Jump to content
18 posts in this topic

Recommended Posts

First, I thought I should post this in "The Great Debates", but as I have no permissions to do so, let's just put it here.

 

Well, I'm using both Windows and Mac. It's a Dell E6500 laptop hackintosh. What really impresses me, is everything. Everything is better than Windows. The dock, the AppStore, flash, literally everything. The most thing that amazes me though is the sound quality. This is the most perfect quality I've ever heard. The sound on Windows is a little choppy and gets a like 0.2 sec cut every 5 seconds or so, not the promised quality. Sound on Mac though is the best thing I've ever heard before. While it's even a hackintosh, not a real Mac.

 

Here in Egypt everyone uses Windows. After Dad and a close friend of mine saw my hackintosh, they insisted on letting me making them one. So I was thinking about starting a project of installing hackintoshes on people's computers in Egypt. Isn't it legal? Why isn't there a company that offers a service to install hackintoshes? I would be proud to help someone who offers so.

 

I would really appreciate your reply about that point. Why don't we offer other "normal" people hackintoshes instead of that s*it called Windows?

 

By the way, I'm not even using Lion. I'm using Snow Leopard. I can't get Lion to work .____.

Link to comment
https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/279845-i-cant-believe-that/
Share on other sites

There was a company that did that, called Psystar, and they were sued into oblivion by Apple. And another that took a slightly different approach called EFI-x, who instead will try to sue anyone who offers an opinion about their USB dongle product. I will only say that any paid solution, comes with the expectation of future upgradability and support, which as you know, is much easier said than done. Also while it's not illegal to run software you purchased on hardware you purchased, it is illegal to profit off someone else's intellectual property, even if it's open source. If you want to test installing individually purchased copies of OSX on the computer's of your immediate family members to help yourself learn more about UNIX and the x86 platform, that's OK, but don't take it any further than that.

I know about Psystar and what happened to them....

 

it is illegal to profit off someone else's intellectual property

 

I don't think that's true. Mac is built on UNIX and it's profiting much of the UNIX open-source, but that's not the main point, why would I be sued for fixing someone's Windows for example?

Fixing something that is broken is not at all what you were talking about, even if it's only broken because it runs windows :) You wouldn't have any issues fixing someones Windows PC in any normal sense, nor would you for fixing someones Mac. Fixing someones Mercedes would also not be an issue, but if you went and gathered up a bunch of Honda's and put Mercedes badging on them and started reselling them as Mercondas, that would be be a problem no matter what disclaimer you included. But building your own Merconda to cruise around Cairo in would probably be OK. There are many fine lines and grey areas between personal use and copyright infringement, and putting yourself in competition against a company, by repackaging and selling their product, will always put you on the wrong side of the line and draw unwanted attention to those who are only building and testing on x86 platform for educational purposes. This is by no means meant to be a detailed description of the intricacies of copyright or patent law as it is far more complex than we could ever discuss, which is why lawyers go to university for 8+ years before practicing law, and I only went for 3 and took no law classes, and Apple spends more time in courtrooms around the world then probably any other entity in the world these days, where I'd assume lots more lawyer talk happens. So to answer your original question again about why don't people start hackintosh business, it's because they know better, and if they didn't know better, they already got sued into oblivion for it. I'm sure many people would love to put together a distro and sell it for 20$ on ebay, and a few might even do it, but they would be inviting much trouble upon themselves and potentially others in the process.

 

As far as UNIX and open source, OSX is not open source, even if parts of it are. As a whole it is not, and that's the key. You could not take a 100% open source project from git-hub and start selling it. Using it as a building block to create something more than just a renamed clone, you may be able to create a marketable product, but consult an attorney first. If you did, I could not then take your product and sell it too for my own profit, without your permission, just because a part of it was based on open source. Again, much more to it, but I don't think either of us want to read a book case full of law books or join a debate team.

  • Like 1

I'd suggest you not do it if you value your life because Apple's legal team isn't something you'd like to be up against.

I'll leave it to eep357 to give you the nitty gritty details about why not to get into it.

Fixing something that is broken is not at all what you were talking about, even if it's only broken because it runs windows :) You wouldn't have any issues fixing someones Windows PC in any normal sense, nor would you for fixing someones Mac. Fixing someones Mercedes would also not be an issue, but if you went and gathered up a bunch of Honda's and put Mercedes badging on them and started reselling them as Mercondas, that would be be a problem no matter what disclaimer you included. But building your own Merconda to cruise around Cairo in would probably be OK. There are many fine lines and grey areas between personal use and copyright infringement, and putting yourself in competition against a company, by repackaging and selling their product,

 

 

 

Using cars as an example won't work. Honda takes Isuzu Rodeos and rebadges them as Honda PassPorts. Dodge takes Isuzu Raiders and rebadges them as Dakotas. Chevy was using another Isuzu pickup as S-10's.

Using cars as an example won't work. Honda takes Isuzu Rodeos and rebadges them as Honda PassPorts. Dodge takes Isuzu Raiders and rebadges them as Dakotas. Chevy was using another Isuzu pickup as S-10's.

And they have permission to do so, they don't buy them and rebadge them with out the primary manufactures knowledge.

Well, I'm not doing that as I don't have enough time to be dedicated to such project, but I just had the thought about it. Actually, if someone started it I would be happy to help.

 

As a reply to eep, why don't we make a modification to Mac OS System then, so I'm not literally "selling their project", I'm selling mine. With a new name and so. Why don't we use the same trick that they used? I know about lawyers and so, but I know some young Egyptian guys who were successful to beat those extreme market beasts with an awesome app, so I don't care if you're "fighting with apple" anymore. I lost the belief that you can't beat a company because it's very big and have an extreme fund.

