Apple picks at Psystar counterclaim as court info goes secret - Page 3

if you re-read my wording, you will see that we agree on this point, congratulations.

as has been said before...

Pystar can buy the copy of OSX on behalf of the customer and then charge a fee to install it to get round any reseller/profiting issue. It really isn't difficult.

no joke.

They have already had the End User Agreement argument tossed out with the courts saying that such things are valid and enforceable

They have already had the courts toss out the claim of a "Mac Market" and that tying of software and hardware is not abusive since Apple has nothing close to a majority of the market.

As I recall the DMCA prohibits tampering with software to circumvent protections so they lose on that one and any claim of protection for reverse engineering is out because they didn't hack the software to make an app work (ie for informational purposes)

at this point Psystar is rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic

you did. but there's a huge difference between my buying a copy of Leopard and for fun hacking it for me alone to use on my old PC with full knowledge that if it breaks I'm stuck if I can't fix it myself.

and a company buying the copy, hacking it, selling the machines they have now created AND forcing folks to use their service department that is apparently only if you ship them the machine so the two guys living and working in Mom's basement can fix it.

[QUOTE=stevielee;1386315]
totally moot. saying that Apple's prices, which some folks think are too high justify actions such as Psystar is undergoing is like saying it is illegal for you to sell bootleg DVDs because the studio isn't printing any more copies of a movie.

if YOU for your own purpose goes and quietly builds your perfect and cheap machine, buys Leopard and hacks it and keeps it to yourself, whatever. that's your business. Apple isn't likely to bother coming after you. but if you try to turn a profit, expect to be dragged in the mud just like Psystar and these Germans

So you agree that when you buy a copy of "The Wall Street Journal", there are restrictions. Even though you paid for that original copy, you can not do anything you want with that copy. You do not "own" any of part of that "The Wall Street Journal" except the paper it's printed on. All you did was pay for a "license" to read it.

Were you informed of these restrictions BEFORE you paid for that copy?

Were these restrictions spelled out to you BEFORE you opened up the newspaper and began reading it?

Are these restrictions even printed some where in the newspaper itself?

And it sure seems like it was a sale and not just a license to read it. Doesn't it?

So how is it that you know about these restrictions and how are the people at "The Wall Street Journal" going to defend their case against you if you decide to do something that is restricted by them?

Well it's simple. On every copy of "The Wall Street Journal" is a little "c" in a circle, followed by "Copyrighted" and a date. (and some wording pertaining to Copyright protection) That's all "The Wall Street Journal" needs to put on their newspaper to be able to bring you to court for violating any of these restrictions. They don't even have to inform you of what those restrictions are, BEFORE you paid for it. You are expected to know that because it's part of the Copyright law that protects all copyrighted material. It doesn't matter if it's a book, newspaper, photograph, artwork, speech, music or software.

OSX is copyrighted. The little "c" in a circle is on the bottom of the retail box of OSX. You can see this BEFORE you buy it. And BEFORE you open it. You are expected to know what the Copyright law restricts you from doing and what it allows you to do with that copyrighted material. It does not have to be spelled out for you.

If you violate any of the restrictions and play dumb by saying you didn't know. You must stop what it is you're doing once you're informed by the copyright holder that you are violating their copyright. If you persist, the copyright holder can sue you for damages in a court of law.

Never mind the EULA. Psystar will lose just because they are violating basic Copyright laws. Why do you think Psystar defense is that OSX is not protected by Copyright laws by claiming that Apple failed to properly copyright it?

Psystar is not challenging any EULA (at least no longer challenging the EULA). They know that they will lose on those grounds because the judge already toss that out of their defense. Only small minds think that Psystar will win base on some notion that an EULA can not be enforced. What's going to bring down Psystar is violation of Copyright laws. Those same laws that restrict you from doing anything you want with your paid copy of "The Wall Street Journal". Those same copyright law restrictions that you seem to know about but have never seen written down on any copyrighted material that you paid for.

So explain to me (or us here) the difference between paying for the license to read the copyrighted words written in "The Wall Street Journal", to hear the music encoded on a Beatles CD and to use the codes written for OSX. Many of us here want to know just what part of the Copyright law you don't understand.

1a. Perhaps you need to look at the box. It says: "Requires Macintosh computer....". Furthermore, the judge has already ruled that Psystar can not ignore the EULA.

