CrunchGear

Good. I hope Apple gets it stuck to them. Go Psystar!

Go Psystar!

“I can’t see them letting this one go to long. I smell a fat settlement in Psystar’s future.”

Are you kidding me? If Apple pays this company off every major white box distributor would have free reign to produce Mac clones. You said it yourself, hardware is where Apple makes money and they’re not going to let that go without a fight. At best they’re going to drive Pystar into the ground with lawyer fees by dumping tons of legal paperwork on them. At worst they’ll deliver a decisive blow and they’ll go out quickly.

It’s funny that they quote that they’re sending out a fully licensed copy of Mac OS X with each P.C because at the same time they’re arguing the validity of that license.

Also for as familiar as I am with the subject to get OS X to boot on non Apple hardware there is some patching that needs to be done so they can’t really say they’re distributing an unmodified copy of it. Unless they’re talking about the original DVD they’re sending along with it.

There’s no way Pystar is going to survive this.

“Good luck getting it to stick, boys. Don Quixote might start taking pointers from you.”

“I don’t think Pedraza understands that the hardware is where Apple makes most of its money.”

These lines let us know that the writer of this article knows very little about the actual point or actual law!

Actually its not. If they go after Apple with a class action suit using the anti-trust laws they can seriously damage Apple and allow others to use this same technique.

If Apple sells its OS as an independent product ( and it does) then it is illegal for them to lock it down to use 1 vendors hardware. This is ESPECIALLY true when its proven that the only reason it cannot run is because of a hardware DRM lock that Apple has on its hardware.

Having a monopoly is not illegal, but practicing monopolistic tactics ( especially with a company the size of Apple) is illegal.

Apple isn’t losing much money through Psystar, but Apple stands to lose the entire war if Psystar wins an anti-trust case against Apple.

Jason Mosley and Devin, please do a little research or talk to an IP lawyer about this. Its in most casebooks and is pretty cut and clear. Let’s just give you an easy example: what if Microsoft decided to make hardware and decided to lock down windows to only use it’s own hardware. Above the screams of bloody murder, I’d hope you’d think hard and finally understand.

I’m not sure it being a test of who has the most money (indicating able to wage a protracted legal battle) and settling with Psystar (who has little funding to work with). Those are opposing arguments.

Secondly, as Devin notes, a settlement creates precedent, which opens the floodgates for other white box companies to follow suit.

It is Apple’s agreement that is being brought into question here. Can they stipulate that you have to run it on their hardware. I think they can because your right to use the software is governed by that license. If they over-turn this there’s not to much to stop us from buying copies of Microsoft Windows and installing it on multiple machines, or buying the upgrade version and installing it without actually having a copy of Windows prior to it. Because those are all restrictions put on it by the license. If you argue those restrictions are valid then Apple will just stop selling “full” versions and say “upgrade”. Patch that hole quick and would result in Pystar having to buy TWO copies to get the modern OS.

The difference between Microsoft and Apple is Apple has always (except for a short time when Jobs was not running the company) prohibited the installation of their OS on other people’s hardware. Microsoft has always sold their OS to other distributors. Where MS got into anti-trust trouble is when they were first bundling new product items with a product that they had the monopoly on to give them an unfair competitive advantage in other markets. Secondly they were telling manufacturers they would lose their ability to buy OEM licenses at a discount if they bundled competing products on the machines. This is using a monopoly to hurt competitors. Apple does not have a monopoly so this really cannot be applied.

Now I suppose the next logical argument for this is Apple has a monopoly on Mac OS X and they’re abusing that power. It’s their OS, I don’t see how you can argue that anyone has a right to distribute it if Apple hasn’t granted them that right. They’re buying copies of their software that Apple says “you can install this software on Apple hardware”. That’s the terms of their sale. You cannot change the terms of that sale just because you don’t feel it’s fair. You agreed to it. So again, I’m back to the license is all that can be questioned. If EULAs are deemed to be invalid, then it deems trouble for the software industry everywhere. Apple wouldn’t be harmed nearly as much as everyone else. They’d just stop selling it and include it with their hardware. Then the only way for them to get it would be to copy it. It would put their old customers in a jam without an ability to upgrade though. They could work around that with “service agreements” though.

Regarding your question of Microsoft. Had they done that from the very beginning, it would have been their right to do it. Doing it now, when they have a monopoly, is different than apple doing it. As they don’t (yet) have a monopoly (in the general computer OS market) it’s not the same. So your example is a failed one.

So while I am not an IP lawyer I think I have a fairly decent understanding of matters here.