Psystar claims Apple asking for non-existent, redundant info - Page 7

Where have you been living the last decade? Ask any student who owns a PC/mp3 player at any college in any state.

Wow, that was a rather petulant and defensive over-reaction on your part...perhaps a sign of a raw nerve being jangled? The fact that you go and wildly extrapolate that I am "a music thief"... is that not a sign of guilt? Attack is the most effective form of defense?

My post was a simple question based on the knowledge that there is a large body of people out there who regard music as a "free" commodity, ever since the p2p practise exploded some years back. There is a difference between an assumption and a question, learn it. You may never have illegally downloaded music, but the chances are you probably know people who do, and have. The music piracy statistics would make that a near certainty.

Both copyrighted music and software are the intellectual property of their owners and copyright law protects both.. in theory. Apple is flexing its corporate muscle by stomping on the little guy, courtesy of their army of lawyers. That is their right, if their copyright is being infringed. Let the court decide.

Maybe Apple could respond in a more positive way...rather than kneejerking and engaging their school of sharks by emptying large amounts of capital into the black hole of legal action to destroy Psystar, they could invest in developing a similar line of products, especially that 19 inch rack-mount computer with a great spec. For a large and healthy company like Apple, awash in cash and the appropriate technical resources, such would be like a petty cash project, but insodoing they could clean up in the lucrative market for home/project/professional recording studios, theaters etc (in other words, anywhere involved in audio production) as well as any touring entertainment act as well. But I do realize that is not the way that large corporations work in the US today... rather than acknowledge someone's potentially good idea and go into competition against it (more than likely wining) they would instead prefer to wipe out the competition with lawsuits and then bury the product... in the end achieving nothing except a big rush of testosterone and a bunch of lawyers with even fatter wallets.....

You aren't even close here the vast majority of OS/X is built upon open source code. Think about what lies at the core; BSD, BASH, GCC & friends, Python and a whole bunch of other stuff. Apple includes every single licensing statement with each Mac too. It is an extremely long document and as such I urge you to read it. In places it could be argued they aren't compliant with software licenses themselves. Mac OS/X is not a simple collection of Apple built software, rather it is a composite of many pieces of code.

Dave

And Psystar is well within their rights to use any of that open source code within the letter of the license. But Mac OS X is not open source. If Psystar want's to install Darwin there is nothing that would prevent them from doing so, but Darwin is not Mac OS X.

This assumes that the retail price of OS X pays off all of the expense of developing OS X and leaving some profit for Apple. This is very likely not the case.

If Apple were to actually attempt to make profit directly from OS X the same way as MS does from Windows, they would have to charge much much more.


How does Apple make infinite income from a product that's already been sold? If you buy a new version of OS X, that's a new product.


Exactly what consumer rights are you talking about? No one has a right to own any of Apple's products, you choose to own Apple's products.

Consumer rights essentially boil down to the consumer feeling satisfied that the product/service reasonably meets the expectations of what they agreed to pay for. Companies do not use false or deceptive practices. Companies do not unfairly limit the freedom of competition in its market. Outside of those, companies are largely free to sell their products how they feel are most effective.

The basis of OS X is open source. The user interface and user experience is entirely proprietary.

Psystar is free to use UNIX, the hard part making the user interface. Its easier to cheat off of someone else's work.

One aspect that seems to be forgotten in this thread is that OS X is worth more than $129, in terms of the R&D Apple spent to develop it.
Edit: TenoBell just brought the same argument.

OS X doesn't cost 10x less than Windows to develop, yet it has less than 10% of the market share. While MS certainly has to spend more on R&D to make sure Windows work with all hardware variations, it certainly does not make it 10x more expensive to make.

To put it simply, the $129 price on OS X is subsidized by Mac hardware sales.

If Apple had no Mac hardware revenue, it would have to increase the price of the OS substantially to avoid losing money on their investment in R&D. OS X retail would have to be sold for something like $300-$400 (and that's not necessarily counting the loss of pure profit on Mac hardware)

Maybe Apple could sell OS X for $500 to anyone that wants it, including companies like Psystar, with a $371 rebate to those who can prove they own a Mac. I guess they should also do something similar with iLife, which also has a price subsidized by Mac sales. That would silence critics which mainly argue about the idea that Apple wants to dictate what people do with the OS they bought, even though the end result would be similar.