1b. Under the law, it is a decoration. If Psystar sells a computer with an Apple sticker on it, they'd be in even more hot water. That violates all sorts of trade laws. You could put your own sticker on, but that would still not be Apple-labeled as far as copyright law is concerned. But, of course, that's not the issue. Apple has never made any effort to go after end users-just companies like Psystar who can not legally put Apple stickers on the box.

2. Sorry, try telling the judge that you don't care about the law because you're a techie and you have your own interpretation. It won't work.

3. Your lack of a response is noted.

4. Go ahead and root for criminals all you want. Some of us happen to believe that Apple has the right to sell the product however they wish - they've invested billions of dollars in its development. Psystar is simply stealing.


Look up 'Contributory Infringement'. That one would be even easier to prove.

Here's the difference.

When a person buys a copy of OSX and install it on his non-Mac PC, he is still violating copyright law. But...

1. He doesn't take an add out on the internet with his name, address and phone number on it, proclaiming that he will do this for others.

2. He's doing it on his own PC and may be protected by "for personal use" and "fair use".

3. He's not making any money by performing this illegal act.

When Psystar buys a copy of OSX and install it on a non-Mac PC, they're violating copyright law. But...

1. They take an ad out on the internet with their name address and phone number, proclaiming that they will do this for anyone.

2. They're not not doing it on their own computer and thus are not protected by "for personal use" or "fair use".

3. They are profiting by performing this illegal act.

Mac OSX does run on generic hardware and you don't need to hack any part of it to make it work since mid of last year.
Actually it's possible to install Mac OSX and never touch any part of it (by hacking) and still have it run perfectly stable on any PC matching the hardware of current Macs.
If your quote was true EFI-X wouldn't even remotely be possible.

You are sadly mistaken.

Take a Mac OS X install disk. Insert it into a Dell computer. Try to install from the install disk. It just doesn't work.

Yes, it will run on "any PC matching the hardware of current Macs", but there are few, if any, commercially available PCs out there that meet this requirement, so it is not running on 'generic hardware'.

There appears to be two sides to this argument. One side feels that Apple is charging too much and should reduce the price of their products to make Psystar irrelevant. The other side thinks that the price you pay for an Apple computer is justified to the experience and support you get. Both arguments are valid with some exceptions.

Apple in it's history has always been a premium brand and their products and service are usually top notch. In the past, so were many of the PC manufacturers; Dell, HP, Compaq etc. So why is there a difference now between Apple and the others in price? Well, it's partly due to Dell. They went on the offensive in the late 90's and undercut the competition which killed IBM, and Packard Bell, made Compaq merge with HP and Gateway with Emachines. In the end all it did was make the market worse for support and customer satisfaction.
Just look at the surveys and you'll see. Dell who had the BEST is usually 4th now with all their support outsourced to India, why? well, because they can't make enough money to pay for an American support center.

You may argue that now that Apple is on Intel, their pricing is out of touch with reality. That's not true. They still spend millions in development for the rest of the machine. Sure the parts might be similar to what the other guys sell, but you can argue that with cars too. It's the way it's made and till only recently the quality was superb. Now they suffer the same problems everything else that's made in China does, quality in the build. This may change due to the economy, we might see factories in other countries like we did in the 80s and 90s. The other part of the cost is the OS. Since the competition doesn't make the operating system like Apple, the cost comparison is skewed. They don't have to make sure that 3 years down the road you can upgrade the OS and it will still work on it.

Now, for the other side, Apple is charging more than the market will bear at this time. That is a fact. Apple isn't moving to change the price on their products quickly due to that they want to wait until the number of customers buying new product drops substantially. It's a gamble, and by summer you should see price reductions. How much? Who knows, but Apple isn't going to shoot itself in the foot and end up "beleaguered" like they were labeled in the 90's.

You have to remember that if you want the TOTAL Apple experience, then you have to pay for it.
Support costs money, good support. I've had issues in the past with Apple, but it's nothing compared to the competition, who in some cases outright refused to support a defective product. With any issue with any product, don't be afraid to stand up for yourself if you think that something is wrong with it. Apple has replaced several computers for me, in some cases, given me a brand new next generation MBP and all I had to do is buy Applecare for it.

So you can argue that Apple charges too much, but that's only if you want just a machine and nothing else, no service, no support, nada. That's pretty much what you get with a VIsta machine. Call the manufacturer and they blame Microsoft, call Microsoft and they blame the manufacturer and you're in the middle. So you saved some money but now you are so pissed off that you have a stroke.

