Petition: Release Mac OS X for PC

[cool_recep]

Hi guys,

most of you might think it is an "insane" idea but I have created a petition on change.org for Mac OS X on PC. You might think that Apple would not do that but think again. Microsoft is dominating the PC market and Apple have no word on PC gaming. Linux is coming via SteamOS and it is actually a big time for Apple to support PC's and have a great market to sell its Apps, Games and accessories and even hardware tomorrow.

Even if Apple sell Mavericks for $99, I am 100% sure that most of the PC users will switch. Once they use Apple OS, they will want to buy Apple hardware too and they will start using Apple services instead of MS. It is like binding the user to the brand.

So, never say never. iPad mini and iPhone C was also impossible according to Steve but here they are. Why not Mac OS XI for PCs ? Capitalism 

Please sign. I really want to see the potential. Also don't forget that a new player to the PC OS market will raise competition.

https://www.change.org/petitions/app...B1nlans%C4%B1n

Thanks.

[Alessandro17]

If I remember well we have a very old topic about the same subject.

I am afraid Apple is never going to release OS X for PCs. There are plenty of reasons, but one is that there is far too much hardware to support.

[cool_recep]

Actually, Apple will just prepare a tool much like Microsoft Windows Upgrade Tool which check for compatiblity. If the system is compatible, user will be forwarded to App Store to buy the OS.

 

If it is incompatible, Apple will redirect user to buy "certified Apple Hardware". Imagine the capitalism It is a win win situation in many ways IMO.

[Alessandro17]

I wish you could persuade them

[chris1111]

Why  !!   Hackintosh is too cool to drop it in favor of PC Market 

[Alessandro17]

Real Macs are also very cool, but far too expensive. And that is another reason why Apple won't allow anybody to put (officially) OS X on a PC or a clone. They make their money with hardware, not software.

[joe75]

Your karma check for today: There once was was a user that whined his existing OS was so blind, he'd do better to pirate an OS that ran great but found his hardware declined. Please don't steal Mac OS! Really, that's way uncool.

[cool_recep]

Real Macs are also very cool, but far too expensive. And that is another reason why Apple won't allow anybody to put (officially) OS X on a PC or a clone. They make their money with hardware, not software.

 

They are actually losing more money than they are earning by not selling more Apps. Also the Macs are getting cheaper and cheaper. Apple sure wants to penetrate into new markets.

[vbetts]

They are actually losing more money than they are earning by not selling more Apps. Also the Macs are getting cheaper and cheaper. Apple sure wants to penetrate into new markets.

Macbook's still start off at $1000, Mac Minis are still $600, Imacs are still $1300(I remember when they started at $1000), and the Mac Pro is still starting at $3000. Only difference is the OS, which yes Mavericks is free but it's only free if you have a legal license for ML, L, or SL.  

 

Wouldn't say they're losing money on that either...

[Alessandro17]

And if you want a half decent MacBook Pro you must spend at least 2000 euro. You can't have a 17" MacBook Pro, no matter the price.

[mendietinha]

leave it alone. it´s fine the way it is now. 

 

apple is about user experience with the combo os/hw. 

[Alessandro17]

leave it alone. it´s fine the way it is now. 

 

apple is about user experience with the combo os/hw. 

 

I agree. Problem is, it has become more difficult to buy a decent Mac for a reasonable price. Before the Retina madness you could buy a 17" MacBook Pro for 2500 euro. I bought mine for 1600 euro. And don't get me started on the new Mac Pro. I'd like to know how many people have spent 3000+ on "that"

[mendietinha]

I agree. Problem is, it has become more difficult to buy a decent Mac for a reasonable price. Before the Retina madness you could buy a 17" MacBook Pro for 2500 euro. I bought mine for 1600 euro. And don't get me started on the new Mac Pro. I'd like to know how many people have spent 3000+ on "that"

 

yes, the prices are very high. here, in brazil, they are even more absurd. at least 2 times more.

 

 

but i was talking about make os x for pcs. that is not good for anybody, specially apple.