Don't be suckered into debating a pure red herring argument. Apple could charge nothing or a million dollars for an OSX install disk -- the price has no bearing whatsoever on their intellectual property rights. In fact prior to 7.0, Apple gave away copies of the MacOS. Did that give anyone the right to install it on Mac clones and sell them? No, it did not.

So again, a fundamental logical mistake is being made, even by some of us who realize that what Psystar is doing isn't legal. It makes no difference how many parts which go into a Mac are generic, or what Apple charges us for any one of the parts. It's the sum-total of the parts that make the device. The alternative is like saying if you can buy steering wheels for Toyotas, that you're entitled to build Toyota cars. It's a nonsense argument from word go, and the only reason anyone makes it, is because of Microsoft. They think Apple should be in the same business as Microsoft, and even if Apple doesn't want to be in the same business, they should be forced into it.

Sure they think that. I don't doubt that Apple wants to protect their business but they have a moral obligation to respect the law and not try to pervert it. Pystar has a right to do what they are doing until proven otherwise. Apple needs to prove they are on the right side of the law here based on clear and concise reasoning, going on fishing trips to destroy Psystar before they get to the meat of the law does not put them in very good light. This especially the case when it is pretty clear that Apple isn't on the right side of the law here.

If Apple ends this case without facing the legal arguements a good portion of their consummer base is not going to take that well at all.

I've stated before it is not a case of being on their side but rather see that right wins over wrong in this case. Frankly I do hope that Psystar is a front for a deep pockets company and that Apples approach to it's IP is dealt with harshly. The important thing is if this big fish fries it won't be long afterward that the cell phone companies will be dealt with.

It is actually interesting that Apple and the cell phone companies have gotten away with this crap they have for so long. I guess it is a case of deep pockets lubricating the wheels of government in their favor. This it is sad that this private effort is required to set Apple straight. Frankly anybody that stands up for the way corporate America and Apple specifically, treats the American consummer is the dense one. Continue on butdont come running to me when your freedoms end up on the auction block.




Dave

Hmm.. no. You're not an Apple developer aren't you? Do you have any idea how vast are the Cocoa and Carbon frameworks and APIs? Apple built a lot of stuff on top of the UNIX layer.

OS X is much more than UNIX with a pretty window manager.

I'm certain that the vast majority of the OS X code comes from Apple, and that's just for the APIs/frameworks/UI. I'm not even counting the Finder and other Apple apps that are bundled with the OS. The most used UNIX parts are mainly low-level stuff dealing with memory and the file system. The rest, such as Python and friends are mainly there to provide UNIX compatibility, to make it easier to port apps from the UNIX/Linux side, and the vast majority of Mac apps use the native OS X APIs.

I've read you making this argument lots of times now but it never makes any sense and you never seem to back it up with anything concrete or any evidence. Here you lay it out again, even though the two parts of this argument are wholly contradictory. You say that you just want the "right" party to win, but you also always say that it's so clear that Apple isn't that party. If you were judging the case yourself, you'd have to recuse yourself because of your obvious bias, but it doesn't occur to you that this same bias might be affecting your personal beliefs in the matter at hand?


You also always do this part wherein you link the evil anti-consumer Apple with the evil anti-consumer cell phone companies, but you again never really explain the linkage.

Given that almost no-one agrees with your point of view (even the anti-Apple folks on this forum generally just hate Apple for no specific reason), did it ever occur to you that maybe you are the one with the weird, biased point of view? Maybe you'd like to explain the giant conspiracy you've worked out in regards Apple and the cell phone companies instead of just throwing out that Apple's approach to their IP is "wrong" and should be dealt with harshly?

Is it just the (long since discredited), old idea that you should have the "right to do whatever you want" with hardware and software you bought? Or do you actually have a new idea on this that we haven't thought of?

