[shdwsclan]

The apple capable marketplace used to be any PPC architecture.

The only problem is that apple had the cheapest PPC architecture.

IBM machines started, i repeat, started at $5k.



The Apple capable market is now any IA machine that has the hardware compatible with the operating system.



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TrustedPlatformModule

The TPM module can be used to enforce a liscense, but apple does it in such a way that their liscense agreement is actually physically verified on that chip. The chip is not supposed to function in this way. It is supposed to be tied to the user, not to the hardware as apple has done.



Apple is clearly in violation of anti-trust laws.

[mdawson]

Quote

Wondercow wrote:

You think it's "highly likely" that Apple would stop making the Mac OS?! If everything else you've said wasn't proof enough that you're devoid of any knowledge about this topic, then this statement is a definite beacon, drawing attention to your ineptitude in all things Apple and law.

Here, here. I do not even waste my time responding to DisabledTrucker since the first story came along about Psystar he has been rambling on mistruths like a number of others here that I am rapidly growing tired of. These people cannot distinguish between a brand/product and a market. No company has the right to control a market, but all companies are fully within their rights to control and protect their brand.

The Macintosh platform is Apple’s property and that platform is the combination of Apple’s hardware with their operating system, which as you correctly stated early if taken in the very literal sense, Apple has never sold to anyone. People can buy and own Macs, they can only license a copy of the Mac OS, it is still owned by Apple.

And by the way there may be a scenario where Apple does stop making the Mac OS: if these selfish people get their way, and all involved with Psystar or who support them do so out of selfishness, then Apple’s ability to sell hardware will diminish as the price myth continues to perpetuate ultimately resulting in Apple closing up shop because as Steve Jobs stated back in 1997, “(If Apple permits Mac clones they) would have a very hard time returning to profitability, and it would drag down the whole Mac ecosystem.”

So if Psystar wins, everyone that prefers Apple?s OS ultimately loses.

[shdwsclan]

The TPM device is used in such a way as to prevent from other IA32 IA32_EXT computers from running the operating system. Apple's liscense agreement is clear of tha and this is clearly a case of tying, for that specific reason.

Pystar does not need the TPM device for a good argument, since apple can counter that it is only to control piracy of their operating system to disable computers that have not paid for a new version of mac os. I assume all you mac fanboys known that the TPM contains a key and apple does know if you torrented that new version of leopard instead of paying for it and they can prosecute or disable your system as they see fit.

Indeed, apple's liscensing power is there as seen by their software liscense.

Apple does not have a mid level computer at all and the imac is no substitute for a mid level tower.





Pystar is guilty of copyright and trademark infringement for pre-installing Leopard on
systems but Pystar cannot be charged for any such violation for telling people how to do it with a legally purchased version of Mac OSX.

If Pystar had purchased every copy of OSX and then installed a hacked version on their systems from whatever source, then each computer is running a liscensed copy of OSX. Bypassing the TPM is not a valid argument for copyright and patent infridgement.

If Pystar did not pay for every single copy of OSX, then they are guilty of infingement.



Apple is guilty of antitrust thought, because OSX will not install without a TPM check which is strictly used for liscense control.

Techincally sony and microsoft are guilty of this using their XBOX and PS systems. Nintendo may also be guilty of this.


There is no technical reason why OSX could NOT run on a regular PC other than that it does not have a TPM with a valid key.


Apple's liscensing agreement is their only full and solid argument, but sinceapple does not recognized non-appe TPMs and does issue liscense because of such and that can be considered tying.



Apple is a monopoly. Microsoft is harder to tackle, because thier operating system will run on any IA hardware and used to run on ALPHA hardware too.



If apple still had UMAX in the bag and UMAX made AMD based macs, then they would not be guilty of anti truest, but they are as according to most anti-trust laws.



The Safari-on-Windows does soften the argument.......but is still not sufficient..

[Wondercow]

mdawson said:

Here, here. I do not even waste my time responding to DisabledTrucker since the first story came along about Psystar he has been rambling on mistruths like a number of others here that I am rapidly growing tired of.

Too true! It really is a weakness of mine; I just can't let misinformation be spewed out as fact. As I'm sure you've noticed, it takes a lot before I decide to jump from the discussion (or argument :) )

>These people cannot distinguish between a brand/product and a market. No company has the right to control a market, but all companies are fully within their rights to control and protect their brand.

Over in the MacRumors threads there's an actual lawyer (gasp!) posting. Even there people with less-than-no law background are arguing with him about Apple being in the wrong, Psystar winning, and Apple being a monopoly. I guess in a few years we'll have the final answer.

