[thebiggfrogg]

Re:MDawson

I'm happy to see Psystar go down, because I don't want to see the Mac market go the way of Win-dohs: 10,000 options with a proportional loss in quality, stability, and security. I like Apple owning the whole widget and widgetware and think they have the right to do as they please, barring monopoly (which they are FAR from: if you don't want to go Apple's way then go Linux or move or stay with Win-dohs monolith--and get what you deserve). Psystar are a bunch of leeches. Perhaps they are satisfying a demand for a mid-range tower, but I suspect if that market were significant enough Apple would be there.

However, I disagree with MDawson's statment:
"Right, because knockoffs always help the actual brand. The only thing Psystar can do is damage Apple?s reputation because most people do not frequent boards like this to know that Psystar?s products are neither supported or sanctioned by Apple."

I do think that Psystar probably could give the "Apple shirt" a good case of ring-around-the-collar, I don't think this is significant. I think Psystar appeals precisely to the types who frequent these message boards and probably have some inkling of their m.o. I don't know what their distribution channels are: Internet, mail order? But Joe and Jane Average pop into a Best Buy (or perhaps even an Apple Store) to buy their latest computer and are very unlikely to run across Psystar in any case. Thus, I don't think Psystar could do much damage to Apple's rep as things currently stand. However, if Psystar were able to emerge from bankruptcy, get a favorable court ruling, and distribute their product widely that could seriously affect Apple's reputation. So I'm hoping that the "Apple shirt" will be tossed into the wash and that nasty case of ring-around-the-collar will be sudsed away.

[macanada]

graxspoo said:

I take issue with the idea that what they are doing is illegal. If I buy Apple's operating system, I should be able to install it on any hardware I like. I should be able to make modifications to it, patch it, extend it, and so on. Imagine if you bought a car and the car maker said "you can't modify the engine" or "you can only drive it on the roads we tell you to." Ridiculous. I bought it. It's mine. End of story.

And when your legitimately purchased OS fails to run on your brand new Psystar computer, who will you turn to for operating system support? Will your car dealer still offer you warranty after you tinker with the original manufacturer's specifications? I do not disagree with you. You as a consumer have every right to do with what you bought - what ever you want to barring anything that is illegal or harmful to others. Just don't expect any customer service on warranty issues after you modified the product beyond what it was intended for. Say you own a car company, and a competitor takes your drive train and sticks it in their vehicle and then sells it at a profit. Would you not be a little concerned that "A", they are making a profit on your innovations and "B" their finished product has the potential to cause a backlash on your company name due to increased product failure and finally "C" they are using your innovations to take customers off your doorstep. I'm sure you would not sit still for this kind of business tactic but if so, I'd bet you would not be in business for long.

[tmsmqwx]

The timing of this is quite convenient, comming 3 days after they were supposed to have responded to a judge's order to provide detailed financials, which would have included the identities of their backers. From what I understand, they are only required to disclose current financial backers. The bankruptcy filing allows time for these backers to withdraw, meaning that they are no longer "current" and their identities will not be revealed. Consequently, we may never find out who was the real wizard behind the curtain here.

[benroethig]

Uh, the disclosure of backers is part of bankruptcy proceedings.

[Martian]

I doubt that the list of Psystar investors will support any anti-Apple conspiracy theories.

Microsoft has always been a strong public advocate of intellectual property rights, they have been fighting Windows OS unauthorized use for years and Bill Gates himself is often credited as pioneering the concept that users must pay for software. (Please, let's not recite all of Microsoft's misdeeds--I am just saying they will never support a frontal attack on someone else's OS property rights).

Big companies like HP and Dell, or Microsoft for that matter, just don?t ?compete? through shadowy fronts like Psystar.

And then there is the Miami base for Psystar. Miami is known more for promoters and those with ?mad money? to invest than for its manufacturing and business head offices.

[jman3001]

{quote:title=hillstones wrote:}I guess you didn't read the fine print, did you? I hope they do go out of business and then you wonder where the support is when you really need it. Have you tried to re-install Leopard yet?{quote}

Yes, I actually have, and it installed perfectly with my Psystar "Restore" CD. I also have an EFI-X device that will install Leopard (from the install disk) on any drive I want to install it on.

