I'm still not sure. As long as their behaviour can be explained by ideological blindness and general stupidity, I'm inclined to stay on the fence in regards the presence of a conspiracy.
The biggest argument against it, it that the truth always comes out eventually. If Microsoft or some other big concern is pulling Psystar's strings, it will eventually be public knowledge. Nothing can be kept secret forever, especially in a court case. Seen that way, it's a really dumb move for Microsoft to make, borderline criminal even.
* Pretty much all the parts in the Psystar machine will come with a 1-year, 3-year, lifetime or somewhere-in-between warranty, but these aren't expensive for the component OEMs to offer as they require you to send in the component on your dime, not theres, which makes it less likely that you will do it even if you know the fault is in their component.
Hm, sure that you will have all the required original invoices, or at least any proof documenting the purchase date for any of the components? Not all warranties are transferable either. If a person has enough hardware knowledge to identify the broken part, remove and exchange it ? why would he/she not build his/her own Hackintosh for a lot less money in the first place? Or simply buy a refurb or second hand previous generation Mac Pro Quad ? it still smokes that Psystar machine and should even be cheaper.
It's pretty obvious to me who is behind this. Dell. They'd love to get into the Mac Clone biz. But they aren't going to test it head-on. M. Dell has ties to Florida technology business. Both Florida and Texas are basically third world countries when it comes to Government control and oversight, so who knows what Pystar will have to disclose when it comes to where their actual money is coming from.
Both Florida and Texas are basically third world countries when it comes to Government control and oversight, so who knows what Pystar will have to disclose when it comes to where their actual money is coming from.
The case is in federal court and under federal jurisdiction (copyright, etc.). They will have to disclose what is required under federal law.
If Psystar wins this case, everyone loses, Psystar loses, the consumer loses, Apple loses, but MS loses the most. They risk losing their grasp on the PC vendors who know have a viable alternative for an OS and one that the consumers will pay more.
I disagree. Regardless of how it affects Apple, if Psystar wins, the consumer wins. For the sake of consumer rights in the larger sense, it's actually pretty important that Psystar does win, IMO.
Perhaps you should look up "redacted" in the dictionary.
I personally hate the entire concept of the EULA. I think a legitimate copy of OS X should be able to be installed on a PC and sold. Sure it won't work as well since OS X was designed to be used on Apple hardware, but that's the tradeoff. More competition, especially in the OS realm where there are only a few players to begin with, is never a bad thing.
Psystar doesn't even seem to be trying to win this case though and is wasting everyone's time who is involved.
Last time I checked Psystar doesn't make an OS, so what competition are they bringing in the OS side, except being a bunch of thieves.
Perhaps Psystar doesn't want to produce any financial statements because they haven't got any. I wouldn't be surprised -- this seems like a real shoestring operation.
Agreed. Although the first few conspiracy theories were fun to kick around, I'm getting bored with them. Greed and incompetence are usually sufficient explanations for business behavior.
I disagree. Regardless of how it affects Apple, if Psystar wins, the consumer wins. For the sake of consumer rights in the larger sense, it's actually pretty important that Psystar does win, IMO.
Not everyone is equal nor should they be. For sake of argument, if Psystar wins and eventually Apple falters like it did in the 90's then would you call that good for the consumer.
Conspiracy indeed, this is not about making a profit or about justice, it's about breaking-up Apple into several companies, an attempt to divide and conquer. It became apparent to me when Psystar decided to go as far as they did and yet was able to somehow finance fancy lawyers to take on Apple.
I wonder what Psystar has up their sleeve, is this an initial attempt to learn the tactics of Apple, or are they ready to serve a tactical blow but are waiting for the right moment.
BTW: Mr.Pedraza reminds me of Mr.Gates during his appearance in court and Mr.Gonzales, both of these guys couldn't seem to remember or understand a thing, so they claimed. The tactic seemed to have served them very well.
In what way does forcing Apple to let any company modify and resell OS X create "more competition" among operating systems?
Psystar is not offering a new OS, they are not offering any form of competition in the OS market. They are simply modifying and reselling the operating system developed over the last 30 years by Apple.
It is reasonable to assume that Apple only charges $129.00 for their operating system because they subsizie many costs by selling Apple designed hardware packages along with the OS. Apple's entire philosophy is offering a complete package. Apple has expressed no interest in doing what their chief competitor does, which is to rely on 3rd party hardware vendors to build systems for users.
Given the reality that Apple has the highest consumer satisfaction ratings in the industry, we can assume that they are correct in their approach. If you do not want what Apple is offering, you have other options.