Quote

The Macintosh platform is Apple?s property and that platform is the combination of Apple?s hardware with their operating system, which as you correctly stated early if taken in the very literal sense, Apple has never sold to anyone. People can buy and own Macs, they can only license a copy of the Mac OS, it is still owned by Apple.

What people don't understand is that Apple sells the Mac hardware and OS as a system, i.e. the two go hand-in-hand and are not separable--in terms of the Mac OS being sold separately. The retail OS is simply an upgrade to the system that came with one's Mac. Even if the Mac were purchased second-hand with no OS the hardware is the license to use the purchased OS, which is itself an upgrade of the original, missing OS that came with Mac.

Quote

And by the way there may be a scenario where Apple does stop making the Mac OS: if these selfish people get their way, and all involved with Psystar or who support them do so out of selfishness, then Apple?s ability to sell hardware will diminish as the price myth continues to perpetuate ultimately resulting in Apple closing up shop because as Steve Jobs stated back in 1997, ?(If Apple permits Mac clones they) would have a very hard time returning to profitability, and it would drag down the whole Mac ecosystem.?

Then all of those in the "Apple isn't a computer company" camp would be right ;) What I think is likely to happen, should Psystar somehow win, is that Apple would either return to using custom ROMs to verify the hardware (unlike the assertions of this new guy Apple does not use the TPM) or simply redesign the retail box to explicitly state "UPGRADE"--then no one could claim "Apple sells a retail OS that anyone can buy!".

[mdawson]

How to Spot a Psystar-supporting Troll or Sock Puppet.

1. They typically have (extremely) low post counts and very recent join dates that typically coincide with the initial article about Psystar, the first story about Apple?s suit against Psystar or the most recent piece on Psystar?s countersuit.
bq. As of composing this post DisabledTrucker 234 posts since Aug. 1, 2008 gtbannas 1 post since Aug. 31, 2008 jman3001 18 posts since Aug. 28, 2008 justanothertech 1 post since Aug. 27, 2008 nwspmp 14 posts since Aug. 26, 2008 rab777hp 352 posts since Jun. 11, 2008 robgb 4 posts since Aug. 31, 2008 shdwsclan 6 posts since Aug. 31, 2008
It is quite evident who are the princes of what leary has quite cleverly dubbed the iWant? generation.

2. They almost always resort to name calling referring to anyone that does not share their viewpoint as idiots, morons or fan boys, the latter of which says much about them. In reality, the majority of the people that are defending Apple?s position on this matter are long time participants on these boards, some dating back to the MacCentral days, and are thus also longtime Mac users. As such, we have an intimate memory of the period when Apple did license the Mac OS to a miniscule number of competing OEMs on the PowerPC platform and the resulting impact that it had on Apple. We therefore know from (indirect) experience the most likely outcome of a repeat of that scenario on the x86 platform where there are an infinite number of OEMs to pick off of Apple?s plate and have no desire to relive that time in Mac history.

3. They make unsubstantiated claims about Apple and the Mac, but continually fail to post links to valid citations that back up those claims or cite other forums where their point of view is supported.

4. They cannot differentiate between a product/brands or platforms and a market.
bq. Branded products are owned by the company that produced them and only the owner of that brand may profit from that brand and market recognition of that brand. Brand owners are fully within their rights to bar any business practices that use their brand in such as way that may damage the public image of that brand. A platform is the combination of components that make up a system. A platform may be proprietary under the ownership of a single company, like Apple?s Mac platform, and protected as a brand of that company. A platform may also be open, like the Wintel platform, where companies are only permitted to exercise control over their products and brand(s). A market is a space where products, brands and platforms compete for market share. The market cannot be legally owned by anyone in a free market society.
5. They cannot comprehend or refuse to acknowledge the legal definition of a monopoly. Apple cannot be a (legal) monopoly because Apple?s Mac platform constitutes less than a 10 percent of the PC market in which Apple competes. As numerous people have pointed out, if Apple is a monopoly because they exercise singular control of their products, brand and platform then all companies are monopolies.

6. They accuse Apple of committing anti-trust violations despite the fact that a company that is not a monopoly (5) cannot abuse monopoly power.

