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Think about it, for an Picasso, Monet or some other artist you like.

What is the value of their artwork? What is it made of? Many artist's work are made of only Oil and Canvas, thus you THINK if anyone made something with oil and canvas, then it should cost the same? (Oh isn't it the same material? design doesn't really matter, does it?)

The reality is that there are things you want, but there are things you cannot afford. Get used to it.

Are talking about me personally?
 

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Personally, I wouldn't have any moral objection to that at all, as long as they did the same thing they are puportedly doing with Leopard, namely, purchasing copies of those pieces of software through legitamite channels for each installed unit.
Well, how are you buying Mac OS X?

See, there actually is no such thing as a retail version of Mac OS X, the only thing you can buy is an upgrade to the software that was sold to you with your Apple hardware.

You are saying that you would be paying a premium by paying them $155 for Mac OS X preinstalled... well then why don't they include the Creative Suite Premium for the premium price of about $800 per system? Unless they have a license as a reseller of Mac OS X from Apple (you think?), they are buying the Mac OS X upgrades as individuals and reselling it on their hardware. So they should be able to buy the Creative Suite upgrade and Office upgrade and install them as the fully licensed products on their hardware in the same way.

That is what you are saying... right?

So, your fuzzy ethics not withstanding, there is plenty wrong with how they were attempting to go through this process.
 
You might be right. I found this about installing Leopard on their forums http://www.psystar.com/_fireboard/view/7/4.html . I'd be interested to hear a buyer's experiences.

Caveat emptor.

From Psytar's terms of service:
OpenMac

When you purchase an OpenMac you understand that you are not purchasing a computer made by Apple Computers, Inc. You understand that Apple Computers does not support the OpenMac in any capacity and that they may not approve of your usage of the OpenMac. In the same token Psystar does not guarantee that each and every program and feature will not operate correctly as the OpenMac is not supported by Apple Computers. Psystar does not support the OS X operating system. All copies of OS X sold by Psystar are legitimately licensed and purchased from Apple Computers and are not pirated in any way. Psystar does not guarantee that any of your peripherals, Apple-related or not, will function correctly. Psystar will not be responsible for your usage of the OpenMac in any way.
 
That has no bearing on the current debate. If the PS3 and the Xbox360 were running the same hardware, I'm sure there would be an attempt to get Halo 3 to whichever platform didn't have it.

Rubbish. My point was that it's entirely possible to get the same game to run on either PS3 or XBox 360 - the hardware, or the effort required to do so, is irrelevant.

The fact is that MS purposely withhold any license to produce Halo for the PlayStation platform to drive customers to their own platform. You can only get the TV channel Sky One in the UK if you are a Sky subscriber, a restriction of content provision designed to drive you to a specific hardware and/or subscription configuration.

Annoying? Yes. Illegal? Apparently not. A tactic exclusive to Apple? Emphatically not.

Cheers

Jim
 
i love apple's fan-boys ;)

The only party I can see with the potential to "profit" from this is Psystar, which is using the works of Apple and the OSx86 group to gain "advantage" in the marketplace for their "systems." The really strange thing about this is that anyone with 1/2 a clue can buy a copy of OS X and go to the "usual places" to obtain what is required to install the OS on compatible hardware. It would seem that Psystar's market is apparently geared towards those people "totally without a clue"...(?)

Honestly, he/she kind of makes sense. For most users that know what is actually going on with Psystar, building a Hackintosh out of the same parts would be no problem if they wanted to put forth the effort.

Anyone buying a hackintosh from another company, especially a tower, is still kind of ripping themselves off. There is plenty of advice on how to illegally run Mac OS X on a smorgishboard of parts.
 
Well, how are you buying Mac OS X?

See, there actually is no such thing as a retail version of Mac OS X, the only thing you can buy is an upgrade to the software that was sold to you with your Apple hardware.

..... Unless they have a license as a reseller of Mac OS X from Apple (you think?), they are buying the Mac OS X upgrades as individuals and reselling it on their hardware.

Racer X,

Nowhere on Apple's site or EULA do they make mention of "upgrade" for OSX Leopard. The sytem requirements for Leopard are:

Mac computer with an Intel, PowerPC G5, or PowerPC G4 (867MHz or faster) processor • 512MB of physical RAM • DVD drive for installation

No mention of a previous OS, only a Mac computer. If you wipe the hard drive clean and boot the install DVD it will install the OS. It is a full system. It is not an upgrade as there is no requirement for a previous system to be present.