 

i would hate to install a generic os x without the usual performance, optimizations, stability and confiability.

[cool_recep]

Apple is no more focused on creating the best afther the death of Steve Jobs. They will be back on the table thinking how to penetrate into new markets.

[joe75]

SJ was Apple! I can see them continuing to go down hill from here on out.. Between MS, Android and Samsung, Apple will have to fight to be on top in any market.

[gils83]

Quand Steve Jobs créa les premiers ordinateurs personnels conviviaux ,  c'était avant tout une vision , le but est de rendre un système le plus simple possible très intuitif tout en gardant la puissance et la qualité de fabrication avec les meilleurs composants disponibles sur le marché . Donc il privilégie le hardware et  adapte ses OS en fonction de l'évolution du hardware . Pourquoi ils iraient "s'embêter" à faire un OS bon à tout , bon à rien pour avoir de piètres résultats sur des PC à hardware de toute sorte , dans cette voie là , ils se retrouveraient comparé à des OS qui ont 20 ans d'avance dans ce domaine et se retrouverait reléguer à l'oubli . On voit bien , Apple veut le meilleur matériel qui existe sur marché  , AMD CPU n'est pas choisi car  il n'est pas au niveau d'Intel et ce n'est pas demain que nous verrons des Macs à CPU AMD bien que ces CPU fonctionnent très bien sur OS X . Puis je ne pense pas que Apple soit à l'agonie pour aller se confronter sur le terrain Microsoft . 

 

Apple est une référence par sa différence et j'espère qu'il le gardera très longtemps ............

 

 

When Steve Jobs created the first personal computers user friendly, it was above all a vision, the goal is to make a very intuitive system as simple as possible while keeping the power and quality workmanship with the best components available on the market. Therefore favors the hardware and OS adapts according to the changing hardware . Why they would go " to annoy " to do good to all OS , bum to have poor performance on PC hardware of any kind, in this way there, they would find themselves compared to OS with 20 years advance in this area and would end up relegated to oblivion. It is clear , Apple wants the best equipment out there on the market, AMD CPU is not chosen because it is not the level of Intel and not tomorrow we will see AMD CPU Macs although these CPU work very well on OS X . Then I do not think Apple is dying to go confront the Microsoft field.

 

Apple is a reference by its difference and I hope it will keep a long time ............

[cool_recep]

This is the start:

 

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2455306,00.asp

[Alessandro17]

"We have no religious issue with doing that. If we thought it made sense for us to do that, we would do that," Cook said last year, responding to a question about whether Apple would consider making apps for Android.

 

Interesting. I wasn't aware of that.

[3.14r2]

...They make their money with hardware, not software.

IMO Apple sell devices to access their services which in turn do a BIG part of the income. You can't even download new OS X version without having Apple ID (when Mavericks is FREE OF CHARGE).

 

The above is true for the mobile devices at least.

[vbetts]

SJ was Apple! I can see them continuing to go down hill from here on out.. Between MS, Android and Samsung, Apple will have to fight to be on top in any market.

I wouldn't say they're going down hill either. Yes, Steve Jobs made Apple. But at the same time, look how closed the Apple ecosystem was when Steve Jobs was alive compared to now. Opening the Iphone up to more carriers, the price of the OS now, they even considered putting Itunes on Android. The major complaint about the iPhone all along has been the screen size, and since the passing of Jobs the screen size did get bigger!

 

Apple along with Intel pushed into motion support for one the fastest and stable interface that we know as Thunderbolt. Apple also pushed for display port, and mini display port! All of this since Cook has been running Apple.

 

Steve Jobs was a brilliant man, but he was also set in his ways. So set that instead of working with other companies that "wronged" him, he flat out denied any contact or support with them.(Adobe anyone?)

 

Being run by Tim Cook now, Apple is doing fine. They continue to thrive in the markets they pursue, and continue to open up new markets as well.

[iWin32]

So set that instead of working with other companies that "wronged" him, he flat out denied any contact or support with them.

Just an FYI, that sentence I don't think describes Steve Jobs, but rather a certain Tonymacwannabex86.