7. They accuse Apple of illegally tying together their hardware and operating system.
bq. If there were any truth to this, then any company that creates hardware with a propriety system or drivers would be guilty of anti-trust. Tying is only illegal when it involves collusion with one or more other parties at the exclusion of the rest of the market (e.g., if Microsoft granted OEM licenses to Dell, Gateway, HP and Sony, but refused to grant licenses to Asus, Lenovo, et al.). Apple cannot be in collusion with itself and the tying of its hardware is not completely exclusive. Apple is the sole owner of OS X; anyone else can only license a copy and Apple has full legal rights to dictate the terms of use to a licensee. Apple sells Macs and does not prevent third parties from selling or end users from installing alternate operating systems on hardware that the end user legally owns. The same logic applies to iTunes and the iPod; as long as Apple does not support any portable digital music player other than the iPod, they are not required to do so for any competing player. On the other hand, if a software developer opts to add iPod compatibility to their music management software, Apple would be hard pressed to stop the legal owner of any iPod from exercising that ownership transferred to them by means of their purchase by using stated third-party software let alone prevent the developer from creating stated software or adding such functionality to existing media management software.
8. They cite the fact that Apple does not make consumer-grade towers as validation for Psystar?s activity. The fact of the matter is that the omission of a particular type of product from a Company A?s product line does not entitle Company B to fill that gap using Company A?s brand, and as a result corporate brand image, without the explicit consent of Company A.

9. They bring up the Mac mini as being an inadequate substitute for tower systems, as if Apple has ever advertised the Mac mini as such a product, as justification for Psystar?s actions (8).
bq. The Mac mini is not marketed to people that actually need or will use the expansion capabilities of a tower system at any price point. It is a system designed to serve the real long-term needs of the least demanding of computer users that are for the most part not techies and that will never go inside let alone upgrade their hardware. The Mac mini is also marketed to the potential Switcher to serve as a lost cost test bed to test the waters of the Mac platform. Despite the price point, the Mac mini is not intended to serve as a replacement for bargain basement PCs that are really just stripped down midrange/pro systems, because Apple does not, has never and apparently has no intention to compete in the Wal-Mart PC market.

10. They continue to state the price gap myth as fact in light of the fact that even the PC press has long since reversed its position on this matter due to the fact that it is no longer true. Apple has not only closed the price gap, but reversed it for many of their systems, which brings us to the rules of anti-Mac FUDsters guide to the excessive Mac price deception:
bq. a. Continuously post the pretense that Macs cost more than comparable Wintel PCs with absolutely no citation or links (3). b. Claim that Wintel PC X costs less than Mac Y when the two systems are not even in the same class. c. Claim that Wintel PC X costs less than Mac Y without including all of the features that Mac Y has and PC X does not. d. Make comparisons to specific Macs costing more compared to some vague Wintel PC by providing nothing more than a brand name. e. Always make a point to ignore the fact that all Macs include a few hundred dollars worth of full versions of software. f. Refuse to acknowledge any counter posts that provide brands, model numbers and detailed specs comparing Wintel PCs in the same class as a given Mac including all of the features that would need to be added to make it a truly comparable system when doing so clearly demonstrates that stated Mac is competitively or better priced than stated Wintel PC. g. Dismiss features favorable to a given Mac in a detailed comparison to a truly comparable Wintel PC as inconsequential, negligible or insignificant while doing the opposite when the Wintel PC has the advantage in similar features. h. Claim to have magical powers that allow you to build a PC for orders of magnitude less than a comparable Apple system in defiance of the basic tenants of macro- and microeconomics when PC OEMs that purchase parts in bulk cannot do stated same.
11. They are incapable of getting past their own selfish desire to have a computer that Apple does not make so they cling to a company that provides that product in an illegal manner by claiming that Apple?s platform is a market (4) in which Apple is an abusive monopoly (5, 6, 7) and therefore Psystar has a right to enter (read: infiltrate) that market to supply that which Apple does not (8, 9) and to offer those that wish to use Apple?s operating system without paying Apple?s hardware premium (10) the ability to purchase or build a PC comparable to a Mac at a much lower price point (10).

In the end, this all comes down to the crux of 11, defending one company?s opportunism at the expense of another company?s investment, resources and profitability to satisfy egotism.

iWant? generation indeed.

[newID]

"The apple capable marketplace used to be any PPC architecture.

The only problem is that apple had the cheapest PPC architecture.

IBM machines started, i repeat, started at $5k."



Not true since the 80s apple used ROM chips to lockdown their operating system to their hardware exclusively. Portions of Mac OS were even written to ROM to force any company to reverse engineer the ROM in order to run Mac OS on no apple hardware.

[Shams]

...