You can argue that Apple is correct in their pricing, well, not this year and probably not for a few years, due to our economy. Prices will come down, but Apple who's no stranger to the roller coaster isn't going to panic and start having fire sales tomorrow. They will however start selling machines at lower prices. They will probably come out with a new iPhone which will take the attention away from Macs again for a good quarter. They know how to survive in tough times.

In the end Psystar will go away, even if they win. Apple who controls the OS will prevent anybody making a profit off of them without their permission. Ask all the old clone manufacturers, and if you think that they are helping "Joe six pack" get his own Mac for less money, then you also believe that the looters who came after hurricane Katrina were only trying to find food.

EFI-X only works with specific MoBos. It has the appropriate drivers on the chip and makes the default BIOS run as EFI. If Mac OS X was standard, then there would be no need for additional HW to make the system EFI, from the BIOS it is set at from the manufacturer. But that is besides the point when dealing with illegal distribution of copyrighted materials.

The previous example about the newspaper is apt. If Apple was selling HDDs with the OS installed on it, so you could just pop it in a Mac, but Psystar was buying these from Apple and then installing them into their machines without touching the code, then Apple would not have a case, but Psystar is copying and moving the OS from the original media to another form and then selling it as their own without distribution rights of the copyrighted code. The same way you can't copy a newspaper and then sell it as your own even if you paid for the original and then bought your own paper, ink and printing press. But the offense maybe deeper if Psystar is not also altering the copyrighted material in order to get the OS to install.

Beyond the head scratching desire of wanting Psystar to win and the free market to fail, I don't understand how the Psystards don't see that if Psystar won that they would lose along with the consumer. It does seem like they realize that Apple can still raise the price to make it pointless for clones to exist, pull the upgrade boxes from the shelves altogether requiring some rigmarole to verify you have a Mac, or make the upgrades require the a previous installation of OS X before allowing the upgrade, the way the cheap version of Windows work). None of that helps the customer, all of it hurts would-be cloners, yet Apple will come out with barely a scratch.

That's because they want a cheap experience. They don't realize that the reason PCs are so popular is that IBM didn't patent the right hardware, just the bios, so the clone manufacturers just stole money from IBM by copying everything else, then reverse engineering the bios. They don't realize that WIndows was stolen from both Apple and IBM (OS2). All they know is now they want a Mac. They want a Mac to do all the cool things they couldn't do with their PCs. Plus they want service when they have a problem and be able to go to see a genius to fix their Mac when they have problems, and they only want to pay 1/3 the price since that's what they paid for the PC and all that stuff I mentioned shouldn't cost them more then the PC did because to them it's all the same even though they want a better experience.

No, it's not a fact. It's an absurd fabrication.

Apple has been the fastest growing computer manufacturer in the world - both in sales and profits - for the past 5 years. Clearly, there is a huge number of people who don't think they're overcharging.

Sure, Apple could sell more computers if they priced the iMac at $29.99 and the Mac Pro at $99.99. But they're not in the business of selling computers. They're in the business of making a profit and they seem to be doing quite well.

As pointed out earlier in this thread, if they cut their price by 15%, they'd have to double sales just to break even. I don't think that's at all likely.

Consumers have no right to demand lower prices. They have a right to not buy if they think the price is too high, but not to say "if you don't lower prices, we'll steal your technology and buy a cheaper product to use it". And, as of the last 5 years, more than enough consumers are choosing to buy Apple products.

solipsism - Shouldn't you have worded you question above: " Beyond the head scratching desire of wanting Psystar to win and the free market to continue to fail"? I don't know if anybody has actually broke it to you, but what you and the other 'supply-side' economics stragglers hanging around this thread term as "The Free Market" has been dead and buried for quite some time now.