 

I created the similar thread in Apple Discussions here, and I was for this idea, but later recanted the idea upon hearing feedback from the community.  Like people said here, it would cause Apple a headache's worth of support calls due to various hardware to work with, and the idea that other computer manufacturers would be wanting to sell computers with Apple's OS on (Macintosh Clone meets Microsoft's OEM).

 

I personally am not against the idea.  My goal was rather than starting official PC support for OS X, just remove the clause from the EULA.  That way, our communities would still provide support and installation procedures, while the gray area of hackintoshes would be out of the question.  Apple probably would start official PC support eventually, though, after making such a move.

 

What annoys me more than the technological and economical implications of Apple opening their OS to non-Apple hardware is the legal implications if they don't.  Many lawyers in the US argue that Hackintoshing isn't in a gray area; it's flat out illegal.  Their reasoning?  Not any law, but the case with Psystar.  However, it doesn't compare.  Just because people selling bootlegged movies on the street were found guilty of copyright infringement does not mean that making a backup copy of the same movie for your own enjoyment is illegal because of what the movie pirates did.  As drastic as it seems, that is the exactly what Psystar did.  They installed a legitimate copy of Leopard on a real Mac, copied it onto a master open computer and applied our patches, and once it ran smoothly, they copied it to all other Open Computers that were running OS X.  In the process, they made illegal copies of OS X, and sold all but one of those illegal copies.  That is why Apple claimed copyright infringement, and rightfully so.  But that doesn't mean that installing a legally purchased copy of OS X (or legally acquired copy of Mavericks seeing that it isn't sold, but free from the app store) on your own PC is illegal.

 

Futhermore, the court ruled in favor of Apple that their OS X installation on a PC was a derivative work that infringed Apple's copyright.  Psystar defended themselves with Fair Use.  But they never went into their reasoning why, and the also didn't go into details about the four factors of fair use.  That is why the judge dismissed the defense and ruled in favor of Apple.  But I'd argue that it is a fair use, and I won't be like Psystar:

 

1. You are doing it for your own enjoyment for noncommercial purposes.  Granted that "your own enjoyment" isn't one of the purposes listed for fair use, but it certainly isn't going to be published as a supplanted version of OS X.  (Sorry distro makers!)
2. The nature of the work borrowed is software.  You can't really define software as fiction or non-fiction.  But it's favorable because you are using official published software that is a legally acquired copy.  That couldn't be said in Psystar's case!
3. The amount borrowed is the full work, which would usually be against fair use.  However, the court has typically allowed a large portion of a work to be borrowed under fair use if the amount borrowed was no more than what was needed for the work in question.  I can argue that if anything less than the whole OS was installed, it would either be Darwin, a watered down version of OS X, or even worse: non-functional software.
4. The work wouldn't hinder OS X's software market.  It would hinder it's hardware market, but that can't constitute a non-fair use.  Why?  Fair use is all about copyright.  Software can be copyrighted, but hardware can only be patented.  So, OSx86 doesn't harm the market of OS X in any way!

So as you can see, what we do here is perfectly justifiable as a fair use.  But not many lawyers recognize that.  Another thing they have issues with is the EULA, but like it's said here: EULA violations doesn't mean copyright infringement; it means a breach of a contract between you (the user) and the contracter (Apple).  So that's why I'm not against opening OS X's market to PC's.  But with the potential support consequences for Apple, I'm on the fence as to whether or not to support a petition like this one, which is something that I couldn't say before!

[vbetts]

 

 

Just an FYI, that sentence I don't think describes Steve Jobs, but rather a certain Tonymacwannabex86

It seems that Steve Jobs and TonyMac were alike in that aspect, except Steve Jobs was willing to take people down with everything he had. Correct me if I'm wrong, but the only reason why Pystar went under was because they were making a profit off installing Os X on their machines? 

 

Apple does own Os X, basic rights to it. Simple as that. If Pystar was not selling the OS with the machines, I would see how it would be okay.