How do you conclude that it is an upgrade?
 
Honestly, he/she kind of makes sense. For most users that know what is actually going on with Psystar, building a Hackintosh out of the same parts would be no problem if they wanted to put forth the effort.

Anyone buying a hackintosh from another company, especially a tower, is still kind of ripping themselves off. There is plenty of advice on how to illegally run Mac OS X on a smorgishboard of parts.

Earth to the delusional masses:

Psystar is offering to sell you a "system" which you could build yourself at better specs and you'd likely learn a good bit in the process. Duh! Put down the bongs and soon you'll be walking down Reality Street once again...
 
Apparently someone doesn't seem to comprehend the simple concept that Macs comes with Mac OS as part of its price.

Any recent mac:
Price of Mac = Mac + OS X + additional features

If you own something, then of course it's an upgrade.
 
Apparently someone doesn't seem to comprehend the simple concept that Macs comes with Mac OS as part of its price.

Any recent mac:
Price of Mac = Mac + OS X + additional features

If you own something, then of course it's an upgrade.

Well, if you bought it new it did. I bought a B&W G3 used from ebay. It came with no OS, the drive was wipped clean. I bought OSX for it. Where's the upgrade?
 
How do you conclude that it is an upgrade?
You mean above and beyond the fact that it requires a computer that was originally sold with the Mac OS?

Apple has never sold a computer without an OS. Your Apple hardware is your license key to run the Mac OS. Apple hardware is the physical dongle to unlock the Mac OS.

Why is 10.5 the first retail version of Mac OS X for Intel based Macs? Because when 10.4 was current, no Intel based Mac had been sold without an accompanying Mac OS (which was already some version of 10.4).

Lets take this a step further... when you buy Mac OS X Server and install it on a Mac, does that release the previous version of the Mac OS that came with your system for use with some other system? No! (and that I know is on Apple's site).

I'm guessing that you have... what, zero experience with either Apple or Macs? That even if this stuff was on Apple site, you wouldn't know because you've spent almost no time there.

I've been using Macs since the 1980s and servicing them since the 1990s. I know what I can and can't do with Apple software. If you bring me an Apple computer with no OS installed, I can legally install either the same OS that it came with or the next highest generic Mac OS installation (if the original OS was hardware specific) without charge. The fact that you have the hardware gives you the right to the OS that it came with.

If you want a newer OS than that, then you would have to buy the newer one, but you unlock that newer OS with your Apple hardware.

Now lets look at this very carefully... your Apple hardware is your license for using the Mac OS. If you circumvent this restriction to put a Mac OS on a computer that didn't originally come with the Mac OS, you are doing the same things as stealing Adobe's or Microsoft's apps by downloading a license string off the web. This is specifically forbidden under the DMCA (which specifically includes the use of a hardware dongle as a method for restricting unauthorized use of software).

It is the law. Apple put forward these methods, and any attempt to circumvent them is illegal.

Now you may tell yourself that you bought the Mac OS in a store... but unless you own Apple hardware, you are doing the same thing as buying an upgrade of some software and using some method of installing it as a full version. I have tons of upgraded Adobe software that only requires having a previous license string... if I had stolen the original license string, then just because I paid for the upgrade software doesn't undo the fact that I would have been cheating Adobe out of the full price of their product.

Ethics starts with doing the right thing. Stealing because you can get away with it in no way makes it right. Stealing because something that you want is beyond your means is no excuse either.

This is stealing... plain and simple.


Of course this company most likely will never ship a single box anyways. I mean heck, back in 2001 they were trying to be a web services provider. Who knows what they'll be tomorrow (besides out of business).


Well, if you bought it new it did. I bought a B&W G3 used from ebay. It came with no OS, the drive was wipped clean. I bought OSX for it. Where's the upgrade?
An Apple service provider can put (for free) Mac OS 8.5 or 8.6 on that system (because it originally shipped with it). The fact that who ever sold it lost the original media isn't Apple's fault, but you do deserve to have the original OS it came with. Any version of Mac OS X would be considered an upgrade from either 8.5 or 8.6 for that system.