The anti-trust argument was thrown out from the very begging.
Precisely. And furthermore, since such a large percent of Apple's money comes from hardware sales, if Psystar DOES succeed in siphoning off those hardware sales, we'll all be paying a lot more per copy of OS X.
I disagree. Regardless of how it affects Apple, if Psystar wins, the consumer wins. For the sake of consumer rights in the larger sense, it's actually pretty important that Psystar does win, IMO.
That's short-sighted for many reasons. Apple is defending their right to sell the products they invented in the way they decide is most profitable to them. I don't see how consumers benefit if holders of copyrights and trademarks are no longer able to decide how to market their own products.
Quote:
Originally Posted by stompy
Agreed. Although the first few conspiracy theories were fun to kick around, I'm getting bored with them. Greed and incompetence are usually sufficient explanations for business behavior.
I disagree. Regardless of how it affects Apple, if Psystar wins, the consumer wins. For the sake of consumer rights in the larger sense, it's actually pretty important that Psystar does win, IMO.
LOL at consumer rights, what about the rights of corporations or they don't have any?
Not everyone is equal nor should they be. For sake of argument, if Psystar wins and eventually Apple falters like it did in the 90's then would you call that good for the consumer.
And you think Apple will still their OS at the upgrade rate of $129 if Psystar wins? The most likely avenue for Apple will have to increase the price near to WIndows Vista Ultimate pricing which would offset Psystar's profit. Now what little profit Psystar was making is now nullified, there is even less reason to by a non-Mac to save a buck and the consumer who does want to upgrade their Mac to the next OS has a pricey choice ahead of them.
But wait, Apple could issue Windows-esque serial key authentication for each install of Mac OS X which is just an inconvenience for the consumer and they could sell an update-only version that requires that a valid copy of a previous of OS X is already installed which, again, is inconvenient for the consumer.
What is less likely, but still inconvenient and still an option for Apple could not offer any packaged upgrades to their Macs which means Psystar and Dell and HP, trying to get out from under the grasp of MS, couldn't buy. They could offer some other option that requires you to prove you have a Mac before having the disc the sold to you in an atypical retail fashion or they could just stagnate the version of Mac OS X so that point updates last longer (they are getting farther between OS versions anyway).
Now tell me how does ANY of that help the consumer, help MS, and help the people of a capitalist country when you are forcing one, and only one, OS to not be allowed the same laws of business as everyone else?
Although it would be more risky, moving to custom chipsets in their desktop and laptop computers could effectively stop Pystar. I'm sure that is a road they would only go down should the court side with Pystar, which is unlikely.
Until there's a trail to a specific entity, as far as I'm concerned, the conspiracy theories are bunk. But that's almost redundant, conspiracy theories are generally bunk.
Quote:
Originally Posted by iStink
Well, that's what I thought at first, but the key difference here is Psystar isn't some company trying to introduce an original product while Apple stomps them. They are a shoestring operation (as someone pointed out) that's meant to disrupt Apple sales.
Look at these specs:
Either Psystar isn't turning a profit, or Apple is inflating the price substantially. I think it's somewhere in the middle.
Somehow you didn't notice that the Mac Pro is running on workstation components. If you're not going to try to compare like-for-like, then your comparison is bunk too.
Quote:
Originally Posted by SirROM
Drum roll please.....
I will now reveal Pystar's secret backer: Palm
Why don't you at least explain the motivation then? Trying to cut down Apple's computer division doesn't do much against the iPhone.
Quote:
Originally Posted by jmnikricket
Perhaps you should look up "redacted" in the dictionary.
I personally hate the entire concept of the EULA. I think a legitimate copy of OS X should be able to be installed on a PC and sold. Sure it won't work as well since OS X was designed to be used on Apple hardware, but that's the tradeoff. More competition, especially in the OS realm where there are only a few players to begin with, is never a bad thing.
Psystar doesn't even seem to be trying to win this case though and is wasting everyone's time who is involved.
The problem is that it's the hardware profits that pay back for the development cost of the software. These days, operating systems are so exceedingly complicated these days that it takes owning the majority of a market to be able sell it on its own (even then, Windows retail box costs more than OS X), tens of thousands of people contributing for free, or providing a vertically integrated system to do it.
LOL at consumer rights, what about the rights of corporations or they don't have any?
Corporations have tremendous rights in many ways. As it is, the concept of corporate personhood doesn't really hold very well since you can't imprison a corporation and there are a lot of protections in place such that it's hard to hold anyone liable for even possibly criminal misdeeds of a corporation. For example, I think only two people have been penalized for Enron, though there has to be a lot more than that that knowingly participated in the scandal.