{quote:title=hillstones wrote:}That retail copy you received with your Psystar computer is useless. You need their support to reinstall Mac OS X. The copy installed on the computer is the illegally hacked copy. The copy of Leopard they gave you in a box, will only install on Apple-branded hardware. I bet that clone box you bought is just like all the other PC clone boxes...cheap and noisy? You won't have any luck running Snow Leopard on your Psystar computers either, because they will be out of business by the time it is released.{quote}

The OS X installation disk is the full install disk, and it works as such. To reinstall Leopard on a Psystar machine you just use the CD they send to you. Works perfectly. The machine is actually very quiet and I've got 3 extra hard drives installed, a firewire card, and 2-UAD-1 cards installed. (Try doing that on a Mac Mini......oh wait, you can't). I've had the computer for almost a year. No problems, just worry free computing at an excellent price point. We'll see about Snow Leopard, but with all the problems Mac owners are having with OS 10.5.7, no one may even want Snow Leopard for a while. I certainly don't need it to run everything I need to do my work for the next 4 years.

{quote:title=hillstones wrote:}If you don't believe me, go to their website and read the fine print. The only way you can reinstall Leopard is if you submit a written request to obtain their special CD. The special CD allows you to install a hacked copy of Leopard. The written request also requires that you RELEASE all your rights against the company and agree that you are 100% completely satisfied with your purchase BEFORE they ship you the CD. How is that for customer support? Have you tried Boot Camp yet on your Psystar computer? Didn't think so...because they can't get that to work.{quote}

The customer support has actually been better for me than Apple support. The people at Psystar are great to work with. As far as the CD; it wasn't hard to obtain and it worked as advertised. You don't need to run "boot camp" on a PC machine, you can just install Windose on any hard drive you have available. Then you just boot to your Windoze OS. It's much better than using boot camp. It's Interesting that Mac owners want to be able to run Windoze on a Mac, but the same people have a problem when a PC owners run the Mac OS on a PC. That's really pretty stupid thinking.

[Martian]

jman3001, Psystar?s costs were artificially reduced by swindling Apple. Psystar paid Apple the UPGRADE price for your computer?s original OS and whatever reinstall disc they cobbled together. This upgrade price is way below Apple?s unit cost to develop and maintain the heart of the Mac ? its OS.

So let?s be clear. Your crowing about the ?bargain? you got is exactly the same as crowing about buying a bootleg disc for below market. Psystar merely passed on their production savings from swindling Apple.

This swindle would be harder to ignore if Apple simply labeled all their stand-alone OS X sales as ?UPGRADE?, rather than rely totally on their dumb, lawyerly, unilaterally drafted, implied consent, ?shrink-wrap contract? EULA.

Bragging about the Psystar?s price is merely bragging about buying stolen goods.

[Grapho]

jman3001 said:

{quote:title=hillstones wrote:}I guess you didn't read the fine print, did you? I hope they do go out of business and then you wonder where the support is when you really need it. Have you tried to re-install Leopard yet?{quote}

Yes, I actually have, and it installed perfectly with my Psystar "Restore" CD. I also have an EFI-X device that will install Leopard (from the install disk) on any drive I want to install it on.

{quote:title=hillstones wrote:}That retail copy you received with your Psystar computer is useless. You need their support to reinstall Mac OS X. The copy installed on the computer is the illegally hacked copy. The copy of Leopard they gave you in a box, will only install on Apple-branded hardware. I bet that clone box you bought is just like all the other PC clone boxes...cheap and noisy? You won't have any luck running Snow Leopard on your Psystar computers either, because they will be out of business by the time it is released.{quote}

The OS X installation disk is the full install disk, and it works as such. To reinstall Leopard on a Psystar machine you just use the CD they send to you. Works perfectly. The machine is actually very quiet and I've got 3 extra hard drives installed, a firewire card, and 2-UAD-1 cards installed. (Try doing that on a Mac Mini......oh wait, you can't). I've had the computer for almost a year. No problems, just worry free computing at an excellent price point. We'll see about Snow Leopard, but with all the problems Mac owners are having with OS 10.5.7, no one may even want Snow Leopard for a while. I certainly don't need it to run everything I need to do my work for the next 4 years.