It is pretty simple. The only people that have problems with it are those trying to get something for nothing!
 
I'm not reading through this entire thread, but from what I have read, nobody has mentioned the fact that this company is not giving away free copies of Leopard, which would be blatantly illegal. They are selling a copy of Leopard for $155 to anyone who wants it and offering to do the install for them if they don't want to do it themselves. Apple is getting paid full price for each copy of Leopard that they send out the door. That should make a big difference in how you look at this upstart company. Apple has every reason to just leave well enough alone because if it goes to court and they lose, they will be forced to come up with OEM pricing for OS X the same as Microsoft does for Windows and they will make about 90% less per copy sold by other computer makers.

And Racerx, Apple has always released full versions of their OS's to retail. There is no such thing as a upgrade disc that patches anything from Leopard to a machine running Tiger or Panther. Upgrades are done within a version of OS X (example 10.3-10.3.9 or 10.4-10.4.11). Technically. 10.2, 10.3, 10.4 and 10.5 are all entirely different OS's. You can't just update an older version to a newer version. All you get is a full install.

I also don't care what you say, EULA's have not been enforceable by the courts in the past and likely will not be enforced now. Now that Apple has settled on PC hardware for the Mac, they have to be prepared for the fact that they may one day be forced by the courts to allow people who buy OS X to run it on whatever hardware they choose. When Macs used proprietary hardware you may (MAY) have been able to argue that the Mac itself is dongle, but they use generic PC hardware now. Hardware that they DO NOT OWN EXCLUSIVE RIGHTS TO. They can't use something they do not own the full rights to enforce their EULA.
 
I'm not reading through this entire thread, but from what I have read, nobody has mentioned the fact that this company is not giving away free copies of Leopard, which would be blatantly illegal. They are selling a copy of Leopard for $155 to anyone who wants it and offering to do the install for them if they don't want to do it themselves. Apple is getting paid full price for each copy of Leopard that they send out the door. That should make a big difference in how you look at this upstart company. Apple has every reason to just leave well enough alone because if it goes to court and they lose, they will be forced to come up with OEM pricing for OS X the same as Microsoft does for Windows and they will make about 90% less per copy sold by other computer makers.

And Racerx, Apple has always released full versions of their OS's to retail. There is no such thing as a upgrade disc that patches anything from Leopard to a machine running Tiger or Panther. Upgrades are done within a version of OS X (example 10.3-10.3.9 or 10.4-10.4.11). Technically. 10.2, 10.3, 10.4 and 10.5 are all entirely different OS's. You can't just update an older version to a newer version. All you get is a full install.

I also don't care what you say, EULA's have not been enforceable by the courts in the past and likely will not be enforced now. Now that Apple has settled on PC hardware for the Mac, they have to be prepared for the fact that they may one day be forced by the courts to allow people who buy OS X to run it on whatever hardware they choose. When Macs used proprietary hardware you may (MAY) have been able to argue that the Mac itself is dongle, but they use generic PC hardware now. Hardware that they DO NOT OWN EXCLUSIVE RIGHTS TO. They can't use something they do not own the full rights to enforce their EULA.


Go back to sleep. Your issue was raised dozens of times and dismissed as rubbish.
 
So much of this ridiculous thread in part has been based on old belief that macs are more expensive. Hasn't really been true for a while. Now this:
Comparison: Which is better Mac or Vista PC
Interesting article on Macs being faster and cheaper then a Gateway Vista PC:

"The May issue of Popular Mechanics arrived this week with an interesting feature comparing Macs and Windows PCs, in desktops and notebook categories. The magazine assessed system performance by measuring how quickly the computers booted up, shut down, and installed and launched common programs. It assessed overall user experience with a panel of testers representing a range of computer experience.
Here's the twist: Macs might have a reputation for superior usability, but that's not the main reason they won out, according to the magazine. The entire article is worth checking out, but here's the conclusion:
Mac: In both the laptop and desktop showdowns, Apple's computers were the winners. Oddly, the big difference didn't come in our user ratings, where we expected the famously friendly Mac interface to shine. Our respondents liked the look and feel of both operating systems but had a slight preference toward OS X. In our speed trials, however, Leopard OS trounced Vista in all-important tasks such as boot-up, shutdown and program-launch times. We even tested Vista on the Macs using Apple's platform-switching Boot Camp software -- and found that both Apple computers ran Vista faster than our PCs did.

