I love Apple to death, and would never dream of buying non-apple branded hardware.
... but ....
I'm really hoping Psystar wins. For us, the consumers, only good would come from it. It would force Apple to upgrade their systems faster, because if they don't people will have the choice to go elsewhere. Currently that choice simply doesn't exist.
I love Apple to death, and would never dream of buying non-apple branded hardware.
... but ....
I'm really hoping Psystar wins. For us, the consumers, only good would come from it. It would force Apple to upgrade their systems faster, because if they don't people will have the choice to go elsewhere. Currently that choice simply doesn't exist.
I mean hell, they had a system available LAST YEAR with a blu-ray drive installed. Where is apple's blu-ray option? Granted, you can't watch them (unless you use bootcamp, which is fine) until Apple decides to license the software, but it's still a great example.
The only people who should be rooting against them are Apple Employees and people who have the majority of their assets invested in AAPL stock. Likely less than 1% of Appleinsider's userbase.
- Xid
What's with the hang up on Blu-Ray? Are you really in that much of a hurry to overpay for yet another half-baked Sony technology?
Anyway, that was off topic, but my point is that you're looking at this from entirely the wrong perspective. Apple is able to provide many of the advantages that it does because of tight vertical integration. Opening that up to other vendors simply creates a slippery slope into exactly what Microsoft has been doing for years: causing immense stress to customers who have to deal with multiple vendors to fix even the simplest of problems.
Even beyond that though, please get over this idea that Apple has no competition. Apple may be the only system running OS X, but you can walk down to your local Best Buy right now and see people comparing Apple computers to PC OEMs like HP, Toshiba, & Dell. What exactly makes them less likely to force Apple to upgrade its hardware more often? And all of those computers will be running some form of Windows and employing the features inherent to it. Why exactly is Windows not likely to force Apple to put certain features in OS X?
And seriously, especially with lap-tops, Apple has innovated far beyond its competition. There simply aren't other brands in the industry right now with the quality of construction, back lighting, & battery life that Apple has achieved with its new notebook line.
Have no choice to go elsewhere!? Yet again, we all love OS X, but Windows 7 is capable of the same things (even if not so pleasantly or effectively), so the idea that Apple exists in some sort of bubble is just ridiculous.
If Psystar were to win, all that would do is erode the idea of copyright law to the point that no one could reasonably expect to profit from their work. No company could offer anything unique because they'd have to make sure they weren't being anti-competitive simply for being the only company to have had the brains to offer something and effectively market it.
If you honestly believe what you just said, go download some form of Linux and join Richard Stallman in his open source jihad against everyone who doesn't believe in technological communism.
If Psystar were to win, all that would do is erode the idea of copyright law to the point that no one could reasonably expect to profit from their work. No company could offer anything unique because they'd have to make sure they weren't being anti-competitive simply for being the only company to have had the brains to offer something and effectively market it.
Oh, come on. And how do you know that? You offered your argument, but Red Hat hasn't vanished in a puff of logical smoke yet, instead, it joined the S&P 500. And the anti-competitive part is for the most part taken care of by using a Free license like the GPL in the first place.
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Originally Posted by Halvri
If you honestly believe what you just said, go download some form of Linux and join Richard Stallman in his open source jihad against everyone who doesn't believe in technological communism.
Smear terms now? Desperate much? If I may quote Stallman himself: "Anyone who criticizes certain business practices can expect to be called “communist” from time to time. This is a way of changing the subject and evading the issue. If people believe the charges, they don't listen to what the critics really say. (It is much easier to attack communism than to attack the views of the free software movement.)"
I recommend you read this article, though whether you will is your own choice: http://fsmsh.com/1707
(And if you hate those Free Software "communists" so much, you'd better not type 'bash --version' into Terminal... hell, even the Darwin kernel is open source and based on the BSD-licensed FreeBSD. GCC, Apple's preferred compiler, is also from the GNU project / FSF! Free Software is not only a benefit ethically... it is a much more effective way to develop software.
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Originally Posted by mdriftmeyer
This is beyond asinine.
Psystar is free to create their own operating system or license a competing market operating system to put on their PC hardware.
Only when Apple decides they want to have a clone vendor market can Psystar apply for a license under no guarantee that they would qualify to become a clone vendor.
Leave the name-calling and debate using logic, not emotion.
So, Psystar is not free to create hardware capable of running OS X and sell it, because Apple doesn't like it when they do that (because Apple likes charging a premium). Correct? Bullcrap. If MS made a hardware division and told all other PC makers they couldn't resell PCs with Windows anymore, they'd be attacked. Why? Because they are a monopoly in the OS segment. I think of Apple as having a monopoly in a separate segment -- the hardware segment which can run OS X. And because of that monopoly, there is inflation of price, which Psystar is cutting away in their offering. There is a demand for OS X -capable hardware, but Apple is the sole maker of such hardware (besides Psystar), and therefore controls the price of it. Besides, this reinforces what I have believed for a long time -- Microsoft may be the monopoly, but Apple is _far_ more monopolistic. I hope to "god" that Apple does not achieve a majority share in the general OS segment (competing with Microsoft is very good though, and drives them to improve, which they do only when forced, like all public companies).
@Dr Millmoss: You're missing the point. The point is not that Apple should choose the same business model as Microsoft. Apple _needs_ to make _no_ changes to their current business model in order to allow Psystar to continue, they just need to stop suing anyone who dares to compete with a single product of theirs instead of the entire Apple product line. They probably would make changes, but they don't _need_ to. MS has nothing to do with this besides an analogy, so stop trying to make it seem like we want to make Apple like MS. Apple can keep selling their own hardware, they'll just have to stop whining to the courts when others decide to compete with their hardware and just their hardware. I bet most of you guys will continue to buy Apple hardware, and that's fine. I bet it's superior to Psystar's anyways.
They need to stop defending their patents, trademarks and copyrights?