What I find interesting is that (as I understand it) Psystar is not who is reverse engineering the Apple code to get it to work on generic PC's, it's the myriad of hackers out there who are creating software patches and boot disks. Psystar is basically packaging it up and profiting from the work of both parties.

Because of these facts, Apple is in for a bit of a wild goose chase...while the predictable cease and desist order will stop Psystar, it does not stop the hackers who spend their time reverse engineering the code and sharing it on torrent sites.

In all honesty though, I really believe that rather than spending millions of dollars on lawyers, Apple should consider packaging the OS for resale on PC's. No doubt they would at least earn *some* money and increase their OS market share.

Oh so now is revealed a whole anti-corporate slant to your argument. While there are indeed reasons to be angry with some companies and reasons to be angry with how our government regulates some types of industries. I feel that once you grow up and understand that the situation is pretty complex you put away the general feelings of being anit-corporate.

To simply state it, just because you don't like Apple's business practices does not make them against the law. Anyone who looks at the situation with an unbiased view can clearly see that Psystar is breaking the law.

I can agree that mobile phone carriers in the US have not at all had the good of the consumer at mind in their business practices, but again most of what they are doing is not against the law. In the end the natural flow of markets and competition will force them to change. As the mobile market matures they will be forced to compete for a smaller number of potential subscribers, that will swing the balance back in favor of the consumer. I think this process is already happening.

Apple has never actively gone after the hackintosh community, who are the ones actively building software to boot OS X on generic PC's. As long as they are only doing this for personal use and not to make a business out of it, Apple has left them alone.

The hackintosh community isn't very happy with Psystar, because Psystar is using their work to profit from. Psystar is essentially using other people's efforts for their business and contributing nothing back to anyone.

Selling retail copies of OS X for any PC would pit Apple directly against Microsoft. Fighting Microsoft where it is most strong, that is a battle Apple cannot win.

Ah yes. Classic case of happy fingers while typing.

I corrected it anyway, with hopes that they will go there - and STAY there!

Right, which should signal us that this is not a fight to preserve the integrity of the OSX EULA.

From a practical standpoint its impossible to police every situation that can violate the EULA. Microsoft cannot totally protect every copy of Windows or Office from being used on more than one computer.

In both cases Apple and Microsoft would have to defend the EULA if someone is bold enough to attempt to create a business from its flagrant violation. To not address such a violation renders the EULA effectively useless.

That only pertains to the first sale of the original. There's also the sale of the adaption copy of OSX that is in the computers Pystar sells. Pystar needs a license or permission to sell or transfer that copy.

It's like if you buy some one's painting and use an image of it in an advertisement. The painter don't get any more money from the original other than from the sale of that original. But he does deserve to get paid for the use of the image of it that you used in your advertisement. Unless there were terms drawn up that allowed you to use it in an advertisement when you purchased it.



It's more like you buying a CD and then using one of it's song in a commercial to promote your product or a movie. The copyright holder deserves to get compenpensated for that usage. Even though you bought the CD. What the copyright holder don't get paid for again is if you sell that original copy of the CD.

Or if you bought a chain saw and used one of it's patented technology in a chain saw that you're developing. Buying the chain saw didn't give you the right to use the patents that goes into making it. The chain saw maker don't expect to make anymore money than from the original sale. But they do expect some form of compensation for using their IP in your chain saw. And that's only if they allow you to use it.


You will always have the right to buy a Harry Potter book and use the pages to line your bird cage.
You will always have the right to buy OSX and use the DVD as a drink coaster or Frisbee.
You will always have the right to buy any product and throw it away or not ever use it.
You will always have the right to not buy a product because you don't like the terms.
You will always have the right to do anything you wish with the product you bought so long as it's not against the law and it doesn't infringe upon the IP owner rights to derive income from that product or devalues the product that he is selling.

You buying a ball bearing to use in your widget do not infringe upon the ball bearing maker right to make money selling his ball bearings. You buying some else's widget and then reselling as your own does. Or you making a widget and marketing it using some one's established brand name on it.

You have the right to buy a BMW fuel pump and install it on your Honda, if you think this makes it run better. Honda does not have the right to buy 100,000 BMW fuel pumps and install it on the Hondas they sell. And then claim their Hondas runs like a BMW.



