I just wanted to let you know about a few changes that are going to take place this week on the forum.

I know that in the past there have been many questions about what can legally be posted here and what cannot be. We've made a few mistakes in the things we've taken down, but we were still growing as an organization and didn't have a firm grasp on the legal ramifications of this new field.

Because of this, our forum staff has come together to come up with some very clear and simple standards for what can and can't be posted. So, in case you were in doubt, here it is...

Things that are NOT allowed:
Anything relating to the disabling/circumvention of the TPM (ie any patches, work arounds, etc)
Warez
Questions that have been asked 6.521x10^9 times

Things that ARE allowed:
Homemade kexts, drivers, etc
Ported Open Source software
Discussion about everything relating to OS X on Intel, except those things that are listed above.
Links to sites that contain TPM hacks and other illegal files (as we can't be responsible for the material of others).

So, not much is changing - we just wanted to make things a little more clear.

The forum will be offline this Thursday for maintenance, cleaning, and to introduce our new skin!!!

If you have any questions or concerns, please post them here!

Sounds good to me. I have always had this question and I hope you can answer it.

Are we allowed to psot images? Either from a image host ot attachments. I just want to make sure.

Sure! Images are fine!

Just no porn, please.

Pr0n?? Where? oh. humm, ok. Darn rules..

I welcome this clear stance on what is allowed and what's not.

This means, however, and let's become very clear about that, that people like Maxxuss will no longer be allowed to post their progress, and everything they posted till now which helped people to get OS X running on generic boxes is soon to be deleted by you.

I hope that you are very clear about the ramifications. Your forum will lose importance and become a place for no more than some very basic support and, of course, gossip.


No, please elaborate... You wrote:


And that clearly means to me that every bit of information enabling people to get OS X running on systems other than the original developer transition kit is going to be deleted very soon and banned in the future. Yet these things are the reason why most of the people are here! So this seems to me like a dramatic change in the overall policy.

Some of what you say is true. But for example, some of these kexts are also in Darwin, so there is definitely nothing wrong w/someone editing such files and making them available. Can't help if they work in multiple places.

But things like TPM circumvention are a bit more obviously bad.

Thanks for the quick reply, but I'd also like to have a clear answer on which parts of what I said are untrue.

As I see it, no concrete help on how to get OS X installed on non-Apple hardware will be possible any longer, as this will always include the circumvention of the TPM (or have I missed something?).

I wish you much luck with sorting out and deleting all the relevant stuff...

If you don't do a complete restart and simply delete the whole archive, I suppose it will take more than just one day for "cleaning" -- as Mashugly has put it euphemistically -- without rendering most of the threads totally incomprehensible because of excessive censorship.

However, I am quite sure that due to this decision -- particularly in the light of the massive censorship you had inflicted on your site in the past, which brought research in the OS X on x86 field nearly to a halt for some time -- you will lose your last bit of credibility in the community as a comprehensive resource center and many of your members will set out for places where free speech is still allowed.

Ouch. Does someone need a hug?



While it's true that Maxxuss won't be able to post his patches here any more, he can post a link to his site, along with any information he deems important. In fact, I would encourage anyone who thinks that their material is illegal to do so (not encouraging the illegal act obviously, but if you want to post about it, do it that way).

There is a difference between posting the actual patches and posting a link to a site which...well...at this point, it's not our responsibility what is on other sites.



1. Sure, we've made a few mistakes in the past. We've acknowledged them and we've moved on. That is why we're being very clear about the changes we're making.

2. This will not be "massive censorship." We're merely going to ensure that we stay within the law. We will delete a few threads and a few posts, but the vast majority of our content will stay the same.

3. There should be no loss of credibility - we're being very upfront and open about this process, and giving people time to comment! A lawsuit would bring a loss of credibility - sustained existence will not.

4. We're not killing free speech. Free speech is legal speech - check out constitutional law and you'll discover that there are many types of speech which aren't "free." (Such as shouting Fire in a crowded building) We want this Project to remain a place where people can come and chat about the x86 version of the OS they love. The purpose of this forum has never been to create an underground site for stealing from Apple - some have used it for that purpose, but we have no control over that. And we're making that clearer now.



This is a good question, so let me be clear. Instructions on how to install OSx86 on non-apple hardware will not be allowed. However, discussion, assistance, or work dealing with the x86 operating system itself will be. This is nothing new - it's been our firm position on the wiki for sometime. If you have already installed it illegally, you can still talk about it (just as long as you know that, for legal reasons, we can't encourage its use - you are liable for your own action). But speaking about it is free. All developers have the OS already installed, so things like drivers, kexts, etc, are totally legal. Discussion about things like getting unsupported sounds cards to work, gfx cards to work, etc will be able to continue.

Like I said, not that much is changing. The installation guides will go away, as will the patches. They can be hosted elsewhere and linked back here. But for the most part, that's it.

We just want to make sure that we are here in the months and years to come. We are and will continue to be your source for all things OSx86.

Bump... I want everyone to see this!

I think that for the most part people don't really understand the scope of whats changing and not changing, and everyone, just stick with us and see. I can promise you it's not as drastic as has been accused.

Indeed - this really isn't anything drastic. We're just making things more clear.

Over here in germany, authors of websites and moderators of forums ARE responsible for what is being linked from their site. linking to illegal content IS indeed illegal here. many site owners put up a disclaimer in which they claim they are not responsible for the content of linked pages, but i doubt this will help.
dunno what the law says in other countries though

i have some hosting that i can use to post things as such....if it is nessary for something that is along those lines to be hosted contact me......

Someone needs to start a forum in a country lawyers can't touch. Like where Piratebay is located. Then we can do as we wish.

we have rapidhsare and other free upload/download sites which worked pretty well as a file sharing network in the past 6 months.

Why limit ourselves to OSX on Intel? Why not just discuss OS X period, regardless of processor architecture?

Who says you can't talk about OS X (PPC)

The lines are blurred, really, with universal binaries and all. So really, discussing Mac OS X on intel and PPC is really the same, unless you're talking about UB's, dual-booting, and the sort...

Yes and systemwise, OS X looks at everything from a 300 MHz Power Mac G3 (Blue/White from 1999) until the G5's and mactels of today. Laptop wise, we have the 400 MHz G3 Pismo until today's MacBooks and iBok G4's (really wish that G4 system would be updated).

now is thursday?

Look at the date it was posted...

Click to view attachment