Except that your OS X upgrade price would quadruple. Do you really think that the cost of developing Snow Leopard is recouped by selling it for $29, or the development cost of previous versions worked out to $129 per copy? MS has a much larger volume of sales, and look how much they charge for upgrades. They have to because their development costs must be recovered in the sales of their OS. But Apple's hardware sales supports its OS development costs. If they were forced to decouple that dependancy, the cost of the software would increase dramatically.
That's a very good point.
There's a reason why MS sells Ultimate for a $300 upgrade price. And that's the only "full" version of their OS. The others are all cut down in various ways.
They have to make their entire profit off the OS sale (sale=a convenient term). Apple make most of their profit off the computer sale. The OS upgrade price is good, but not enough to sustain the company.
That is the whole point. That's the reason we choose Apple. They make the whole widget. They control the experience. This is why Apple rules the Premium end of the market and this is why they have developed a reputation for excellence in design and usability. This is why Macbooks are in demand. This is why investors wait with bated breath before every quarterly report from AAPL. This is more of what MS should be doing, but can't.
If Apple stops providing this satisfactory experience, users can leave and choose another platform. Stop buying Apple. It's just that simple.
From the average consumer's perspective, Apple providing the entire, turn-key solution is a Godsend. The average user has a life. They don't care how "powerful" Apple is, but merely that what they bought works as it should and is supported with solid customer service. They don't see themselves as "minions" (I'm not even sure where you got that idea - this isn't Tolkien), but they DO see a computer as an appliance meant to make their lives easier so they can get on with doing other things. THAT is the idea. And that is the ideal of any kind of technology.
But of course you see the double standard here. Microsoft wanted to control the 'whole experience' by tying in IE with Windows, in order to create a system that integrates the OS with web use for what they determined to be a better experience. And they were forced to break it up. They were told they didn't have the right to control the whole experience.
That's why I find this to be a strange double standard. Apple gets to control the whole experience of hardware and OS, and isn't forced to open their system up to competition, where MS, just because they're bigger, is forced to.
So you see, 'your ideal of any kind of technology' -- this whole integrated system -- was seen as anti-competitive in both the U.S. and the E.U. Apple has just flown under the radar since they're relatively smaller. But I don't think their anti-competitive practices will last for long.
This is why the EULA does not apply to commercial use and why it's of no real relevance in the case against Psystar.
If you didn't mean that the way you wrote is, what did you mean?
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You're not hearing that the EULA is not the crux of Apple's case against Pystar. It does not have to be tested as valid by the court for Apple to win this case. You and others seem to believe that if it's possible to violate a trademark or copyright, that it must be legal to do so. Where you get that, I have no idea.
I know it's not the crux, but there's a lot of misunderstand of what a EULA is, and it is of importance in the case. I'm trying to help foster understanding of it.
They need to stop defending their patents, trademarks and copyrights?
They need to stop placing anti-competitive and morally reprehensible clauses in the licenses they force customers to agree to. Copyright needs to be reverted back to its original intent (to encourage business to work harder by giving short-term rights over works) and reasonable length (very max two years, as opposed to one hundred years, which limits innovation extremely... nothing is 100% new, new works are based on old works. That's how it goes.), trademarks I don't have too big a problem with but are also somewhat overused, and the patent system (in the US at least) is completely and entirely broken to begin with. This last is widely acknowledged, well beyond the Free Software movement. For now, consider this a primer to brain-dead land: http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology...ement.insideit Software patents are the worst of the lot... for example, thanks to patents, any browser wishing to support H.264 video in the browser must pay the MPEG (Moving Picture Experts Group) large sums of money. This is why Firefox only does Ogg Theora. It's also why most Linux distros do not include codecs as simple as MP3 out of the box. You want a better video codec? Unless you're planning on basing it on MPEG-1, which recently became completely unrestricted, prepare to shell out before you can make some improvements, even if you never sell your product. http://endsoftpatents.org/
All that would be nice if it happened, but I'm not asking Apple to ditch it all right now. That's ridiculous, too. Just for them to be less of an ass,as a start.
But of course you see the double standard here. Microsoft wanted to control the 'whole experience' by tying in IE with Windows, in order to create a system that integrates the OS with web use for what they determined to be a better experience. And they were forced to break it up. They were told they didn't have the right to control the whole experience.
No, that was their excuse -- but in reality, they did it to snuff Netscape.
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That's why I find this to be a strange double standard. Apple gets to control the whole experience of hardware and OS, and isn't forced to open their system up to competition, where MS, just because they're bigger, is forced to.
Because Microsoft was found to have market power in a relevant market, and was found to be abusing that power. Psystar tried to make that case against Apple, but it fell flat on its face because no facts exist to support their theory.
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So you see, 'your ideal of any kind of technology' -- this whole integrated system -- was seen as anti-competitive in both the U.S. and the E.U. Apple has just flown under the radar since they're relatively smaller. But I don't think their anti-competitive practices will last for long.
Only in the case of Microsoft, for very specific reasons based in both facts and law. You cannot make a case that Apple has control of a relevant market. The market for their own products doesn't count. Every company has control over the market for their own products.
Not relevant? You asked if that's what I believed they needed to do, stop defending patents, copyrights, and trademarks. I said no, they need to be slightly less ridiculous about them.
"Intellectual property" is a misnomer that causes people to think of intellectual, non-physical ideas and such as if they should be governed by the property rights associated with physical objects. See here, and here.
As such, there is no such thing as what you describe, for two reasons. One, stealing is the act of taking from someone else without right or permission. Making a copy of a computer image, for example, is not stealing -- there is no theft, the original possessor (notice, I did not say owner) still has the original image. And second, one cannot (morally should not) own an idea or concept. And in the end, that's what OS X is -- a collection of ones and zeros, and they have laid claim to that particular pattern or any other patterns that are similar.
And the only "undermining" I see is Psystar taking advantage of the fact that Apple has achieved a monopoly over hardware capable of running OS X (I do not mean the legal definition of monopoly), and therefore Apple has been able to inflate the price of its machines. With competition from other companies, Apple would have to bring down the price of its own hardware, which is why they are trying to stop Psystar from competing with them.