But that's just an aside, I do think copyrights are legitimate in principle, and corporations do need to have copyright protection to justify the costs of developing of complicated software.
Shoestring operation is right, which is why Apple wants to see who else is behind financing this two bit operation. It's probably that billionaire, capitalism good for me, socialism good for you, George Soros. He's got his crooked hands into everything!
"I think DELL or HP is aiding and abetting Pystar."
Why would they bother. EFI is an open specification. Either Dell or HP could easily produce a variant that boots up OS X (with the appropriate bootloader) as well as Vista 64, and sell it as an "VISTA 64 with EFI support" item. One configuration would purely by chance have completely OS X compatible hardware.
Then the news that Dell/HP model foo-EFI, config so and so, also runs OS X when installed with bootloader Chameleon.Dell, available on the bit-torrent site <this link> is leaked via slashdot, and they sell a bunch.
They could sell it as linux item too if Bill's greed makes Vista 64 Basic too expensive. I think linux can boot on EFI now.
I've been wondering why they haven't done that ever since Leopard shipped. Since it's not an official supported configuration, there wouldn't be any tech support costs.
I've been wondering why they haven't done that ever since Leopard shipped. Since it's not an official supported configuration, there wouldn't be any tech support costs.
I disagree. Regardless of how it affects Apple, if Psystar wins, the consumer wins. For the sake of consumer rights in the larger sense, it's actually pretty important that Psystar does win, IMO.
Please stop with this consumer protection bs. Apple, just like any other company has a right to offer its product under its own terms. The consumer then has the right to either accept or deny those terms.
If Psystar wins, the only thing that will have been accomplished is destroying the excellent user experience Apple customers come to expect. When it comes straight down to it, were Windows and OS X offered the same way, OS X would simply be a more secure Windows and nothing more because Apple wouldn't be able to innovate near as fast as it does when it has to do so much more coding and would have to deal with OEMs who have often conflicting goals. Plus, Windows has to be everything to everyone and that's why almost no one likes it because it has no real identity.
Apple is successful as a company as a direct result of its vertical manufacturing model. After all, that's why Apple sales are slowly but surely rising while Microsoft's are slipping year after year. Apple is a hardware manufacturer who makes the operating system to differentiate its hardware. Microsoft is a software company plain and simple.
They compete directly on a daily basis. The new Microsoft commercials alone should show you that. Just because you can't understand that a premium experience cannot be had at a commodity price, doesn't give you the right to demand it. There are two operating systems and they are competing.
Comments
I'm still not sure. As long as their behaviour can be explained by ideological blindness and general stupidity, I'm inclined to stay on the fence in regards the presence of a conspiracy.
The biggest argument against it, it that the truth always comes out eventually. If Microsoft or some other big concern is pulling Psystar's strings, it will eventually be public knowledge. Nothing can be kept secret forever, especially in a court case. Seen that way, it's a really dumb move for Microsoft to make, borderline criminal even.
Mr. SB never struck me for his clear-mindedness.
* Pretty much all the parts in the Psystar machine will come with a 1-year, 3-year, lifetime or somewhere-in-between warranty, but these aren't expensive for the component OEMs to offer as they require you to send in the component on your dime, not theres, which makes it less likely that you will do it even if you know the fault is in their component.
Hm, sure that you will have all the required original invoices, or at least any proof documenting the purchase date for any of the components? Not all warranties are transferable either. If a person has enough hardware knowledge to identify the broken part, remove and exchange it ? why would he/she not build his/her own Hackintosh for a lot less money in the first place? Or simply buy a refurb or second hand previous generation Mac Pro Quad ? it still smokes that Psystar machine and should even be cheaper.
Apple: the New Microsoft.
Sounds catchy.
g3pro... the old flamer.
It's Got to be Dell man!
-M
Both Florida and Texas are basically third world countries when it comes to Government control and oversight, so who knows what Pystar will have to disclose when it comes to where their actual money is coming from.
The case is in federal court and under federal jurisdiction (copyright, etc.). They will have to disclose what is required under federal law.
If Psystar wins this case, everyone loses, Psystar loses, the consumer loses, Apple loses, but MS loses the most. They risk losing their grasp on the PC vendors who know have a viable alternative for an OS and one that the consumers will pay more.
I disagree. Regardless of how it affects Apple, if Psystar wins, the consumer wins. For the sake of consumer rights in the larger sense, it's actually pretty important that Psystar does win, IMO.
Perhaps you should look up "redacted" in the dictionary.
