilly, he is correct here. The version of OSX sold is an upgrade version. There has never been a boxed version of the Mac OS that is not an upgrade to the OEM copy sold with an Apple or licensed computer. However, does that mean we should be happy about Apple trying to make decisions for us or that we should mindlessly follow Apple's lead as some around here do? Abosolutely not.

"Upgrade" is an assumed label on your part. It doesn't state upgrade on the box.

In fact, I even remember a keynote where Steve was jabbing Microsoft for all the different versions of Windows. He then went on to brag that every copy of OS X was the full "ultimate" version or something to that effect.

Apple wrote the OS and designed the hardware, and deciding to make them inseparable is not anti-competitive because many other equally capable OS/hardware combinations exist.

I challenge you to find a HW/SW combo where the manufacturer sells the SW individually but forces you to buy their hardware from them even though it's nearly identical to the hardware found in the store. If you do, then we'll talk.

I can't play Smash Brothers on a PS3, Halo 3 on a Wii, or God of War 3 (when it comes out) on a 360 for no other reason than than Sony, MS, and Nintendo refuse to to make those games for their competitors. Are they all guilty of being anti-competitive as well?

That's due to hardware incompatibilities between the brands, not a license agreement forcing you to only play your copy of We Cheer on your Wii even though it will work just fine in your PS3 (it won't, sorry to burst your bubble ).

Meanwhile, even if Apple loses the EULA portion of this case, no one is going to force them to compile a special version for generic PCs... Just modify their EULA so it doesn't restrict who can use it.

-Clive

 

[Clive At Five]

Clive, you keep repeating this nonsense. But you haven't and you cannot answer the one question that is relevant: How does anything that Apple does prevent anyone else from competing?

I keep repeating the answer you're looking for. It's not my fault you don't understand it.

One last try before I give up on you: Apple, for lack of a better word, steals hardware sales from other companies for which is it not entitled. They use an EULA to force people who buy OS X into also buying Apple hardware, an unrelated product, whether they want to buy it or not.

I own a copy of OS X which I purchased legally from an Apple store. For hardware, I want Abit's motherboard, Intel's Q6600, and OCZ's RAM. If I were to abide by Apple's EULA, the companies whose hardware I want would not get the sales they deserve. Instead, I would be forced to buy Apple's hardware, an unrelated product that I don't want and doesn't deserve my purchase of it.

Hope this helps you understand what I'm saying... but I'm not counting on it.

-Clive

 

[LethalWolfe]

But again, this does not obligate Apple to allow this upgrade to be installed on any hardware the buyer might own. You can also install OSX on multiple Macs from the one disc. Does this mean that license restriction that you can only install it on one is invalid?.

I'm not saying it obligates anything. I'm just saying that when someone buys Leopard from the Apple store they get the completely OS, not an incomplete OS that is dependent on a previously installed version of the OS in order to work. It's not like say, FCP or After Effects where there are distinctly different 'upgrade' and 'full' versions to choose from. One can 'upgrade' from Tiger to Leopard but the copy of Leopard is a full blown version of the software, not an 'upgrade' version.

"Upgrade" is an assumed label on your part. It doesn't state upgrade on the box.

In fact, I even remember a keynote where Steve was jabbing Microsoft for all the different versions of Windows. He then went on to brag that every copy of OS X was the full "ultimate" version or something to that effect.

That quip by Steve was in response to the 8 different versions of Vista that MS is selling (4 separate "editions" and each edition comes in "full" or "upgrade").

That's due to hardware incompatibilities between the brands, not a license agreement forcing you to only play your copy of We Cheer on your Wii even though it will work just fine in your PS3 (it won't, sorry to burst your bubble ).

What is the difference between using software to run console games on hardware the games weren't designed to run on and using software to run OS X on hardware it wasn't designed to run on?

If Apple was still using Moto/IBM PPC chips would you still think they were being anti-competitive?

Lethal