A lot of you seem concerned that Psystar will ruin Apple, and point to a previous time where Apple was close to bankruptcy, and there were many clones of the Mac. We're supposed to assume that the clones were the sole reason? OS 9, Apple's flagship OS at the time, couldn't even multitask properly, a ton of money had poured into development of Copland (what would have been the MacOS redesign of not for NeXT), more money into buying NeXT, money into developing OS X...
Also, if you believe Psystar is nothing but a "clone", it suggests Psystar has a symbiotic (or parasitic) relationship with Apple (Psystar needs OS X, Apple gets $$$) and therefore depends on Apple to survive well. If Apple start being threatened by clones, they would have to increase OS X prices to fight against the clone makers. As Apple died, so would the clones.
Psystar is competition. Business is not a children's playground, companies die when they cannot keep up. If Psystar can undercut Apple significantly and kill Apple (I highly doubt this will _EVER_ happen), that just means Apple was too stubborn to produce hardware capable of competing at Psystar's price point.
Your misunderstanding of this issue is so thorough, it's difficult to know where to begin!
Suffice to say that copyright holders are given the distinct right to unilaterally decide the distribution of their owned material, intellectual, or otherwise.
They, and only they, are allowed to grant licenses to others. They may take those licenses back if the holder of the license violates the terms. The copyright holder is the one who determines that. If it goes to court, the licensee must show that they haven't violated the terms, just as the licenseholder must show that they did. It isn't the simplest of matters, but it's worked.
The right of first sales holds only in the sense that the original product being "bought", the physical entity holding the content, can be sold. But only if the content has not been duplicated first. If it has, it must be destroyed before the sale of the original copy is sold.
What Psystar is attempting to do is to sell a work outside of its copyrighted license. This is a big part of this case. They have no right to do so.
The other point that Dr. Millmoss is making, and it is also correct, is that Psystar is making a claim that there is an industry of Mac "clones" where there clearly is not.
That claim is intended to force a claim of monopoly upon Apple wherein Psystar could then be allowed to add to that clone "industry" with their own product.
The court has already ruled that there is NO industry, or market in Mac computers, other than Apple's product, and that furthermore, the Mac Market, such as it is, is simply a part of the "computer" market, and as Apple has such a small part of that, there can be no claim of an Apple monopoly.
These two situations are interrelated. If either one falls, the entire case falls.
You need no license beyond the license you get when you buy Windows to sell PCs with Windows, just as you don't need special permission from NVIDIA to sell a PC with an NVIDIA video card. Just buy one (same as Psystar buys OS X). At least, I'm pretty sure that's the case... if not, the situation is even worse.
The different is that MS's business is built on selling licensed copies of Windows. Apple's is not.
If you didn't mean that the way you wrote is, what did you mean?
I did mean it the way I wrote it, in the context of where I wrote it. I'm not sure I see your point. I'm sure I don't, actually.
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I know it's not the crux, but there's a lot of misunderstand of what a EULA is, and it is of importance in the case. I'm trying to help foster understanding of it.
It seems to me that the major misunderstanding is that the EULA is somehow central to this case.
We could all probably think of dozens if not hundreds of patented or copyrighted products that are made up of nonproprietary parts, all of which would we could buy individually. Does that give us the right to assemble those parts and sell the product? No, because that combination of parts is copyrighted or patented. Likewise, a Mac is a combination of the hardware and the OS. Neither by itself is functionally a Mac. The pervasive fallacy is that because it's possible to buy these parts individually, that it is somehow legal to combine them and sell the functional result -- a Macintosh. Completely irrespective of what the license agreement says or doesn't say, you can't do that.
Wow! You guys are smart!! Them judges and lawyers must be idiots since this case keeps dragging on. They need to come here to interpret the law so the case can just instantly be shutdown!
Another brilliant comment! Why hasn't MS realized this?! Man, companies are just retarded these days when random internet nerds obviously know more about business and law than the professionals!
Wow! You guys are so smart!
Stop pretending like you guys actually know whats going on. All it does is provide laughs. (In that case.. Keep pretending..)
Bring on more analogies!
Tools.
And the point to your brilliant post is what, exactly?
Not relevant? You asked if that's what I believed they needed to do, stop defending patents, copyrights, and trademarks. I said no, they need to be slightly less ridiculous about them.
A difference without a distinction. I think most of us well understand that if Psystar is allowed to create a Mac clone market that Apple's Mac business would be fundamentally altered. Some think that would be a good thing. Others of us recognize that it is not a good thing. Irrespective of whether we think it is good or not, it should be understood that Apple can't be coerced into fundamentally altering their business.
I know. Just making a comparison. And on the driver side, there are Free drivers thanks to the Nouveau Project (Please everyone, support them! Send them your old cards, and dumps from ones you can't give up). Not nearly as fast or complete yet, and probably won't be for a long time, but it's still good to see And AMD cards are much further along, thanks to AMD providing ample documentation.
Well that sucks. I'm not just targeting Apple, this is bad too.
Unfortunately. If you are the copyright owner, you possess ALL and ANY rights, except for those you explicitly give (basically). Fair Use is a very good idea, but is respected little... for example, it's Fair Use for me to convert a downloaded and paid for song from iTunes to work with my Ogg Vorbis -playing audio device, but if I have to circumvent DRM in the process, I'm in the wrong.
The GNU Public License is not free from restrictions, yes. There are some restrictions, which I believe are reasonable. There are other licenses which allow what you are talking about, called permissive licenses: The BSD license, the MIT license, the ISC license, etc. Technically, the only 100% moral route is the Public Domain, but I recognize the practical necessity of limited licensing, even use of draconian EULAs for short terms, in order to promote business.
@Dr Millmoss: You're missing the point. The point is not that Apple should choose the same business model as Microsoft. Apple _needs_ to make _no_ changes to their current business model in order to allow Psystar to continue, they just need to stop suing anyone who dares to compete with a single product of theirs instead of the entire Apple product line. They probably would make changes, but they don't _need_ to. MS has nothing to do with this besides an analogy, so stop trying to make it seem like we want to make Apple like MS. Apple can keep selling their own hardware, they'll just have to stop whining to the courts when others decide to compete with their hardware and just their hardware. I bet most of you guys will continue to buy Apple hardware, and that's fine. I bet it's superior to Psystar's anyways.