It was buried in very deep and dark deficit grave by the very same "Free Marketers", whose celebrated visage smirked, sneered and gloated down on us 'peons' from the glossy front pages of countless, syncophantic business magazine in the last 2 or three decades. These "highly respected" Corporate Ponzi-ist, habitually lied, cheated, or outright stole anything and everything that wasn't nailed down, all the while telling the rest of us 'common folk' (i.e.-marks), that we had to play by the Marquis of Queensbury rules. Also, in the same time, they 'outsouced' a good deal of our jobs over to India and China (where most Macs are made today). Even his Royal Hinny himself: Monsieur Jobs, got away with his lil' "back-dated" stock sale scam. Mr. Steve's extensive pack of voracious legal jackals ( the very same one that is now baring their fangs at Psystar) got his regal posterior off the hook on a close one. Playing by the rules my a***....
Psystar's alleged "illegal Misappropriation" of Apple's OSX and it's sacrosanct EULA, is but a teeny tiny, itsy bitsy, wee dram , technical 'infraction' by any comparative measure, in relation to the overall effect and magnitude of what was/is your everyday, common place business practices of straight-up scamming ...Aka: "the Free Market"

Also, do you remember your previous lecture to me that I shouldn't be calling other posters - naughty, or bad names and such....well what does the term "Psystards" constitute... your average Apple civil discourse per chance? Seems that you Apple "Tards" can dish it out, but you're not especially good on the receiving end. No surprises there.
Again, sorry about any perceived name calling, but I really can't help exploiting the knowledge that even a simple utterance of the name "Psystar" sends most of you Apple "tards" into spasms of apoplexy.

Maybe if you say it three times in succession (like with Beetlejuice), all the angry, attorney'ed Apple gremlins will crawl out of their Palo Alto Estates, or their Martha's Vineyard summer "cottages" to wreak holy havoc on all of us "free OSX" apostates?

Psystar, Psystar, Psy.......

I think you want to check the figures behind 'fastest growing...'

In real market terms by volume of units sold, Apple are still just one notch above 'statistically irrelevant'.

Coming from a position of virtually no units it is relatively easy to be the fastest growing.

Just for reference, Apple are scheduled to sell approx. 11m Macs worldwide this year in a market containing 260m total unit sales. You do the math.

Recent profits are still being driven by iPhones and iPods which have ridiculous mark ups of 50-60% plus.

no one is asking to steal anything. At the end of the day, unless Apple do something different with the OS install the hackintosh community will continue to thrive and grow.

Dell Mini 9 can now run and boot with EFI emulation...

http://gizmodo.com/5156903/how-to-ha...e-os-x-netbook

funny...

Really? When did that happen? I can no longer walk into a store and exchange my labor for a product I wish to buy (using currency as the exchange)? I must have missed the press release.


I'm quite capable of doing the math. Furthermore, I'm quite capable of understanding what it means - unlike you, apparently.

Apple was not at zero. They have been in the top 10 computer vendors since the dawn of the personal computer. They are currently in the top 5, I believe. That hardly makes them statistically insignificant.

They're selling millions of units per year. They make a billion dollars per year. The rest of the industry spends an enormous amount of effort copying them. That's not insignificant by ANY standard.

The point (which you are apparently incapable of admitting) is that Apple is a major player in the industry and is doing quite well by any standard - except for the strawman position that they have to be #1 to succeed. The argument that Apple MUST do this or that in order to survive is absurd.

And in real market volume, Compaq, Gateway and E-Machine each sold way more computers than Apple did in any given year. But guess whose statistically irrelevant now.

Can we agree that it's much better to go from "virtually no units" to about 4% of the World market share. Than it is to go from over 30% (combined market share) of the World market share to zero. At one time Compaq was the largest PC maker in the World.

And I'm not even going to bring up GM and Ford vs BMW and Porsche. I'll let you try to figure it out who's becoming irrelevant. Regardless of "real market terms by volume of units sold".


More like 40% to 50%. Those people that tear apart an iPod and iPhone to determine their cost are predicting about 50% margin WITHOUT labor, packaging, advertising, R&D recovery cost, etc. That's just parts alone. What's ridiculous is the 80% plus margin that all companies (not just Apple) get on those extended warranties.

But think about this for a second. If Apple was getting close to 60% margin on iPods and iPhones and over 30% margin on their Macs. Wouldn't Apple's gross margin be over 40%. Since iPods, iPhones and Macs account for about 80% of their revenue? Just the fact that Apples gross margin is historically in the low 30% reveals that iPods and iPhones must average around 40% margin. While Macs have around a 25% margin.


And at the end of the day Apple don't really have a problem with the Hackintosh community. They have been around, in one form or another, since the beginning of Apple Computer. Like Jobs said about the hackers that "jailbreak" the iPhone. "It's a game of cat and mouse." The hackers finds a weakest and Apple fixes it on their next update. They find another weakest and Apple fixes that. An so on. In a way the Hackintosh community is performing a service for Apple. The effort they put into hacking OSX (and iPhones) reveals weaknesses in OSX. Apple can then use this knowledge to make OSX better the next time around.