[joe75]

Again like most users here you don't understand "fair use".. Apple requires Mac OS to only be used on Apple Hardware and sets means for that to be enforced. It is one thing to disregard an EULA for your own beliefs that you consider fair, its a completely different issue to circumvent known protection set to restrict the use and install of software that the EULA is representing. The illegal part comes when you knowingly exploit encrypted binaries to achieve what is supposed to not be possible.

[iWin32]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but the only reason why Pystar went under was because they were making a profit off installing Os X on their machines? 

 

Yes and no.  Yes - they were making profit, but no, it wasn't just because the computers they sold had OS X on.  From the court documents, you see the exact same way I described it above was outlined.  Once more, while the judge who gave the verdict cited the part of a single license for one Apple labeled computer, it did not cite the continuation where it bars people from installing OS X on non-Apple labeled computer.  Remember, this was in the days of Leopard, and the first boot 132 swap CD was still relatively new technology.  Therefore, we still were relying on patches to run OS X on our PC, with most users here encouraging the use of a pre-patched, pirated distro.  But that's beside the point.  The judge also stated that what made the installation illegal was the number of copies, but not the part of the hardware not being Apple-labeled.  While this doesn't necessarily make it illegal, it also does not make it legal, either.  Therefore, I still call hackintoshing a gray area, with my belief of fair use stated above.

 

Again like most users here you don't understand "fair use".. Apple requires Mac OS to only be used on Apple Hardware and sets means for that to be enforced. It is one thing to disregard an EULA for your own beliefs that you consider fair, its a completely different issue to circumvent known protection set to restrict the use and install of software that the EULA is representing. The illegal part comes when you knowingly exploit encrypted binaries to achieve what is supposed to not be possible.

First, you've never addressed why my understanding of fair use is not valid.  The circumvention part I get and will talk about later, but in and of itself, fair use is an exemption when referring to copyright infringement.  While still only a doctrine to be used by the courts, Congress enacted it into the copyright act in the 1970s, long before the first Mac or PC computer was ever sold.  Therefore, the argument that it can't be a fair use because I circumvent copy protection means is invalid and does not bar a fair use finding.  However, if I am missing something in my fair use finding, I certainly would be eager to hear it.

 

Second, onto the copy protection thing: The violation of the EULA I'd argue cannot be considered a computer security legality issue because I'm not harming anything of value in the process.  However, back in the Psystar case, Apple added a DMCA violation to the whole suit against Psystar.  The issue lies in that the DMCA makes it illegal to bypass copy protection, like DRM, Macrovision, or in this case, a binary protection layer, usually called DSMOS (after Don't Steal Mac OS X.kext).  However, the courts have ruled before that (in a somehow unrealistic way) it is legal to bypass copy protection if you are doing it for purposes that fall under Fair Use (I believe the case was with the CSS encryption on DVDs), but the sale or distribution of any tools whose sole purpose is to bypass copy protection is illegal.  That makes certain bootloaders like Chameleon and Clover in the gray area (they typically are only used to boot OS X on non-Apple hardware, but it can be used to chainload other bootloaders/OS), but others would probably be, under this case alone, illegal (namely FakeSMC).  Notice it doesn't say that using these distributed tools themselves is illegal, but it does say the distribution does.  I'd argue that this ruling doesn't make sense for the same reason I'm against gun control: How the heck can the lay user bypass circumvention if gaining access to the tools of others are illegal?  They won't be able to do it, and the whole ruling for the case just goes down the drain!

 

However, the US Copyright Office did make certain exemptions that they would recognize as legal and a potential fair use.  One of them is jailbreaking, making iPhone lovers rejoice while Apple mourns a loss.  Granted, hackintoshing isn't quite like jailbreaking, but it does show the copyright office isn't slow to allow mods like Hackintoshing.  To the OP and other users interested in this topic: Maybe instead of trying to petition Apple to release OS X for PC's, maybe a petition to the US Copyright Office to extend the exemption to cover this OS-hardware tying DRM circumvention (Hackintoshing is the only one I know of, but I think there may be others) would be a better option?

[Rampage Dev]

There is no Grey area because there is no case law on individual use. Until then this debate is pointless...