I left your entire post because I find it to so very odd.
In some responses, you seen to understand, and even acknowledge, what a copyright is, and what licensing rights the holders have.
But then, once the issue moves back to Apple and Psystar, you lose all capability of objectivity, and show a total LACK of understanding. That's really very strange.
Possibly you should go back and read your own responses to the other statements and try to reconcile them with your response to the Psystar issue, as they are diametrically opposed.
So, Psystar is not free to create hardware capable of running OS X and sell it, because Apple doesn't like it when they do that (because Apple likes charging a premium). Correct? Bullcrap. If MS made a hardware division and told all other PC makers they couldn't resell PCs with Windows anymore, they'd be attacked. Why? Because they are a monopoly in the OS segment. I think of Apple as having a monopoly in a separate segment -- the hardware segment which can run OS X. And because of that monopoly, there is inflation of price, which Psystar is cutting away in their offering. There is a demand for OS X -capable hardware, but Apple is the sole maker of such hardware (besides Psystar), and therefore controls the price of it. Besides, this reinforces what I have believed for a long time -- Microsoft may be the monopoly, but Apple is _far_ more monopolistic. I hope to "god" that Apple does not achieve a majority share in the general OS segment (competing with Microsoft is very good though, and drives them to improve, which they do only when forced, like all public companies).
No one really cares about what you think about Apple having a monopoly. It's so totally irrelevant, and incorrect, that it simply has no place in any discussion.
You want to think something that even you know isn't true so that your highly flawed argument stands a chance.
It doesn't work that way.
When the first assumed step of a logical argument is false, the rest of the argument following is also false.
That's why I find this to be a strange double standard.
"Double standard" usually comes with bad connotations but I guess you could use that phrase.
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Apple gets to control the whole experience of hardware and OS, and isn't forced to open their system up to competition, where MS, just because they're bigger, is forced to.
It's not "because they're bigger! It's because they have "market power". ie a Monopoly. There are different rules for companies in monopoly positions. Why do you think those rules are there?
How would you like it if I had the monopoly on shiny $10 widgets? I sold 95% of all the shiny $10 widgets... and you sold 5%. Of course me and my board members are greedy bastards.. and we want more. So we strike a deal with the only widget polisher. We pay him more money and suddenly he doesn't have the time to polish your widgets. We also drop the price to $7. That's it. It's all over for you and the shiny widget business!. When that is done I bump up the price and now everyone has to buy their shiny $11 widgets from me.
The rules are there to try and prevent that type of shit.
Microsoft Windows is a monopoly.
Apple's Macs or OS X is not.
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Apple has just flown under the radar since they're relatively smaller.
Why do say " under the radar"? This has been Apple's business model for 30 years! Do you think that nobody noticed till you came along?
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But I don't think their anti-competitive practices will last for long.
See above. 30 years and counting. You guys crack me up.
Your misunderstanding of this issue is so thorough, it's difficult to know where to begin!
Suffice to say that copyright holders are given the distinct right to unilaterally decide the distribution of their owned material, intellectual, or otherwise.
They, and only they, are allowed to grant licenses to others. They may take those licenses back if the holder of the license violates the terms. The copyright holder is the one who determines that. If it goes to court, the licensee must show that they haven't violated the terms, just as the licenseholder must show that they did. It isn't the simplest of matters, but it's worked.
The right of first sales holds only in the sense that the original product being "bought", the physical entity holding the content, can be sold. But only if the content has not been duplicated first. If it has, it must be destroyed before the sale of the original copy is sold.
What Psystar is attempting to do is to sell a work outside of its copyrighted license. This is a big part of this case. They have no right to do so.
The other point that Dr. Millmoss is making, and it is also correct, is that Psystar is making a claim that there is an industry of Mac "clones" where there clearly is not.
That claim is intended to force a claim of monopoly upon Apple wherein Psystar could then be allowed to add to that clone "industry" with their own product.
The court has already ruled that there is NO industry, or market in Mac computers, other than Apple's product, and that furthermore, the Mac Market, such as it is, is simply a part of the "computer" market, and as Apple has such a small part of that, there can be no claim of an Apple monopoly.
These two situations are interrelated. If either one falls, the entire case falls.
You are misunderstanding me now
I am not attempting to give a prediction as to the outcome of the lawsuit. If I had to, I'd say Psystar will lose. Right now, Apple is legally right in suing Psystar. I believe Psystar is right, not legally, but morally (and therefore should be right legally, sadly they are not).
As for the industry for Mac clones, the only reason there isn't one is because everyone's afraid of Apple's legal team in the first place :P If Psystar should win this, there will be an "industry" overnight. IMHO.
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Originally Posted by Dr Millmoss
Irrespective of whether we think it is good or not, it should be understood that Apple can't be coerced into fundamentally altering their business.
Apple isn't being coerced into anything. If they really wanted to, they could continue on, happy as clams, while Psystar (and then, others) undercut their prices. So, they _sort of_ would be "forced" into changing their business... they would have to allow companies to compete with portions of their product line by being compatible with the rest, instead of integrating vertically to the point that no one can hope to attack any piece of the Apple line without building up a similar enormous, integrated system.
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Originally Posted by piot
It's because they have "market power". ie a Monopoly. There are different rules for companies in monopoly positions. Why do you think those rules are there?
As I explained before, Apple has a monopoly over OS X -capable hardware. They have market power there. This is evident by the fact that they inflate prices compared to equivalent PC hardware (usually!), when their OS costs less than most Windows variants.
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Originally Posted by piot
Why do say " under the radar"? This has been Apple's business model for 30 years! Do you think that nobody noticed till you came along?
Apple hasn't used this strategy for thirty years, and they are growing right now. They do fly under the radar -- Apple is much more vertically integrated and monopolistic than MS, MS is just bigger. Not that MS hasn't done its fair share of dirty deeds...
Comments
I love Apple to death, and would never dream of buying non-apple branded hardware.