It's people like the ones that started Psystar that Apple has a problem with. These people haven't returned any knowledge back to Apple or the Hackintosh community. Psystar is actually making money by stealing from both Apple and the Hackintosh community.



Do you want to know what's really funny. I'm willing to bet that Apple makes more money selling that copy of OSX for $129 than Dell makes by selling that netbook at around $299. That's providing of course that they paid for their copy of OSX.

I did exactly that. I booted from an boot-132 disk and changed the disks when the boot-prompt of cameleon appeared. from that moment on i only used the retail leopard disk i bought at amazon for the full retail price (beside the Mac Mini that i bought for real work). I didn't change any piece of software on that retail disk or on the installed system and therefor i didn't violate any copyright restrictions. I didn't change the software, i only used a bootloader that is capable of booting the retail disk of OSX without touching any files on the dvd or harddisk. I do that just for the fun of it, just to see what's possible.

Do i support Psystar? Hell no, but i cannot stand anyone saying you need to hack OSX to install it on a PC while in fact you only need an appropriate bootloader.

So, copyright violations may not apply if Psystar doesn't need to "hack" OSX to run on their machines, but uses an appropriate (and perfectly legal) bootloader.

Over here in germany Apple would've lost the case if it was this way, just because you don't need a reseller contract with Apple to resell their software over here, so i don't really care what the courts decision on this case will be as it doesn't apply to germany at all. Apple would've to sue them in germany, too to settle down the case for germany as well.
Btw., there is a germany company selling PCs together with OSX, too and they didn't get sued until now.

I cannot tell for the US, but in germany and i think in whole europe you can go to the store (or Amazon), buy OSX and resell it immediately afterwards without any trouble. Apple isn't able to sue you for this redistribution of OSX, even if you're a commercial reseller.
So to me it seems that there are some fundamentally different rules about reselling stuff you legally aquired at a store or wholesaler.
In germany it would be perfectly legal to buy OSX and resell it together with a PC, even if you install OSX onto the PC as long as you sell the installed copy together with the original package you installed that copy from as long as you don't alter the software to make this possible. And as it's totally possible to install and run OSX on a PC either by using EFI-X (only for some specific mainboards) or f.e. boot-132/chameleon (for almost any mainboard based on intel chipsets) without any alteration to any part of OSX this point is moot.

It is a fact when you look at a lot of people in this country can't even afford to pay for their basic needs; food, shelter, gas. This year is going to be flat. The point I was making was that right now, Apple's products are out of reach for a lot of people who would otherwise buy them. That's not to say that it's Apple's fault, it isn't, but it doesn't matter if they don't sell the volume they need to sustain their usual profit.

I believe that's one of the reasons why Steve Jobs decided to take his leave now. He knew that the line refreshes wouldn't be all that popular and that he needs to save his strength for either a stronger market or for "One more thing" that he loves to surprise us with. That "thing" could be coming this summer when he comes back.

So which is it? Has the Mac grown faster than the PC or not?




Have you done the math? Because if those figures turn out to be correct then Apple will have grown by over 10% while the PC will have FALLEN by 14%.

Is that really the point you are trying to make?


Apple's Mac business is still the largest single sector of their business. 44% of revenue in 2008. That's about 14 billion dollars. Statistically irrelevant?

You earlier suggested that Apple could drop their Mac hardware business in order to pursue OSX on the PC. Hey maybe HP should drop their computer hardware business? After all it's only 30% of their revenue. Or maybe trolls just don't make very good armchair CEOs?

Besides the fact that neither one of the term is not a real word with a defined meaning, I did directly call you a Psystard, so no personal attack was made. That is the only rule on this forum that must be followed.

I also didn't use common terms like Apple apologists/fanboys or Psystar apologists/fanboys, which immediately take away from ones argument. Instead I made up a term. I conceived Psystard and Psystarian, but my choice was quickly decided.

Thank you for this post, I think I now fully understand the mindset that you're coming from. I fully agree with you that the "Free Market" has been dead for years because many businesses are greedy, but the idea that every last one of them is out to screw us over as hard as humanly possible is a bit overreaching.