 

That doesn't mean that I'm taking it to an illegal way though. Selling Mercondas is bad, but modifying your Honda and putting a badge there that YOU buy, then having the money just as a payment for my work to modify YOUR car using YOUR equipment, won't be a big mess. Is this right?

Well, kinda.. You can't use any of Apple's source code, period. You can use BSD which osx in based on as long as you include the BSD licensing in you project

Copyright (c) 2012, Regents of the University of California
All rights reserved.
Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without
modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions are met:
1. Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright notice, this
  list of conditions and the following disclaimer.
2. Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright notice,
  this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the documentation
  and/or other materials provided with the distribution.
THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS AND CONTRIBUTORS "AS IS" AND
ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED
WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE ARE
DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE COPYRIGHT OWNER OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE FOR
ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES
(INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS OR SERVICES;
LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) HOWEVER CAUSED AND
ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT LIABILITY, OR TORT
(INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY OUT OF THE USE OF THIS
SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE.
The views and conclusions contained in the software and documentation are those
of the authors and should not be interpreted as representing official policies,
either expressed or implied, of the FreeBSD Project.

but that would add you to a list of other operating systems that are already doing the same thing such as freeBSD, open BSD or Dragonfly, all of which your free to try out for yourself at no cost I might add.

but modifying your Honda and putting a badge there that YOU buy, then having the money just as a payment for my work to modify YOUR car using YOUR equipment, won't be a big mess. Is this right?

 

Well, kinda..

That's what I'm talking about. Offering a service to install hackintosh on your computer, using your own software and hardware. Why isn't that done?

[/left][/size][/font][/color]

That's what I'm talking about. Offering a service to install hackintosh on your computer, using your own software and hardware. Why isn't that done?

 

Maybe were not on the same page about what "your own" software is. Technically, no software is needed to install OSX on your own hardware, so you don't need to create your own to do that. A boot loader is needed to boot the OS and developing your own is a viable project for you to look into, or as a contributor to one of the existing projects, i.e. Chameleon, Clover or Revo Boot. If your trying to make it easier to install, like ModCD for example, that would a good project to look into as well, or again, help contribute to one of the existing projects. If your talking about making your own OS, which is what I thought you meant, you cannot use Apple's source code in any way as the basis of your project, you can use the open source projects which OSX uses as well, like BSD and Webkit. There are other free (and maybe paid too) operating systems out there that also use many of the same open source projects OSX uses as part of their operating system, BSD being the UNIX based part that would be most similar to Mac. People aren't too likely to pay to have any of them installed though. If you make your own bad ass operating system, I'll be the first to buy a copy from you, but it would be a whole lot of work. To be profitable at any of those, you have to make a product superior to what is available for free. As for charging for a boot loader or other "tool" to help install vanilla OSX, you could probably do it, but it is in every way against the whole philosophy of the x86 community. I admire your passion, but keep in mind this community is based on many peoples blood, sweat and tears, all done for free, to help you, me and others do what we do. I would hate to ever see that change.

@eep, Yea.. I would hate to see it change too. I'm not talking about something massive, though.

 

Here's more explanation in case you didn't understand what I'm saying.

 

Tell the user to buy Mac OS Lion, get ModCD and Chameleon. Go to his house or let him bring you his computer, then put ModCD in there, install Mac, install Chameleon, take all that big mess of finding drivers, and in the end take 5$ from the user.

@eep, Yea.. I would hate to see it change too. I'm not talking about something massive, though.

 

Here's more explanation in case you didn't understand what I'm saying.

 

Tell the user to buy Mac OS Lion, get ModCD and Chameleon. Go to his house or let him bring you his computer, then put ModCD in there, install Mac, install Chameleon, take all that big mess of finding drivers, and in the end take 5$ from the user.

Now that's some fancy software code :) I think your alright there if you keep it to friends and stuff. You don't charge anyone a fee, but accepting tips or donations to help you to cover your expenses and further your education would probably be OK :) You wouldn't want to be big enough to attract too much attention. And wouldn't want random people mad at you when they update to the newest OSX release (even though you told them not to!) and then their computer won't boot. Then they'll expect you to come and fix what they broke, and that eats into your tips and donations real quick. I've installed OSX on the computers of quite a few friends, and have never asked for or received any amount of money in return and don't ever expect to, but if I had to drive more than 20 miles I better be getting some gas money! I also won't go nuts and do the same for just anyone, or my tech hotline would never stop ringing, and then it stops being fun anymore :(

Well, I'll never ask my friends for money, although I've already started this business. For free though. Today I'm going to install it on my friend's HP laptop, then come home and install it for dad (while I can't get it working for myself.. lol).

 

I know that it'll reach a bad point somewhere, but you would simply put an extreme warning there "DO NOT UPDATE YOUR SOFTWARE". You will put some rules there of course. An example would be "If you messed up with everything, you get only 1 chance of reinstallation with 75% discount, then you'll have to pay again in case you messed up with it again"

 

There's a little difference there too. I'm talking about a SERVICE for making it.

 

You don't charge anyone a fee

 

I'm thinking about the opposite. I know that it isn't in the sense of Mac OS and so, and that tonymac is an example of taking it into an extreme bad way, but something local with a very cheap price won't make a difference in my opinion.

Learn to read between the lines a little bit my friend :) For both our sake, this discussion is over.

 

I do, but in English, still not so good to do that. I'm joining IGCSE next year though, if I passed those tests I made yesterday and the day before, so I guess I'll improve.. LOL

 

And K then, it's over.

×
×
  • Create New...