... but ....
I'm really hoping Psystar wins. For us, the consumers, only good would come from it. It would force Apple to upgrade their systems faster, because if they don't people will have the choice to go elsewhere. Currently that choice simply doesn't exist.
I concur.
I love Apple to death, and would never dream of buying non-apple branded hardware.
... but ....
I'm really hoping Psystar wins. For us, the consumers, only good would come from it. It would force Apple to upgrade their systems faster, because if they don't people will have the choice to go elsewhere. Currently that choice simply doesn't exist.
I mean hell, they had a system available LAST YEAR with a blu-ray drive installed. Where is apple's blu-ray option? Granted, you can't watch them (unless you use bootcamp, which is fine) until Apple decides to license the software, but it's still a great example.
The only people who should be rooting against them are Apple Employees and people who have the majority of their assets invested in AAPL stock. Likely less than 1% of Appleinsider's userbase.
- Xid
What's with the hang up on Blu-Ray? Are you really in that much of a hurry to overpay for yet another half-baked Sony technology?
Anyway, that was off topic, but my point is that you're looking at this from entirely the wrong perspective. Apple is able to provide many of the advantages that it does because of tight vertical integration. Opening that up to other vendors simply creates a slippery slope into exactly what Microsoft has been doing for years: causing immense stress to customers who have to deal with multiple vendors to fix even the simplest of problems.
Even beyond that though, please get over this idea that Apple has no competition. Apple may be the only system running OS X, but you can walk down to your local Best Buy right now and see people comparing Apple computers to PC OEMs like HP, Toshiba, & Dell. What exactly makes them less likely to force Apple to upgrade its hardware more often? And all of those computers will be running some form of Windows and employing the features inherent to it. Why exactly is Windows not likely to force Apple to put certain features in OS X?
And seriously, especially with lap-tops, Apple has innovated far beyond its competition. There simply aren't other brands in the industry right now with the quality of construction, back lighting, & battery life that Apple has achieved with its new notebook line.
Have no choice to go elsewhere!? Yet again, we all love OS X, but Windows 7 is capable of the same things (even if not so pleasantly or effectively), so the idea that Apple exists in some sort of bubble is just ridiculous.
If Psystar were to win, all that would do is erode the idea of copyright law to the point that no one could reasonably expect to profit from their work. No company could offer anything unique because they'd have to make sure they weren't being anti-competitive simply for being the only company to have had the brains to offer something and effectively market it.
If you honestly believe what you just said, go download some form of Linux and join Richard Stallman in his open source jihad against everyone who doesn't believe in technological communism.
If Psystar were to win, all that would do is erode the idea of copyright law to the point that no one could reasonably expect to profit from their work. No company could offer anything unique because they'd have to make sure they weren't being anti-competitive simply for being the only company to have had the brains to offer something and effectively market it.
Oh, come on. And how do you know that? You offered your argument, but Red Hat hasn't vanished in a puff of logical smoke yet, instead, it joined the S&P 500. And the anti-competitive part is for the most part taken care of by using a Free license like the GPL in the first place.
If you honestly believe what you just said, go download some form of Linux and join Richard Stallman in his open source jihad against everyone who doesn't believe in technological communism.
Smear terms now? Desperate much? If I may quote Stallman himself: "Anyone who criticizes certain business practices can expect to be called “communist” from time to time. This is a way of changing the subject and evading the issue. If people believe the charges, they don't listen to what the critics really say. (It is much easier to attack communism than to attack the views of the free software movement.)"
I recommend you read this article, though whether you will is your own choice: http://fsmsh.com/1707
(And if you hate those Free Software "communists" so much, you'd better not type 'bash --version' into Terminal... hell, even the Darwin kernel is open source and based on the BSD-licensed FreeBSD. GCC, Apple's preferred compiler, is also from the GNU project / FSF! Free Software is not only a benefit ethically... it is a much more effective way to develop software.
This is beyond asinine.
Psystar is free to create their own operating system or license a competing market operating system to put on their PC hardware.
Only when Apple decides they want to have a clone vendor market can Psystar apply for a license under no guarantee that they would qualify to become a clone vendor.
Leave the name-calling and debate using logic, not emotion.
So, Psystar is not free to create hardware capable of running OS X and sell it, because Apple doesn't like it when they do that (because Apple likes charging a premium). Correct? Bullcrap. If MS made a hardware division and told all other PC makers they couldn't resell PCs with Windows anymore, they'd be attacked. Why? Because they are a monopoly in the OS segment. I think of Apple as having a monopoly in a separate segment -- the hardware segment which can run OS X. And because of that monopoly, there is inflation of price, which Psystar is cutting away in their offering. There is a demand for OS X -capable hardware, but Apple is the sole maker of such hardware (besides Psystar), and therefore controls the price of it. Besides, this reinforces what I have believed for a long time -- Microsoft may be the monopoly, but Apple is _far_ more monopolistic. I hope to "god" that Apple does not achieve a majority share in the general OS segment (competing with Microsoft is very good though, and drives them to improve, which they do only when forced, like all public companies).
@Dr Millmoss: You're missing the point. The point is not that Apple should choose the same business model as Microsoft. Apple _needs_ to make _no_ changes to their current business model in order to allow Psystar to continue, they just need to stop suing anyone who dares to compete with a single product of theirs instead of the entire Apple product line. They probably would make changes, but they don't _need_ to. MS has nothing to do with this besides an analogy, so stop trying to make it seem like we want to make Apple like MS. Apple can keep selling their own hardware, they'll just have to stop whining to the courts when others decide to compete with their hardware and just their hardware. I bet most of you guys will continue to buy Apple hardware, and that's fine. I bet it's superior to Psystar's anyways.
They need to stop defending their patents, trademarks and copyrights?
And you think I'm missing the point?
Except that your OS X upgrade price would quadruple. Do you really think that the cost of developing Snow Leopard is recouped by selling it for $29, or the development cost of previous versions worked out to $129 per copy? MS has a much larger volume of sales, and look how much they charge for upgrades. They have to because their development costs must be recovered in the sales of their OS. But Apple's hardware sales supports its OS development costs. If they were forced to decouple that dependancy, the cost of the software would increase dramatically.