Businesses have rights in the exact same manner that individuals do. Businesses reserve the right to price their wares as they like and individuals have the right to decide whether that is a fair price. My friend owns a BMW 3-series cause slightly nicer leather, a few more horsepower, & a nicer sound system are worth another six grand to her. I disagree, though I do like her car, and I bought a Honda Accord. I exercised my rights the same way that she did. I do not, however, have the right to demand BMW lower its price because I like its car, but don't find its price amicable.

You see, socio-capitalism was created to even out the market so that it was biased towards neither business, nor consumer. You seem to come from a mindset that says its only an agreeable idea if its extremely biased towards the consumer because you believe businesses are pure evil and must be punished simply for existing.

I really think it's not even an Apple issue with you anymore, I think you have a fundamentally unworkable idea as to how a market should operate.

sorry, I stopped reading after...

'license' to read WSJ.

it would probably have been better to say OSX vs Windows to make the point.

I don't think that Apple must be No.1...they never will be anyway and they don't even want to.

A niche sector making shedloads of money from the same customer base who will quite literally swallow anything SJ says more than suits their needs.

More mass market would force them to be more competitive on price.

$1 from 10

or
$10 from 1

hmm...

I get frustrated because they could be so much more.

more waffle but just to address the last point.

The historic defence for the ridiculous hardware is that it subsidises the OS..you seem to be implying something different.

Well now, that was rather contorted reasoning for 'do as I say - but not as I do'...



DavidW Wrote:
"And at the end of the day Apple don't really have a problem with the Hackintosh community. They have been around, in one form or another, since the beginning of Apple Computer. Like Jobs said about the hackers that "jailbreak" the iPhone. "It's a game of cat and mouse." The hackers finds a weakest and Apple fixes it on their next update. They find another weakest and Apple fixes that. An so on. In a way the Hackintosh community is performing a service for Apple. The effort they put into hacking OSX (and iPhones) reveals weaknesses in OSX. Apple can then use this knowledge to make OSX better the next time around.

It's people like the ones that started Psystar that Apple has a problem with. These people haven't returned any knowledge back to Apple or the Hackintosh community. Psystar is actually making money by stealing from both Apple and the Hackintosh community."



"Fixes", you say? You actually use the side-splitting misnomer "fixes" in reference to Apple's petulant, and questionably legal, intentional "Bricking" of the jail broken (liberated) iPhones with a straight face?

Also, the Hackintosh community might beg to differ with your assessments that they are exploiting any "weaknesses" with OSX, or with the iPhones software interface. They would probably counter that they are only "removing", or "working around", Apple's deliberate, but ultimately futile attempts to lock down OSX with intentional software roadblocks and restrictions that can be quite easily lifted, or gotten around - because of the simple fact that all Macs ARE on basic PC hardware.
Aside from Apple's 'proprietary' EFI motherboard, every other part inside any of the Intel Macs have the exact same components as do PC's or Linux boxes - regardless of the elaborate, aluminum designed subterfuge thrown up by Apple - and some on this thread - that there is something 'magically' singular, or unique about Intel Macs innards. EFI-X proves this point quite explicitly.
It is in fact - Apple themselves who to continue "hack" their own OS to keep it from being installed on anything that they don't directly get a financial cut from.

And your absurd and hugely hilarious posit that somehow even the Hackintosh folks are also being 'stolen' from by that evil, nasty, arch thief Psystar, is unbelievably royal. Maybe they should initiate their own 'hackenright' lawsuit along with the Big A against Psystar. I can see it now.."Your Honor, we aggrieved hackers implore you to prohibit Psystar from "stealing" our sole and exclusive right to hack...err, lovingly modify OSX...

The lengths that some of you will go to defend and buttress all things Apple is stupendously head spinning.

I never said their marketshare hadn't increased. With the mess that is Vista do you not think it could and should have been even better???

If MS get their act together then APple will NEED to be more competitive.

44% of their revenue?? do you mean turnover (income) or profit??

items with an ASP of $1000 must contribute more to turnover than ipods at $199.

just being objective...sorry it offends you.

"fundamentally unworkable idea" ? How much more "unworkable" does it have to get for you to realize that the "free market", capitalist jig is up. And breaking every law and rule in the book by these Capitalist shysters is "workable" ?

