Guest BuildSmart Posted May 20, 2008 Share Posted May 20, 2008 DO NOT MISTAKE THIS IS AN ATTACK OR FLAME AGAINST NETKAS, THIS IS ABOUT LICENSES OF APPLE (AND OTHER OPEN-SOURCE) SOFTWARE AND RIGHTS TO USE. With PsyStar publicly offering Mac clones it should be a warm welcome to the hackintosh community however netkas has publicly stated that they are now in violation by using "HIS" EFI emulation software because it's being offered commercially and has since posted an updated license geared with this concept. Let's examine that a little more closely. First, he states that he uses apple and other open source software to do it so the rights are retained by the original author and not netkas. Second, it is a known fact that he did not write the EFI code as he claims, he may have added some code and made some changes but that doesn't give him the rights to change the license agreement or assume ownership. Third, when approached by someone I know regarding this source to correct some errors and issues with the EFI code he stated to this individual that the source code was lost and that he no longer had it and that there would be no future updates of the EFi binaries (4 months so far and there have not been), I was present at the time of the conversation so he cannot claim he did not make these remarks. Fourth, he publicly claims to support open source development but very little of his work is available in source format and he's not known for openly sharing code as noted by many of you who have attempted to obtain the source code for various projects form him but came away empty handed. Since he has made such a big stink about "HIS" EFI emulator, I took the liberty of contacting PsyStar and spoke with their R&D team leader and provided an original EFI source (with license intact) and some additional code changes required to make it work for Mac OS X. I also came across some relevant posts and news articles, here's some of them. All I heard was “PSYSTAR!” Ars Technica’s Charles Jade broke the story (as best as I can tell), and he also had a lot of juicy details about the mysterious Mac clone they were offering for sale: Psystar, a plucky little company from Miami, Florida is, for the moment, selling OpenMac, a Mac clone with Leopard pre-installed for $554. You also get: 2.2 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo CPU 250 GB Hard Drive (7200 RPM) 2 GB DDR2 667 RAM Intel GMA 950 integrated graphics DVD+/-R Optical Drive 4 USB ports For another $110, you can get an NVIDIA GeForce 8600GT, and for another $50, you can get FireWire too. Even without that, this price seems a little high compared to other OEM PCs sold by mom and pop. The whole saga began with pluck, but that wasn’t going to last. Jade foreshadowed what was going to come with 22 simple words in very plain English from Apple’s End User License Agreement for OS X (EULA): “You agree not to install, use or run the Apple Software on any non-Apple-labeled computer, or to enable others to do so.” Set aside the question of whether it’s realistic to sell a Mac clone. The amount of work required to run OS X on an Intel PC is apparently quite onerous, and a lot of hardware is bound not to work, because Apple drivers are customized to the exact models of hardware in their branded computers. So your hardware choices are limited, never mind the level of polish that Apple puts into their cases and peripherals and the like. But having said that, you can do it. The larger question isn’t can you, but may you? InformationWeek’s Paul McDougall got an employee named Robert to comment on a story about PsyStar and the Apple EULA, and all he said was, “What if Microsoft said you could only install Windows on Dell computers?” He went on to claim that Apple’s EULA was what was in the wrong, and that Apple was a monopolist by tying the software by a EULA to their hardware. The issue of tying violates all kinds of licensing laws however if they made the software so that it wouldn't run on the hardware then they wouldn't have to violate your rights with such bogus stipulations, if you wanted to run Mac OS X then you'd have to buy Apple hardware because the software would fail to run on non-Apple hardware. CNET's Tom Krazit does a little analysis: for the purposes of antitrust litigation in the US, Apple could only be a monopolist if the relevant market is “computers running OS X”. He thinks that’s a bit, ahem, constipated reading of the law. He wasn’t the only one to pick up on this angle: NewsFactor’s Jennifer LeClair got an actual intellectual property lawyer to comment, Ilan Barzilay of Wolf, Greenfield & Sacks (in Boston). Barzilay told LeClair, “If the relevant market is personal computers, there’s no way you can say Apple has a monopoly.” Now, there’s an argument to be made here (and not just from Psystar; for instance, PC World’s Travis Hudson sounds like he’s edging toward it) that the EULA is itself a sham. These agreements have so far been presumed to be valid prima facie, but Psystar is saying that they will litigate. Macworld's Rob Griffiths stated that it was just a matter of time before some one or some entity questioned the questionable license stipulations that Apple includes in their Mac OS X software EULA and that this is in all likely-hood the main reason that Apple has not instigated any legal action against PsyStar's CEO's as they scramble to find an enforceable stipulation that would shut them down. He goes on to say that in Canada the hardware stipulation is not enforceable and that Apple had already attempted litigation with "Peach MicroSystems" of Ottawa regarding the first legal Apple clone back in the mid 80's named the "Peach Executive IV". The canadian company has since succumbed to poor management but doesn't change the fact that Apple wasn't able to obtain a judgement in it's favor and this is likely to be the case with the USA OpenMac's, OpenPro's and the Canadian NeXTMac's. Questions this information raises. If it's source code is open then why is it being kept from the public? How do we move towards a more openly developed environment where the source code is available to anyone who wants it? How do you lose source code? What can we do to further protect our rights against litigation from illegal license stipulations? What can we do to promote the project in a more positive way? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Krazubu Posted May 21, 2008 Share Posted May 21, 2008 Don't make this thread a battlefield, the staff is keeping an eye on it Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SurferSD Posted May 21, 2008 Share Posted May 21, 2008 Well there goes my theory that Netkas is secretly an employee of "The Company" (Apple), hired to assist the OSx86 community in running Leopard on x86 hardware... so that once familiar with OSX, they go out and buy real hardware. I know for a fact that being a part of the OSx86 Project from the beginning has played a key part in my conversion from Linux/Windows to OSX (MacBook Pro, Mac Pro, Mac Mini, iPhone, two iPods). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Envying Posted May 21, 2008 Share Posted May 21, 2008 Well there goes my theory that Netkas is secretly an employee of "The Company" (Apple), hired to assist the OSx86 community in running Leopard on x86 hardware... so that once familiar with OSX, they go out and buy real hardware. I know for a fact that being a part of the OSx86 Project from the beginning has played a key part in my conversion from Linux/Windows to OSX (MacBook Pro, Mac Pro, Mac Mini, iPhone, two iPods). My response to your comments! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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