That's a very good point.
There's a reason why MS sells Ultimate for a $300 upgrade price. And that's the only "full" version of their OS. The others are all cut down in various ways.
They have to make their entire profit off the OS sale (sale=a convenient term). Apple make most of their profit off the computer sale. The OS upgrade price is good, but not enough to sustain the company.
That is the whole point. That's the reason we choose Apple. They make the whole widget. They control the experience. This is why Apple rules the Premium end of the market and this is why they have developed a reputation for excellence in design and usability. This is why Macbooks are in demand. This is why investors wait with bated breath before every quarterly report from AAPL. This is more of what MS should be doing, but can't.
If Apple stops providing this satisfactory experience, users can leave and choose another platform. Stop buying Apple. It's just that simple.
From the average consumer's perspective, Apple providing the entire, turn-key solution is a Godsend. The average user has a life. They don't care how "powerful" Apple is, but merely that what they bought works as it should and is supported with solid customer service. They don't see themselves as "minions" (I'm not even sure where you got that idea - this isn't Tolkien), but they DO see a computer as an appliance meant to make their lives easier so they can get on with doing other things. THAT is the idea. And that is the ideal of any kind of technology.
But of course you see the double standard here. Microsoft wanted to control the 'whole experience' by tying in IE with Windows, in order to create a system that integrates the OS with web use for what they determined to be a better experience. And they were forced to break it up. They were told they didn't have the right to control the whole experience.
That's why I find this to be a strange double standard. Apple gets to control the whole experience of hardware and OS, and isn't forced to open their system up to competition, where MS, just because they're bigger, is forced to.
So you see, 'your ideal of any kind of technology' -- this whole integrated system -- was seen as anti-competitive in both the U.S. and the E.U. Apple has just flown under the radar since they're relatively smaller. But I don't think their anti-competitive practices will last for long.
What makes you think I think that?
From the last sentence of your post #66:
This is why the EULA does not apply to commercial use and why it's of no real relevance in the case against Psystar.
If you didn't mean that the way you wrote is, what did you mean?
You're not hearing that the EULA is not the crux of Apple's case against Pystar. It does not have to be tested as valid by the court for Apple to win this case. You and others seem to believe that if it's possible to violate a trademark or copyright, that it must be legal to do so. Where you get that, I have no idea.
I know it's not the crux, but there's a lot of misunderstand of what a EULA is, and it is of importance in the case. I'm trying to help foster understanding of it.
They need to stop defending their patents, trademarks and copyrights?
They need to stop placing anti-competitive and morally reprehensible clauses in the licenses they force customers to agree to. Copyright needs to be reverted back to its original intent (to encourage business to work harder by giving short-term rights over works) and reasonable length (very max two years, as opposed to one hundred years, which limits innovation extremely... nothing is 100% new, new works are based on old works. That's how it goes.), trademarks I don't have too big a problem with but are also somewhat overused, and the patent system (in the US at least) is completely and entirely broken to begin with. This last is widely acknowledged, well beyond the Free Software movement. For now, consider this a primer to brain-dead land: http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology...ement.insideit Software patents are the worst of the lot... for example, thanks to patents, any browser wishing to support H.264 video in the browser must pay the MPEG (Moving Picture Experts Group) large sums of money. This is why Firefox only does Ogg Theora. It's also why most Linux distros do not include codecs as simple as MP3 out of the box. You want a better video codec? Unless you're planning on basing it on MPEG-1, which recently became completely unrestricted, prepare to shell out before you can make some improvements, even if you never sell your product. http://endsoftpatents.org/
All that would be nice if it happened, but I'm not asking Apple to ditch it all right now. That's ridiculous, too. Just for them to be less of an ass,as a start.
But of course you see the double standard here. Microsoft wanted to control the 'whole experience' by tying in IE with Windows, in order to create a system that integrates the OS with web use for what they determined to be a better experience. And they were forced to break it up. They were told they didn't have the right to control the whole experience.
No, that was their excuse -- but in reality, they did it to snuff Netscape.
That's why I find this to be a strange double standard. Apple gets to control the whole experience of hardware and OS, and isn't forced to open their system up to competition, where MS, just because they're bigger, is forced to.
Because Microsoft was found to have market power in a relevant market, and was found to be abusing that power. Psystar tried to make that case against Apple, but it fell flat on its face because no facts exist to support their theory.
So you see, 'your ideal of any kind of technology' -- this whole integrated system -- was seen as anti-competitive in both the U.S. and the E.U. Apple has just flown under the radar since they're relatively smaller. But I don't think their anti-competitive practices will last for long.
Only in the case of Microsoft, for very specific reasons based in both facts and law. You cannot make a case that Apple has control of a relevant market. The market for their own products doesn't count. Every company has control over the market for their own products.
They need to stop placing anti-competitive and morally reprehensible clauses in the licenses they force customers to agree to.
Not relevant. Please read previous posts.
Not relevant. Please read previous posts.
Not relevant? You asked if that's what I believed they needed to do, stop defending patents, copyrights, and trademarks. I said no, they need to be slightly less ridiculous about them.
"Intellectual property" is a misnomer that causes people to think of intellectual, non-physical ideas and such as if they should be governed by the property rights associated with physical objects. See here, and here.
As such, there is no such thing as what you describe, for two reasons. One, stealing is the act of taking from someone else without right or permission. Making a copy of a computer image, for example, is not stealing -- there is no theft, the original possessor (notice, I did not say owner) still has the original image. And second, one cannot (morally should not) own an idea or concept. And in the end, that's what OS X is -- a collection of ones and zeros, and they have laid claim to that particular pattern or any other patterns that are similar.
Read this: http://www.fsf.org/blogs/rms/canada-ip-error
And the only "undermining" I see is Psystar taking advantage of the fact that Apple has achieved a monopoly over hardware capable of running OS X (I do not mean the legal definition of monopoly), and therefore Apple has been able to inflate the price of its machines. With competition from other companies, Apple would have to bring down the price of its own hardware, which is why they are trying to stop Psystar from competing with them.
