Clone to countersue the i maker for antitrust violations.

[^_^]

Psystar a company known to be the first in the media of trying to copy others hard work(OSX, efi v8) for their own benefit is to countersue Apple for antitrust violations. My question is if Psystar is to win the EULA law, do Netkas have a case after all agaist the copycat wannabe?

 

read more here:

 

http://www.engadget.com/2008/08/26/psystar...ons-will-ask-c/

[gazzanova]

Even though i dislike Psystar, they could, and thats a very big could, legitimize OSX86

 

I thought Psystar would go down this road

 

Wouldn't it be nice to be able to bring your hackint0sh notebook to work without a dozen work colleagues shouting thats illegal

 

Looks like Psystar is claiming to be using Boot-132

 

Psystar’s lawyers are calling Apple’s copyright infringement allegation last month “misinformed and mischaracterized” and are arguing that Psystar’s Open Computer, which has been available online since April, is shipped with a fully licensed, unmodified copy of Mac OS X.

 

Source

[ulin]

"... will sue Apple under two federal laws designed to discourage monopolies and cartels, the Sherman Antitrust Act and the Clayton Antitrust Act, saying Apple's tying of the Mac OS to Apple-labeled hardware is 'an anticompetitive restraint of trade,' according to [an] attorney"

 

So its not just one but three legal Acts.

 

If Psystar wins this it will be a rather revolutionary moment. If they want to stay competitive and gain a foothold in this "new" market Apple will be forced to either

a) embrace the PC market, develop some drivers and officially launch OSX to the masses

look for an alternative exotic hardware solution which is not x486 based. Or if not,

c) do nothing and let the cloners flourish and write their own drivers for OSX thus gaining an enourmous market margine since apple would miss the potentially HUMONGOUS earnings from software sales if they started to officially support OSX on non-Apple x86 computers.

 

Mind you, in neither a) or c) will Apple ceise to produce hardware. It will simply be (what it already is) a fancy PC with nice design and in-house tested hardware, cosmic rays protection (ecc memory), xeon processors (instead of core2 quads) and all that. I actually doubt their hardware sales would lose more then 0.1% of the market they already occupy.

 

I vote a).

[trus0und]

However this is good in some ways, i kinda enjoy the feeling that this community creates by developing osx86 on its own. i dunno, the challenge and sucessful feeling i have when having an osx86 sucess is far greater than anything a retail disk for osx86 could achieve.

[BigPimpin]

You forgot option d) Pull OSX from retail shelves.

 

I don't think they're going to embrace the PC market. They pride themselves on their quality and ease of use, and they achieve that to a large degree by only officially supporting a small number of configurations. It's not worth it for them to support endless combinations of hardware.

 

Some people think they sell OSX at a loss because it drives sales of their hardware (which is where they make most of their profits). It's not likely that they will increase their software development costs when the result would be less of an incentive for people to buy Apple's Macs.

 

Go Psystar!

[adrock42]

Have you guys been to an apple store lately? The line for iphones and ipods is way larger then the line for computers. I wonder what the difference is in apple's profits these days? Where would osx86 cut into. certainly the schools would still buy imacs for the labs. Would the high end animators, editors, designers, still use the mac pro? Do you think clone companies would really cut into Apple's profits or make the osx platform more accessible to the world?

 

It is an anti-trust case. There is no way for people to compete with apple's software because it only works on apple's hardware, but this is the case for a variety of devices. If Psystar is successful with this, the definitions of platform and software might start to shift. or Psystar will crumble under Apple's gazillions of dollars.

[Konami®]

I don't have a mac yet but I really dislike all these lawsuit that this illegal company called Psystar is trying to do with OS X. I really hope for the love of god that Apple keep OS X exclusive for Apple. I am using OSX86 as my primary OS and I see OSX86 as a hobby and it should be this way always and not trying to make a profit when everybody know that this is illegal.

[Hagar]

I have no moral issue with psystar making pc's that run os x.. I find their product line crappy and overpriced, and their attitude stupid.

 

The real kicker here is that this lawsuit is a lose-lose proposition for us. If Psystar win, Apple will simply have to find a different way to stop them, almost certainly making life harder for us. If Apple win, they will have a stronger case (and more reason) to crack down on pcs running os x, making life harder for us. Either way the position of this community is worsened.

 

It feels a bit like a backwoods story:

 

A distillery makes fine whisky, and the lads in the village figure out the recipe and make their own, and even the distillery owner knows, and he's told them not to, but everyone likes a free dram & the real stuff still sells well so everyone's happy... Then one day the village idiot decides he's short of cash so he bottles some up & takes it to market & all hell breaks loose because he doesn't have a licence and the recipe is stolen and the lads are pissed off 'cause he nicked their method & the distillery owner is angry because it's cutting into his profits....

 

but instead of saying sorry and walking away the idiot takes the distillery to court.

Fine, he may even win.. but the village is no longer a happy place.

[ulin]

You forgot option d) Pull OSX from retail shelves.

 

I don't think they're going to embrace the PC market. They pride themselves on their quality and ease of use, and they achieve that to a large degree by only officially supporting a small number of configurations. It's not worth it for them to support endless combinations of hardware.

Yes but consider of the following:

- Apple is forced release OSX to non-Apple x86 platforms through a legal ruling. It does.

- OEM manufacturers start writing OSX drivers for their hardware.

- A gazillion unhappy customers start flooding Apple with "but my XYZ device is faulty, it causes kernel panics, this and that feature doesn't work" etc.

- Apple smiles and points the customer towards an Apple store saying: If you want it to "just work" but a Macintosh. We can't be responsible for 3rd party authors writing bad drivers but we can certainly be responsible for the staff we stamped our "label" on.

 

So who wins?

 

- Apple is conquering a brand new market while recieving free advertisement of their hardware in the process.

- Microsoft is unhappy so Apple points Microsoft in the direction of the judge who ordered them to sell OSX on x86, with a lough.

 

IMHO its a win - win situation, people will be happy, Apple will most likely be a lot happier then they even comprehend at this point. The only party with a loss in the whole ordeal is actually Microsoft, but hey, who cares?

 

As a matter of facts, I can see Microsoft leaning on the legal system with all of their trillion ton capital weight in order to prevent this from happening. In fact I can sort of sense a hidden agreement between Jobs and Gates with Jobs guaranteeing to not jeopardize Microsoft's OS share on generic x86 but if a judge rules against it .. I'm certain it will end up with Mr. Jobs loudly giggling behind Bill Gates' back.