If you guys are foaming at the mouth over a pimple like Psystar, for allegedly stealing, cheating, etc, etc....how are you reacting to the ongoing implosion of the entire World's economy? Is it because of the uppity Pystars, or are the really far more serious and fatal threats to the continuation of any notion of the "free market" as we know it, coming from something more fundamentally sinister..like from the CEO's and boardrooms of every major bank in the US, most of what's left of Wall Street and on and on...

I have a feeling that in the next few months, subjects like Psystar will seem 'quaint' and insignificant in relation to the unfolding calamity of this growing, global economic depression.

You'll then finally understand what "unworkable" really means..

If company greed is the barometer for the free market, then historically there has never been a free market. Today's business practices pale in comparison to the common corruption of robber barons in the early 20th century. They were the reason anti-trust, fair trade practice, and fair labor laws needed to be established.

That's not how it happened. Apple issued a warning that the software update may brick some hacked phones because the update did not support unauthorized hacks. People ignored the warning an downloaded the update which bricked their phones and blamed Apple.


The Hackintosh community is not happy with Psystar. Psystar is hurting the Hackintosh community in two ways. Psystar is profiting from the efforts of the hackintosh community. Psystar's attempt to profit from other people's efforts is forcing Apple to crack down on hacking OS X.

Apple certainly is not the only software developer to deliberately lock down the distribution of its proprietary software. Every major software developer offers roadblocks to the free distribution of its products. You make it sound as if this is not a common practice.




This isn't true, Apple designs its own motherboards and chipsets, at times Apple has used custom CPU's and GPU's.




How is that hilarious? The hackintosh community did not intend to profit from hacking OS X. A company that comes along and attempts to profit from work that that company did not contribute to. Such a company has low moral fiber to say the least.

Ya, but this current "corruption" cycle in capitalism's march to extinction is just in it's early stages.
By this time next year, even the "Robber Barons" of yore will be eclipsed in magnitude by many times over. And many new 'social' laws and protection will have to be implemented in an attempt to try and re-establish some semblance of civil society as we know it...

You continue to bring up Vista in comparison to OS X. How is Vista affecting OS X when Vista cannot even outsell XP?

No one would ever in a million years confuse you for objective.

No, this implosion comes from the infection of government by people like George W. Bush who put businesses ahead of their countries and kill off as many regulatory committees as they can get their hands on. The problem is not the market, the problem is that the people overseeing it haven't, to say the least, been doing their jobs.

The other problem is that, in the U.S., for instance, you have a political party rooting for the failure of a popular President in an economic climate such as this, simply because he disagrees with their economic philosophy, which was proven to be complete crap twenty years ago.

Now, for you, here is a better question: why are you skirting my point about a company ripping off Intellectual Property by making an unnecessary parlay into economic collapse?

The current problems in business stems from government rolling back or not properly enforcing laws used to keep corruption at bay. Even though the numbers are much bigger the nature of todays corruption isn't nearly what it was at that time.

I agree entirely, there never was a free market. The very concept was an idiotic take away from an economic principal Adam Smith came up with to explain agrarian economies two hundred years ago.

Socio-capitalism has always been the better solution. Capitalism propels the market forward, while a system of socialism keeps it in check and provides for the people. In America, however, many people are still dumb enough to equate lite socialist with full on Communism.

Just what in the world does that have to do with the discussion?

Lots of people can't afford to buy 10 carat diamond rings, either. Does that mean it should be legal to steal diamonds from deBeers?

Apple has a business plan and seems to be doing quite well. They don't need to justify their prices to you or to anyone else except the shareholders. And the shareholders have done quite well over the past 5 years.

In any event, the fact that Apple's products are too expensive for some people isn't justification for stealing their intellectual property.


I'll tell you what - you go open a business book and learn the difference between revenue, turnover, income, and profit and then come back. Maybe someone will then have a reason to take you seriously. Until then, you're a waste of electrons. Someone who doesn't know the difference between revenue and profit has no business telling a successful multibillion dollar company how it should be run.

So say you. But even some of the biggest names in 'capitalism' are saying that this evolving financial debacle is going to be much, much the worst that we have EVER experienced.
You are talking like this round of 'greed gone wild' is already over and therefor are directly and quantitatively comparable to anything that occurred in the past. That is a huge error on your part. We are just in the opening act, of a multi-act economic drama. We haven't even gotten to intermission and already you're submitting your reviews, and historical comparatives. Just wait until act II, scene IV - when foundational institution like one of our last economic firewalls: the FDIC, are completely breached and busted down (happening as we speak).