A lot of you seem concerned that Psystar will ruin Apple, and point to a previous time where Apple was close to bankruptcy, and there were many clones of the Mac. We're supposed to assume that the clones were the sole reason? OS 9, Apple's flagship OS at the time, couldn't even multitask properly, a ton of money had poured into development of Copland (what would have been the MacOS redesign of not for NeXT), more money into buying NeXT, money into developing OS X...
Also, if you believe Psystar is nothing but a "clone", it suggests Psystar has a symbiotic (or parasitic) relationship with Apple (Psystar needs OS X, Apple gets $$$) and therefore depends on Apple to survive well. If Apple start being threatened by clones, they would have to increase OS X prices to fight against the clone makers. As Apple died, so would the clones.
Psystar is competition. Business is not a children's playground, companies die when they cannot keep up. If Psystar can undercut Apple significantly and kill Apple (I highly doubt this will _EVER_ happen), that just means Apple was too stubborn to produce hardware capable of competing at Psystar's price point.
Your misunderstanding of this issue is so thorough, it's difficult to know where to begin!
Suffice to say that copyright holders are given the distinct right to unilaterally decide the distribution of their owned material, intellectual, or otherwise.
They, and only they, are allowed to grant licenses to others. They may take those licenses back if the holder of the license violates the terms. The copyright holder is the one who determines that. If it goes to court, the licensee must show that they haven't violated the terms, just as the licenseholder must show that they did. It isn't the simplest of matters, but it's worked.
The right of first sales holds only in the sense that the original product being "bought", the physical entity holding the content, can be sold. But only if the content has not been duplicated first. If it has, it must be destroyed before the sale of the original copy is sold.
What Psystar is attempting to do is to sell a work outside of its copyrighted license. This is a big part of this case. They have no right to do so.
The other point that Dr. Millmoss is making, and it is also correct, is that Psystar is making a claim that there is an industry of Mac "clones" where there clearly is not.
That claim is intended to force a claim of monopoly upon Apple wherein Psystar could then be allowed to add to that clone "industry" with their own product.
The court has already ruled that there is NO industry, or market in Mac computers, other than Apple's product, and that furthermore, the Mac Market, such as it is, is simply a part of the "computer" market, and as Apple has such a small part of that, there can be no claim of an Apple monopoly.
These two situations are interrelated. If either one falls, the entire case falls.
You need no license beyond the license you get when you buy Windows to sell PCs with Windows, just as you don't need special permission from NVIDIA to sell a PC with an NVIDIA video card. Just buy one (same as Psystar buys OS X). At least, I'm pretty sure that's the case... if not, the situation is even worse.
The different is that MS's business is built on selling licensed copies of Windows. Apple's is not.
If you didn't mean that the way you wrote is, what did you mean?
I did mean it the way I wrote it, in the context of where I wrote it. I'm not sure I see your point. I'm sure I don't, actually.
I know it's not the crux, but there's a lot of misunderstand of what a EULA is, and it is of importance in the case. I'm trying to help foster understanding of it.
It seems to me that the major misunderstanding is that the EULA is somehow central to this case.
We could all probably think of dozens if not hundreds of patented or copyrighted products that are made up of nonproprietary parts, all of which would we could buy individually. Does that give us the right to assemble those parts and sell the product? No, because that combination of parts is copyrighted or patented. Likewise, a Mac is a combination of the hardware and the OS. Neither by itself is functionally a Mac. The pervasive fallacy is that because it's possible to buy these parts individually, that it is somehow legal to combine them and sell the functional result -- a Macintosh. Completely irrespective of what the license agreement says or doesn't say, you can't do that.
Wow! You guys are smart!! Them judges and lawyers must be idiots since this case keeps dragging on. They need to come here to interpret the law so the case can just instantly be shutdown!
Another brilliant comment! Why hasn't MS realized this?! Man, companies are just retarded these days when random internet nerds obviously know more about business and law than the professionals!
Wow! You guys are so smart!
Stop pretending like you guys actually know whats going on. All it does is provide laughs. (In that case.. Keep pretending..)
Bring on more analogies!
Tools.
And the point to your brilliant post is what, exactly?
Not relevant? You asked if that's what I believed they needed to do, stop defending patents, copyrights, and trademarks. I said no, they need to be slightly less ridiculous about them.
A difference without a distinction. I think most of us well understand that if Psystar is allowed to create a Mac clone market that Apple's Mac business would be fundamentally altered. Some think that would be a good thing. Others of us recognize that it is not a good thing. Irrespective of whether we think it is good or not, it should be understood that Apple can't be coerced into fundamentally altering their business.
I know. Just making a comparison. And on the driver side, there are Free drivers thanks to the Nouveau Project (Please everyone, support them! Send them your old cards, and dumps from ones you can't give up). Not nearly as fast or complete yet, and probably won't be for a long time, but it's still good to see
Well that sucks. I'm not just targeting Apple, this is bad too.
Unfortunately. If you are the copyright owner, you possess ALL and ANY rights, except for those you explicitly give (basically). Fair Use is a very good idea, but is respected little... for example, it's Fair Use for me to convert a downloaded and paid for song from iTunes to work with my Ogg Vorbis -playing audio device, but if I have to circumvent DRM in the process, I'm in the wrong.
The GNU Public License is not free from restrictions, yes. There are some restrictions, which I believe are reasonable. There are other licenses which allow what you are talking about, called permissive licenses: The BSD license, the MIT license, the ISC license, etc. Technically, the only 100% moral route is the Public Domain, but I recognize the practical necessity of limited licensing, even use of draconian EULAs for short terms, in order to promote business.