Well, it's evident from this quote that you will never have to worry about creating and owning any "Intellectual" Property.

It is obvious this is just a waste of time, these guys are just clueless criminals and should be locked up.

My point is, the EULA is not really the critical issue here. A book doesn't come wrapped in a EULA, but the prohibitions against someone other than the rights holders using it for profit are enforceable just the same.

Heh heh. You were expecting a serious answer to this excellent question?

I hate to say this, but it is wasted in a largely wasted part of the thread.

Since Apple does not OEM their OS, then you could construe that every purchaser is an end user, Psystar included - they might just float a EULA trial balloon. But yes, DMCA would be the large mallet.

Nothing will change. Apple will continue to sell OS X locked to Apple hardware (or an Apple OS locked to same) as it has for well over 20 years.

You all just want to be able to run OS X on the cheap, and somehow be able to compel them to render you special treatment, whereas the rest of Apple's market is just fine with the way they're doing business.

You want to know what's wrong with tech? Microsoft. Where's all their R&D money going? Warmed-over Vista? A big-ass table? Yahoo crap? That Windows Mobile travesty? They have nothing to show for it. THAT is the problem with corporate America. Not Apple.

Be glad Apple exists and does business the way it does. Be thankful. OS X is a refuge from the flotsam and jetsam floating around out there. Apple asks you to pay a premium for their OS and their hardware. You either do or you don't. Instead of whining and moaning and trying to recruit folks for your lost cause, just don't buy Apple products. There. Done.

What's that? You're saying there's not enough of you to be heard and you need ME to see the light and MY support and the support of others for yout revolution to work? Well that's just tough. You're not getting it. You'll remain in the category of niche-whiners. Find something else to go on and on about ad infinitum. Apple hasn't even so much as spit in your direction thus far in regard to your demands, what makes you think they'll start now? Time to give it a rest and move on . . . .

WAMBO and Maximara,

You're both correct, IMO, except I feel the reasoning may be exactly as Apples attorneys stated and that there is more money behind Psystar than they are will ing to reveal. As was already stated by maximara, this type of willful negligence puts them in criminal territory. They are now liable, by their own admission, for possible tax fraud. I know you know this WAMBO, as how do you report your taxes or income if you don't have a record of your P&L, revenue, expenses, sales tax paid to the city/state you reside, eceterata.

Apple has all the right to ask for these things for several reasons. A few have been stated by Maximara, and then there is the forensic angle of where did their initial funding come from.

Apples financials are public knowledge, as they must report them, being a publicly traded company. Psystar has no requirement to publicly report, and this being a civil case, they cannot demand their financials from another public agency such as the Florida tax bureau.

I suspect one poster's assumption may be correct, in that they are making themselves look like idiots to take the entire fall and get the case thrown out of court.

I mean, no one running even the most fly by night business, would have the gall to go into court and state they have no record of their financials.

No attorney would advise or let their client say such a thing.

Unless it's to accomplish a specific goal and delaying only makes sense if there is someone else involved. The judge will eventually state Psystar must produce said requested documents or be held in contempt or obstruction.

I sort of believe they are covering for someone.

Sorry I didn't reply all day.

Mother's day and all..........

You are so far off the mark......

First to address OSX being open source. As others have stated, it's framework, UNIX and BSD are open source. It has even made it's OS open source to develop applications to run in it's OS, but the use of their OS is blatantly, clearly, and (pseudo) concisely illustrated in their EULA.

Now lets address PsyStar, and their apparent attempt to not only violate said agreement, but to make, in essence, the same Mac clones that Steve Jobs immediately shut down when he took over as they were killing apple in name and reputation and therefore destroying the consumer experience.

When Frank Amelio ran apple he had no vision and therefore used every possible 80s trick he could to try to keep the company afloat, consumer be damned. To be more clear, he essentially tried to run apple the way microsoft is being run now. He did very little development and just tried to put it on as many machines as possible.

Apple was diluted and dying.