I personally hate the entire concept of the EULA. I think a legitimate copy of OS X should be able to be installed on a PC and sold. Sure it won't work as well since OS X was designed to be used on Apple hardware, but that's the tradeoff. More competition, especially in the OS realm where there are only a few players to begin with, is never a bad thing.
Psystar doesn't even seem to be trying to win this case though and is wasting everyone's time who is involved.
Last time I checked Psystar doesn't make an OS, so what competition are they bringing in the OS side, except being a bunch of thieves.
Perhaps Psystar doesn't want to produce any financial statements because they haven't got any. I wouldn't be surprised -- this seems like a real shoestring operation.
Agreed. Although the first few conspiracy theories were fun to kick around, I'm getting bored with them. Greed and incompetence are usually sufficient explanations for business behavior.
I disagree. Regardless of how it affects Apple, if Psystar wins, the consumer wins. For the sake of consumer rights in the larger sense, it's actually pretty important that Psystar does win, IMO.
Not everyone is equal nor should they be. For sake of argument, if Psystar wins and eventually Apple falters like it did in the 90's then would you call that good for the consumer.
I wonder what Psystar has up their sleeve, is this an initial attempt to learn the tactics of Apple, or are they ready to serve a tactical blow but are waiting for the right moment.
BTW: Mr.Pedraza reminds me of Mr.Gates during his appearance in court and Mr.Gonzales, both of these guys couldn't seem to remember or understand a thing, so they claimed. The tactic seemed to have served them very well.
In what way does forcing Apple to let any company modify and resell OS X create "more competition" among operating systems?
Psystar is not offering a new OS, they are not offering any form of competition in the OS market. They are simply modifying and reselling the operating system developed over the last 30 years by Apple.
It is reasonable to assume that Apple only charges $129.00 for their operating system because they subsizie many costs by selling Apple designed hardware packages along with the OS. Apple's entire philosophy is offering a complete package. Apple has expressed no interest in doing what their chief competitor does, which is to rely on 3rd party hardware vendors to build systems for users.
Given the reality that Apple has the highest consumer satisfaction ratings in the industry, we can assume that they are correct in their approach. If you do not want what Apple is offering, you have other options.
The anti-trust argument was thrown out from the very begging.
Precisely. And furthermore, since such a large percent of Apple's money comes from hardware sales, if Psystar DOES succeed in siphoning off those hardware sales, we'll all be paying a lot more per copy of OS X.
I disagree. Regardless of how it affects Apple, if Psystar wins, the consumer wins. For the sake of consumer rights in the larger sense, it's actually pretty important that Psystar does win, IMO.
That's short-sighted for many reasons. Apple is defending their right to sell the products they invented in the way they decide is most profitable to them. I don't see how consumers benefit if holders of copyrights and trademarks are no longer able to decide how to market their own products.
Agreed. Although the first few conspiracy theories were fun to kick around, I'm getting bored with them. Greed and incompetence are usually sufficient explanations for business behavior.
All behavior, really.
I disagree. Regardless of how it affects Apple, if Psystar wins, the consumer wins. For the sake of consumer rights in the larger sense, it's actually pretty important that Psystar does win, IMO.
LOL at consumer rights, what about the rights of corporations or they don't have any?
Not everyone is equal nor should they be. For sake of argument, if Psystar wins and eventually Apple falters like it did in the 90's then would you call that good for the consumer.
And you think Apple will still their OS at the upgrade rate of $129 if Psystar wins? The most likely avenue for Apple will have to increase the price near to WIndows Vista Ultimate pricing which would offset Psystar's profit. Now what little profit Psystar was making is now nullified, there is even less reason to by a non-Mac to save a buck and the consumer who does want to upgrade their Mac to the next OS has a pricey choice ahead of them.
But wait, Apple could issue Windows-esque serial key authentication for each install of Mac OS X which is just an inconvenience for the consumer and they could sell an update-only version that requires that a valid copy of a previous of OS X is already installed which, again, is inconvenient for the consumer.
What is less likely, but still inconvenient and still an option for Apple could not offer any packaged upgrades to their Macs which means Psystar and Dell and HP, trying to get out from under the grasp of MS, couldn't buy. They could offer some other option that requires you to prove you have a Mac before having the disc the sold to you in an atypical retail fashion or they could just stagnate the version of Mac OS X so that point updates last longer (they are getting farther between OS versions anyway).
Now tell me how does ANY of that help the consumer, help MS, and help the people of a capitalist country when you are forcing one, and only one, OS to not be allowed the same laws of business as everyone else?
I think DELL or HP is aiding and abetting Pystar.