@Dr Millmoss: You're missing the point. The point is not that Apple should choose the same business model as Microsoft. Apple _needs_ to make _no_ changes to their current business model in order to allow Psystar to continue, they just need to stop suing anyone who dares to compete with a single product of theirs instead of the entire Apple product line. They probably would make changes, but they don't _need_ to. MS has nothing to do with this besides an analogy, so stop trying to make it seem like we want to make Apple like MS. Apple can keep selling their own hardware, they'll just have to stop whining to the courts when others decide to compete with their hardware and just their hardware. I bet most of you guys will continue to buy Apple hardware, and that's fine. I bet it's superior to Psystar's anyways.
I left your entire post because I find it to so very odd.
In some responses, you seen to understand, and even acknowledge, what a copyright is, and what licensing rights the holders have.
But then, once the issue moves back to Apple and Psystar, you lose all capability of objectivity, and show a total LACK of understanding. That's really very strange.
Possibly you should go back and read your own responses to the other statements and try to reconcile them with your response to the Psystar issue, as they are diametrically opposed.
So, Psystar is not free to create hardware capable of running OS X and sell it, because Apple doesn't like it when they do that (because Apple likes charging a premium). Correct? Bullcrap. If MS made a hardware division and told all other PC makers they couldn't resell PCs with Windows anymore, they'd be attacked. Why? Because they are a monopoly in the OS segment. I think of Apple as having a monopoly in a separate segment -- the hardware segment which can run OS X. And because of that monopoly, there is inflation of price, which Psystar is cutting away in their offering. There is a demand for OS X -capable hardware, but Apple is the sole maker of such hardware (besides Psystar), and therefore controls the price of it. Besides, this reinforces what I have believed for a long time -- Microsoft may be the monopoly, but Apple is _far_ more monopolistic. I hope to "god" that Apple does not achieve a majority share in the general OS segment (competing with Microsoft is very good though, and drives them to improve, which they do only when forced, like all public companies).
No one really cares about what you think about Apple having a monopoly. It's so totally irrelevant, and incorrect, that it simply has no place in any discussion.
You want to think something that even you know isn't true so that your highly flawed argument stands a chance.
It doesn't work that way.
When the first assumed step of a logical argument is false, the rest of the argument following is also false.
That's why I find this to be a strange double standard.
"Double standard" usually comes with bad connotations but I guess you could use that phrase.
Apple gets to control the whole experience of hardware and OS, and isn't forced to open their system up to competition, where MS, just because they're bigger, is forced to.
It's not "because they're bigger! It's because they have "market power". ie a Monopoly. There are different rules for companies in monopoly positions. Why do you think those rules are there?
How would you like it if I had the monopoly on shiny $10 widgets? I sold 95% of all the shiny $10 widgets... and you sold 5%. Of course me and my board members are greedy bastards.. and we want more. So we strike a deal with the only widget polisher. We pay him more money and suddenly he doesn't have the time to polish your widgets. We also drop the price to $7. That's it. It's all over for you and the shiny widget business!. When that is done I bump up the price and now everyone has to buy their shiny $11 widgets from me.
The rules are there to try and prevent that type of shit.
Microsoft Windows is a monopoly.
Apple's Macs or OS X is not.
Apple has just flown under the radar since they're relatively smaller.
Why do say " under the radar"? This has been Apple's business model for 30 years! Do you think that nobody noticed till you came along?
But I don't think their anti-competitive practices will last for long.
See above. 30 years and counting. You guys crack me up.
Your misunderstanding of this issue is so thorough, it's difficult to know where to begin!
Suffice to say that copyright holders are given the distinct right to unilaterally decide the distribution of their owned material, intellectual, or otherwise.
They, and only they, are allowed to grant licenses to others. They may take those licenses back if the holder of the license violates the terms. The copyright holder is the one who determines that. If it goes to court, the licensee must show that they haven't violated the terms, just as the licenseholder must show that they did. It isn't the simplest of matters, but it's worked.
The right of first sales holds only in the sense that the original product being "bought", the physical entity holding the content, can be sold. But only if the content has not been duplicated first. If it has, it must be destroyed before the sale of the original copy is sold.
What Psystar is attempting to do is to sell a work outside of its copyrighted license. This is a big part of this case. They have no right to do so.
The other point that Dr. Millmoss is making, and it is also correct, is that Psystar is making a claim that there is an industry of Mac "clones" where there clearly is not.
That claim is intended to force a claim of monopoly upon Apple wherein Psystar could then be allowed to add to that clone "industry" with their own product.
The court has already ruled that there is NO industry, or market in Mac computers, other than Apple's product, and that furthermore, the Mac Market, such as it is, is simply a part of the "computer" market, and as Apple has such a small part of that, there can be no claim of an Apple monopoly.
These two situations are interrelated. If either one falls, the entire case falls.
You are misunderstanding me now
I am not attempting to give a prediction as to the outcome of the lawsuit. If I had to, I'd say Psystar will lose. Right now, Apple is legally right in suing Psystar. I believe Psystar is right, not legally, but morally (and therefore should be right legally, sadly they are not).
As for the industry for Mac clones, the only reason there isn't one is because everyone's afraid of Apple's legal team in the first place :P If Psystar should win this, there will be an "industry" overnight. IMHO.
Irrespective of whether we think it is good or not, it should be understood that Apple can't be coerced into fundamentally altering their business.
Apple isn't being coerced into anything. If they really wanted to, they could continue on, happy as clams, while Psystar (and then, others) undercut their prices. So, they _sort of_ would be "forced" into changing their business... they would have to allow companies to compete with portions of their product line by being compatible with the rest, instead of integrating vertically to the point that no one can hope to attack any piece of the Apple line without building up a similar enormous, integrated system.
It's because they have "market power". ie a Monopoly. There are different rules for companies in monopoly positions. Why do you think those rules are there?
As I explained before, Apple has a monopoly over OS X -capable hardware. They have market power there. This is evident by the fact that they inflate prices compared to equivalent PC hardware (usually!), when their OS costs less than most Windows variants.
Why do say " under the radar"? This has been Apple's business model for 30 years! Do you think that nobody noticed till you came along?
Apple hasn't used this strategy for thirty years, and they are growing right now. They do fly under the radar -- Apple is much more vertically integrated and monopolistic than MS, MS is just bigger. Not that MS hasn't done its fair share of dirty deeds...