Jobs came in and whipped everything back into shape and one of the first things he did was ensure he controlled the medium in which the OS ran, as he knew it would shine in that format.

Now, of course that puts them in the position of controlling the pricing since they controlled both the razor and the blade, but they ensured the razor was of the best quality and the blade was the sharpest you would ever find and it would be several years before it dulled and you complained. If you want it, you have to pay to play and having owned 2 Jaguars in my life I know how painful that can be.

Did I like paying as much as we did for our 2.8 extreme 24 inch iMac?

NO.

Do I like not needing Anti-Virus?

ABSO-effing-LUTELY

Enter PsyStar, doing exactly what nearly killed apple, was publicly forbade by apple (Apple owns OSX. They created the interface that IS OSX. They have EVERY RIGHT to declare, just as Sony, Microsoft, Dell, Honda and anyone else who makes a product what can and cannot be done with it as long as it is within legal limits, does not violate your rights and ultimately does not violate their rights.)

Point blank PsyStar has violated Apple's rights. They are doing exactly what apple did not want to be done and violating the EULA that several lawyers sat down to right that ensured it was with legal limits.

Point blank PsyStar has violated Apples rights: They are buying an apple product, using it against the legal conditions set forth by apple that was part of the terms and conditions of purchasing and using said product. You see it when you install it and they chose to agree to it an then ignore it. They are already legally liable in that sense alone.

Then we will go into their profiting from something sold for personal use, and not meant for resale.

They aren't running a business utilizing OSX to make said business more efficient, they are running a business that blatantly profits off of someone's hard work.

They have ignored the hackintosh community, who does not want this to happen, and they have ignored apple.

And more importantly, they made no agreement with to resale their OS in another machine.

Even Microsoft made deals with DELL, Lenovo, HP, etceteras. Even if the amount MS charges the makers of those products is paltry so they can achieve market saturation, they can be shown as charging something and having made the deal (or else it would be anti-trust) while Psystar has gone under the assumption that once they purchased it, they could do whatever they wanted with it including making a profit.

This goes back to the music piracy. To be honest I never understood that, as obviously someone purchased it, but they didn't post it on a server and charge people to be able to make copies of it.

Psystar is doing the reverse of that. They have purchased a product and are reselling it as their own, making a premium while doing so.

As for your cell phone company comparison, to be honest it has no place here and is a subject for a different legal action, if anyone deems to choose to do so, but bottom line, apple was the smart cookie in that as well. If the phone company wants the product that, as we have seen, has changed the cellular industry forever, then they should be willing to pay to get it.

And why not? When they are charged a tax, they pass that tax on to us, which, to be honest is not legal, but they have never been called on that (I worked at 3 phone companies in my younger years....you wouldn't believe what they get away with.)

And if you don't think big corporations were lining the pockets of government or people within government ON BOTH SIDES I'd like to know what country, or even planet you have been living on or in for the last hundred years, because it has always happened and as long as we allow ourselves to be ruled by people with more than us an nothing in common with us, it always will.

Read Animal Farm sometime........

There's politics, and then there's "politics." You should try following along.

I can't believe how many posts there are in this thread. How is this debatable? If Apple didn't give them the right to distribute OSX, then they are doing something illegal, and that's the end of the story.

As much as I hate how complicated copyright issues can get, this one seems pretty clear cut. Only Apple sells OSX, and that's how they want to keep it.

I reboot my MacOS X computer less than once per month.

Your idea would only give Apple incentive not to make such a robust operating system.

Bad idea.

Thompson

He sounds like he's having a bad day every day, which leads anyone to believe he simply has a bad life. He's a hypocritical whiner who repeatedly attempts to take threads off subject with an argument over anything. A simple google search shows that he trolls engadget and gizmodo, then turns around and tells the "trolls" here they should leave.

Bottom line: Don't feed the trolls. He's been on my ignore list for quite a while now, and the one time I go to view his post to see if he actually had something meaningful to add to this discussion, it turns out to be his typical moronic type of post where he's trying to start an argument over nothing.

Actually, yes. I figure if they tried to answer it honestly they might see the shortsightedness of their position.