Although it would be more risky, moving to custom chipsets in their desktop and laptop computers could effectively stop Pystar. I'm sure that is a road they would only go down should the court side with Pystar, which is unlikely.
Until there's a trail to a specific entity, as far as I'm concerned, the conspiracy theories are bunk. But that's almost redundant, conspiracy theories are generally bunk.
Well, that's what I thought at first, but the key difference here is Psystar isn't some company trying to introduce an original product while Apple stomps them. They are a shoestring operation (as someone pointed out) that's meant to disrupt Apple sales.
Look at these specs:
Either Psystar isn't turning a profit, or Apple is inflating the price substantially. I think it's somewhere in the middle.
Somehow you didn't notice that the Mac Pro is running on workstation components. If you're not going to try to compare like-for-like, then your comparison is bunk too.
Drum roll please.....
I will now reveal Pystar's secret backer: Palm
Why don't you at least explain the motivation then? Trying to cut down Apple's computer division doesn't do much against the iPhone.
Perhaps you should look up "redacted" in the dictionary.
I personally hate the entire concept of the EULA. I think a legitimate copy of OS X should be able to be installed on a PC and sold. Sure it won't work as well since OS X was designed to be used on Apple hardware, but that's the tradeoff. More competition, especially in the OS realm where there are only a few players to begin with, is never a bad thing.
Psystar doesn't even seem to be trying to win this case though and is wasting everyone's time who is involved.
The problem is that it's the hardware profits that pay back for the development cost of the software. These days, operating systems are so exceedingly complicated these days that it takes owning the majority of a market to be able sell it on its own (even then, Windows retail box costs more than OS X), tens of thousands of people contributing for free, or providing a vertically integrated system to do it.
LOL at consumer rights, what about the rights of corporations or they don't have any?
Corporations have tremendous rights in many ways. As it is, the concept of corporate personhood doesn't really hold very well since you can't imprison a corporation and there are a lot of protections in place such that it's hard to hold anyone liable for even possibly criminal misdeeds of a corporation. For example, I think only two people have been penalized for Enron, though there has to be a lot more than that that knowingly participated in the scandal.
But that's just an aside, I do think copyrights are legitimate in principle, and corporations do need to have copyright protection to justify the costs of developing of complicated software.
Shoestring operation is right, which is why Apple wants to see who else is behind financing this two bit operation. It's probably that billionaire, capitalism good for me, socialism good for you, George Soros. He's got his crooked hands into everything!
I'd bet on Murdoch before Soros.
Why would they bother. EFI is an open specification. Either Dell or HP could easily produce a variant that boots up OS X (with the appropriate bootloader) as well as Vista 64, and sell it as an "VISTA 64 with EFI support" item. One configuration would purely by chance
Then the news that Dell/HP model foo-EFI, config so and so, also runs OS X when installed with bootloader Chameleon.Dell, available on the bit-torrent site <this link> is leaked via slashdot, and they sell a bunch.
They could sell it as linux item too if Bill's greed makes Vista 64 Basic too expensive. I think linux can boot on EFI now.
I've been wondering why they haven't done that ever since Leopard shipped. Since it's not an official supported configuration, there wouldn't be any tech support costs.
I've been wondering why they haven't done that ever since Leopard shipped. Since it's not an official supported configuration, there wouldn't be any tech support costs.
I'd bet that they know that it's illegal.
I disagree. Regardless of how it affects Apple, if Psystar wins, the consumer wins. For the sake of consumer rights in the larger sense, it's actually pretty important that Psystar does win, IMO.
Please stop with this consumer protection bs. Apple, just like any other company has a right to offer its product under its own terms. The consumer then has the right to either accept or deny those terms.
If Psystar wins, the only thing that will have been accomplished is destroying the excellent user experience Apple customers come to expect. When it comes straight down to it, were Windows and OS X offered the same way, OS X would simply be a more secure Windows and nothing more because Apple wouldn't be able to innovate near as fast as it does when it has to do so much more coding and would have to deal with OEMs who have often conflicting goals. Plus, Windows has to be everything to everyone and that's why almost no one likes it because it has no real identity.
Apple is successful as a company as a direct result of its vertical manufacturing model. After all, that's why Apple sales are slowly but surely rising while Microsoft's are slipping year after year. Apple is a hardware manufacturer who makes the operating system to differentiate its hardware. Microsoft is a software company plain and simple.
They compete directly on a daily basis. The new Microsoft commercials alone should show you that. Just because you can't understand that a premium experience cannot be had at a commodity price, doesn't give you the right to demand it. There are two operating systems and they are competing.