{quote:title=hillstones wrote:}If you don't believe me, go to their website and read the fine print. The only way you can reinstall Leopard is if you submit a written request to obtain their special CD. The special CD allows you to install a hacked copy of Leopard. The written request also requires that you RELEASE all your rights against the company and agree that you are 100% completely satisfied with your purchase BEFORE they ship you the CD. How is that for customer support? Have you tried Boot Camp yet on your Psystar computer? Didn't think so...because they can't get that to work.{quote}

The customer support has actually been better for me than Apple support. The people at Psystar are great to work with. As far as the CD; it wasn't hard to obtain and it worked as advertised. You don't need to run "boot camp" on a PC machine, you can just install Windose on any hard drive you have available. Then you just boot to your Windoze OS. It's much better than using boot camp. It's Interesting that Mac owners want to be able to run Windoze on a Mac, but the same people have a problem when a PC owners run the Mac OS on a PC. That's really pretty stupid thinking.

Stupid thinking?

How about Microsoft selling software that has an open license to install on any hardware. Yes even Apple's. On the other hand, Apple, selling hardware that works with their software. You don't see the deference? No you do see the deference, you just ignore any legality/morality/ethics about the whole thing. Who cares if any law is being broken as long as you have your way. How cares that the creator of such solution does not get fully remunerated for their efforts.

Well, I am glad these clowns are going down. At the end, not a lot of demand for their products. So what this indicates is that the real demand for the elusive Apple mini tower must not be as high as one would think, or else, this company would be thriving, or that most people have simply a bit more integrity to invest in some dicy fly-by-night parasitic company that wants to illicitly biggie-back and get a share of Apple's fortunes.

[XMattingly]

Quote

{size:10px} Grapho wrote: Stupid thinking?{size}

Good one. That very well could have been Psystar's ad campaign: Think Ignerunt.

Quote

{size:10px} Who cares if any law is being broken as long as you have your way. How cares that the creator of such solution does not get fully remunerated for their efforts.{size}

Those of you who are familiar with Apple history through the 90's will recall that Apple has previously tried to license Mac OS to clone makers for a fair market price. Back then, those guys did business by undercutting Apple's profit margin, and it's the same case all over again with Psystar - the difference being that Psystar has no legal agreement to use OS X.

So for those trumpeting about what a great deal those computers are: it would be a world of difference if Psystar weren't modifying copyrighted intellectual property, and paying a fair market license for OS X (which I would suspect would be in the ballpark of Windows pricing). Those machines suddenly wouldn't seem like such a bargain when you're paying at least as much as you would for a Mac.

Steve Jobs Kills The Clones

Quote

{size:10px}Well, I am glad these clowns are going down. At the end, not a lot of demand for their products. So what this indicates is that the real demand for the elusive Apple mini tower must not be as high as one would think{size}

I think the demand is definitely there; it's just that most people who would want one are either smart enough to steer away from a company with shady business practices, or simply have never heard of them.

[mdawson]

Quote

XMattingly wrote:

>

Quote

Those of you who are familiar with Apple history through the 90's will recall that Apple has previously tried to license Mac OS to clone makers for a fair market price. Back then, those guys did business by undercutting Apple's profit margin, and it's the same case all over again with Psystar - the difference being that Psystar has no legal agreement to use OS X.

That very point has been brought up numerous times in Psystar threads here, but the Psystar supporters place their selfishness over historical fact. Apple had a tight control over the clones that were built in the mid-1990s?the seven so participating companies could only build Mac clones by entering into Apple?s licensing program?and that still did not keep Apple?s bottom line from being cannibalized.

The Mac clones of the 1990s were typically no more than $50 to $100+ less than a comparable Mac and had to meet Apple?s very rigid hardware standards. If Apple was being killed by that kind of cloning program under their control, then you can best believe that putting OS X on the open market now will quickly eat away at Apple?s core profit generator: hardware sales. Apple cannot compete in the bargain basement POS market segment because they actually bother to design their computer. Apple therefore makes no attempt to do so.

Without sufficient hardware sales, OS X development ceases. Without the ability to test 100 percent of the target hardware base for new releases of OS X, reliability and robustness drop to Windows? levels. No competent business leader repeats a move that has been proven to be bad for business.

[XMattingly]

[quote]{size:10px}KPO'M wrote:
>

XMattingly said:

> I think the demand is definitely there; it's just that most people who would want one are either smart enough to steer away from a company with shady business practices, or simply have never heard of them.