He is about as far from a troll as you can get. He is more constructive on these forums than most.

I believe I disagreed with iStink at some point, or possibly even spoke ill of him, which apparently has made him a tad unhinged.

Have to say, though, that I've posted on Giz and Engadget maybe twice each in the last ten years, so "simple Goggle searches" that prove my trollish ways strike me as more than a little creepy.

No, they just can't believe how much of a moron you are continuing to be. Crossing out words is one thing: they're still there to physically be seen. However, if you re-edit the book and submit it to a publisher to be sold in any way, shape, or form, you must first receive the copyright holder's permission because you might have altered their work in a manner that changes its meaning or purpose.

Whether you like it or not (this must have been said a thousand times already), a copyright holder retains every right to determine how their product is used (regardless of whether that property is physical or intellectual). Stop ignoring what every other educated poster on this forum is telling you and you might get somewhere.

So what has this thread, among many regarding Apple, branding, positioning, et-cetera.

That most people use macs here. That a majority feel macs are either over priced or under performing. That mac parts are slower than PC siblings. That Osx86 is easier than ever. That Apple does not offer a product the is deemed fair, either a) the product is non upgradable or b) a mac pro not offered with non ECC, non server CPU, it's not an Xsan. So apple is clearly ripping people off so some feel companies like pystar are justified. It's as if there was just intel again. The majority will always win. When apple was IBM ppc, they were barely 3% and todays switcher know more about FSB, megaherz, gpu then many if the early fan boys this actaully makes it harder for apple to brand as many will see right through it's lies. When Apple was smaller, apple use to lie about their benchmarks. Now it's hardly EVER talked about.

It may shock some to know, but I love OSX, however I purchase mine via Apple retail friends and get a good discount, more if it's end life for I see this price as fair. Otherwise, I don't deem it a requirment to get work done, in fact, there are audio only programs for the pc only. Still, I prefer the candy of mac, the workflow but feel especially toward the MacBook and iMac, that they are under powered, this the great battery life, or non upgradeable. The mac pro is the mschine that should be mainstream and it shouldn't be built with server parts. This us where the scam comes in.

You'll note he said edited books, not used. And a used book store could not sell an edited book.

i might be wrong here but arent they waiting for trial? i would tell you the dog ate it also if it was followed by ill see you in court. its a delay tactic i suppose

What a fucking weirdo.

BZZZ WRONG. Changing the motherboard for ANY reason invalidates the Windows OEM

Here is the exact wording: " If the motherboard is upgraded or replaced for reasons other than a defect, then a new computer has been created and the license of new operating system software is required.."

So unless a defect is the reason you had to replace your motherboard you are required to get a new Windows OEM and that is straight from the MS horse's mouth. Deal with it.

Unfortunately my experiences with him have been quite the opposite. I've been a long time lurker here and have read many discussions on these articles before creating an account. One of the first times I interacted with him, he tried to discredit anything I had to say by pointing out my low post count. In other words, even if everything I ever posted was mindless dribble, he would still take it seriously if I had posted that mindless dribble enough times.

I was simply trying to spare someone a potential waste of time when I saw their response to his post where he called them a nazi. Godwin's law anybody?

Anyways solipsism, I wish more people would add to discussions the way you do. You're someone who'll never go on my ignore list

ok I'm done ranting.

I can attest to this. I had an Asus P5W DH Deluxe that I burned the northbridge up on and sent off for an RMA. When the refurbished one came back, Windows detected a new mac address and I had to call in to get it re-registerd. Same motherboard and all, I didn't see that one coming.

Here's the thing though: I simply explained what I did and they let me in without buying anything. I even installed that same copy of windows onto my brother's machine and they let me in. I'm pretty sure I've exhausted the number of times they'll allow me to register the OS though. It came with a dell back in 2002 for God's sakes LOL.

Oh and a few times I've been denied access, then I just called right back and a different person let me in. It's not a very concrete system.

The language he used might be a bit off, but what he wrote is absolutely correct in spirit.

It's difficult to articulate that sort of thing. It's also difficult to quantify the "intangibles" he mentions - but they are there, and they certainly have value.