PC: Simply put, Vista proved to be a more sluggish operating system than Leopard. Our PCs installed some software faster, but in general they were slower in our time trials. Plus, both PCs showed weaker performance on third-party benchmarks than the Macs. Our biggest surprise, however, was that PCs were not the relative bargains we expected them to be. The Asus M51sr costs the same as a MacBook, while the Gateway One actually costs $300 more than an iMac. That means for the price of the Gateway you could buy an iMac, boost its hard drive to match the Gateway's, purchase a copy of Vista to boot--and still save $100."
 
Go back to sleep. Your issue was raised dozens of times and dismissed as rubbish.

How is it rubbish? How is this company doing anything illegal? There is no law enforcing EULAs. Apple brought this on themselves by moving to PC hardware. They had to know that someone was going to get OS X to run on a PC and that someone would sell PC's specifically for running OS X. I don't see Apple being able to do anything about it. The only reason Apple was able to stop cloners in the past was because they owned the proprietary hardware and ROMs that were needed to run the OS. That is not the case anymore.

"So much of this ridiculous thread in part has been based on old belief that macs are more expensive. Hasn't really been true for a while."


Sorry, but wrong. I'd rather pay $399+$155 for the Psystar system that is upgradeable than whatever a Mac Mini is costing these days. The Mac Mini sucks from a value perspective.
 
And if it is illegal to run OS X on PC's, then it is equally illegal to run Windows on Macs since Microsoft stopped selling Virtual PC because it wasn't written to run on Macs.

Microsoft doesn't sell hardware, and would love for every Mac user to buy a copy of Vista. Why would they care what platform their software is used in? They make money from selling the software.
What Apple should do if they want to prevent cheapskates from buying these bobo PCs, is raise the price of OS X to, say, $400.
 
Microsoft doesn't sell hardware, and would love for every Mac user to buy a copy of Vista. Why would they care what platform their software is used in? They make money from selling the software.
What Apple should do if they want to prevent cheapskates from buying these bobo PCs, is raise the price of OS X to, say, $400.

They won't be selling many copies through retail if they did that, even to owners of Macs.
 
Well, if you bought it new it did. I bought a B&W G3 used from ebay. It came with no OS, the drive was wipped clean. I bought OSX for it. Where's the upgrade?

Its a Mac. Putting an OS on a blank Mac gives it more features and makes it more useful, no? If it makes it more useful or more capable then it is an upgrade. It originally came with a now obsolete OS. The new OS is better overall. That's an improvement, and by transitive property an upgrade, particularly since the obsolete product is being replaced by a comparable, newer product from the same company.

You just received a salvage-sourced HMMWV. The armor was badly damaged hillbilly plating and had to either be repaired (unlikely because its swiss cheese) or replaced entirely. You instead install the latest specification of up-armored plating and add a shiny new 2B9 Vaselik mortar in stead of the original mounted weapon.

You have a Humvee, stripped it, then upgraded it with application-specific armaments.
You have a Mac, stripped, and added specifically designed software to increase functionality.

You have a PC, stripped it, then gave it an OS outside of its intended operating parameters.
You have a Mercedes G-Wagen Wolf, or Land Rover Wolf, and sent it to Iraq with poorly fitting armaments intended for the Humvee. Sure, the parts can be modified to fit (with some ingenuity and elbow grease), but the vehicle as a whole is still a liability.

Edit: Well spoken, RacerX.
 
Apparently someone doesn't seem to comprehend the simple concept that Macs comes with Mac OS as part of its price.

Any recent mac:
Price of Mac = Mac + OS X + additional features

If you own something, then of course it's an upgrade.
Consultant, I can't believe you're still waging this battle ... especially after the company seems to be a scam setup. You're either brave or insane.
 
There is no law enforcing EULAs.

Yes there is, it's called contract law and it is every bit as enforceable as statutory law.

Apple brought this on themselves by moving to PC hardware. They had to know that someone was going to get OS X to run on a PC and that someone would sell PC's specifically for running OS X.

The old "They had it coming" defense, the last resort of rape defense lawyers everywhere.

"Well, any woman who goes out at night alone wearing make-up, high heels and a skirt is just asking for it!"

Sorry, but no means no.
 
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