The demand may be there, but the question is whether the demand would still be there if OS X were sold at retail for similar or higher prices to what Windows is sold for. {size}

I probably wasn't clear enough with what I quoted, but I was referring to demand for mini towers. The comment made suggested that people would flock to Psystar if there was high demand for mini towers, and my response was that it's probably not so much the (lack of) demand for a specific configuration as it is distrust of a company with a very bad reputation.

It seems like most of the editors here on Macworld have commented favorably about that product, and I can't see any reason why Apple shouldn't put one in the market: something like a headless iMac with quite a bit more internal expansion & upgrades, priced in the neighborhood of the Macbook Pro's.

As far as "Apple Tax" -- hey, the flamers can call it whatever they want. I call it the price you pay for a well designed user experience on a tightly integrated system.

[jman3001]

It's funny that when people do something that's good for the consumer that they are selfish, but when Apple has been overcharging for everything they sell for the last 20 years, they are to be admired. The experience on a good PC running OS X is the same experience as on a Mac. The OS makes the Mac experience, not the computer or the design. The design of the Mac is something to attract the novice that doesn't understand computing, and Apple has been very successful selling overpriced "boutique" Computers, iPods, and iPhones. Sometimes, the consumer gets smart and figures out how to have a the same experience with a better deal, and then the loyalists get upset, because they had to pay twice as much for the same experience.

The loyalists also need to realize that no law has been broken until the Courts rule. So, those that come on websites and spew garbage about the laws they don't clearly understand to begin with, are just blowhards trying to give verdicts before they are even written. The EULA is far from air tight, so lighten up, until the Courts actually decide what is fair and what is not fair. Apple will basically have to rewrite their licensing agreements and make a plan for how they want to market their OS in the future. Many still say Apple should sell OS X outright and let people do what they want with it. Apple doesn't have to support the OS, if someone wants to install it on a PC. If Macs are so superior in design and performance, then Macs will still sell and make a lot of money for Apple. In the meantime, Apple will become more popular in the business sector, which is the market they are going after anyway. Apple has nothing to lose and everything to gain by selling their OS as a stand alone product.

[EPonj]

As Mdawson tried to explain (and did pretty well, but some seem to have a hard time understanding this), Apples business model is pretty profitable. With this model they can easily release a stable and powerfull OS, pretty much like gaming consoles OS. If they were to license OSX for clones, it would be the same pain as Windows is for computer noobs (if not worse). It would hurt Apple pretty much. Apple is not in business to make people happy, they're there to make billions. And it work pretty well with their business model.
Now EULA is not law, and it's the court to decide if this EULA is legal or not (I couldn't tell). Now with Psystar going probably out of business, we might never know. I never trusted Psystar anyway, but at least they questionned the lawfull nature of OSX EULA.

edit: as for suggesting MS being one of Psystars backers, I laughed...

[mdawson]

Quote

EPonj wrote:

>

Quote

Now EULA is not law, and it's the court to decide if this EULA is legal or not (I couldn't tell).

Correct. A EULA is not law, but it is a contract and OS X is a licensed product that one must enter into the contract to use legally because Apple has exclusive ownership of their operating system. Contract law is well established in Western culture. No court will ever rule EULAs unlawful on products the consumers cannot purchase outright any more than they would rule against a rental lease, employment contract, terms for scholarships/grants/fellowships, etc.

A EULA on a Mac, iPod or iPhone is unlawful because ownership of those products is transferred to the consumer upon purchase. The courts have already ruled that EULAs are invalid on products upon which there is a transfer of ownership. Software is copyrighted intellectual property and our legal system gives the owner carte blanc rights to set the terms of use over that which they own as long as those terms do not violate any existing law. A ruling against Apple on software EULAs means that a landlord cannot dictate the terms for residence in a rental property, all car rental terms are invalid, etc.

The only thing that a court may rule against where contracts are concerned is the legality of challenged terms. Finding terms unlawful does not invalidate the contract, just the unlawful terms. Judge Alsop has already thrown out Psystar?s assertion that Apple does not have the right to maintain absolute control over their (licensed) product as per the EULA; hence the reason Psystar?s legal team backpedaled and is now claiming copyright abuse.

For some reason, people seem to take it upon themselves to treat EULAs as if they are some mystical new thing that that software companies pulled out of their collective a?es. A EULA is a class of contract just as a lease is a class of contract. All contracts made between those that may lawfully enter into such an agreement?for instance, a contract with a minor is not valid unless that minor has adult representation with default (parental) or granted power of attorney for that minor?are legally binding under US law.