[tony_d]

Awesome post, mdawson.
couldn't agree more.
I keep thinking of this debate this way: Can I go out and build a compact Hybrid car and call it a Ford Escort because Ford doesn't build the car I want??

[robgb]

"I keep thinking of this
debate this way: Can I go out and build a compact Hybrid car and call
it a Ford Escort because Ford doesn't build the car I want??"

This is a faulty analogy. Psystar is not claiming they've built a Mac. They've merely built a computer that runs OSX.

The more accurate analogy is building a hybrid car and using a Ford engine. Would Ford sue a company for doing that? I highly doubt it. Because you can buy a Ford engine separately, just as you can buy the Mac OSX separately. And Ford certainly wouldn't be claiming that those hybrids using their engine gives Ford a bad name. And nobody would ever mistake that hybrid for a Ford, unless the makers built a body that looked just like a Ford.

So the whole "infringing on Apple's brand" argument goes out the window. Nobody would ever mistake Psystar's computers for Macs. They don't look like them, and Psystar is not claiming they're Macs.

What this boils down to is this. Apple does not want people to have the opportunity to buy computers that are cheaper than theirs. Because, my God, that would put them in the same position as every other computer maker out there.

[vulpine]

robgb said:

Quote

So the whole "infringing on Apple's brand" argument goes out the window. Nobody would ever mistake Psystar's computers for Macs. They don't look like them, and Psystar is not claiming they're Macs.

You almost had a completely valid argument... but you left out one point: With an OS you always have the OS brand label in front of your face; it would be like putting a Jeep nameplate on a Ford Escort, right there in the middle of the steering wheel. With Windows you have the little 4-color Windows logo in the task bar; with OS X you have the little "bitten-apple" logo in the corner of the menu bar; things you can't get rid of without some sort of 'hack.'

What this means is that, while the hardware may not have Apple's name or logo on it, the display will always have Apple's logo on it in any non-full-screen application (games and other apps that do not require the Menu Bar will probably have it hidden.) The average consumer (not techies like you and me) will see this logo and complain loudly about Apple's poor quality every time their Psystar machine acts up, despite knowing that the machine isn't the OS. One look at all the discontent about Windows to see a prime example of it. Over 90% of the time, issues on Dell, HP and other Windows boxes are blamed on the OS, not on the hardware it resides. This same mindset would work against Apple just as strongly.

Now, imagine if Dell completely rebranded all the OSes they installed on their machines. Dell would immediately take the blame for everything that goes wrong and the kudos for everything that goes right; despite the fact that it was probably Windows under the skin. Dell's not likely to do that if they can push their problems off on Microsoft. Just look at their customer service some time and see how often they blame Windows and don't take responsibility themselves. No, I'm not criticizing Dell here, but I am giving an analogy of what will happen if Psystar is allowed to continue what it's doing or Apple ever releases their OS to the generic market.

Brand identification is most often based on the most visible brand in everyday use, which for a computer is the OS, not the hardware. Psystar's low-quality hardware would, most definitely, harm Apple's brand recognition and reputation.
Message was edited by: vulpine for spelling errors.

[robgb]

"You almost had a
completely valid argument... but you left out one point: With an OS you
always have the OS brand label in front of your face; it would be like
putting a Jeep nameplate on a Ford Escort, right there in the middle of
the steering wheel."
Nice try, but that doesn't wash. If you buy a Mac and run Windows on it, getting that big Windows logo when you start it up, does that make it a Dell or an HP? No. It makes it a Mac that runs Windows and the user is well aware of that.

If you put a Jeep nameplate on a Ford Escort you are purposely trying to dupe the buyer. That simply isn't the case here.

Any customer who gets a Psystar machine is well aware that it can run three different operating systems and it's THEIR choice which one to choose. So there is no attempt to mislead anyone into thinking they've bought a Mac.

By the way, most computers, when booted, show the logo of the company that built the computer. The first thing you see is DELL or HP or Acer, or whatever. That's what identifies the computer. The operating system is identified later.

[tony_d]

But when I turn on the Psystar the screen looks like a Mac. Unless they removed the Apple logo on the menu bar and the Finder icon in the dock it will look like a Mac. Of course if they did that that I think would be a copyright infringement (as you would have to hack the software to remove those, but then again I can change those myself so who knows.)
As for the Ford argument my point was I can't use the Ford name nor the Escort (its trademarked). Any company that builds a vehicle using a Ford engine, as you suggested, has to have Ford's permission to do so if they are going to sell it. Just ask UPS, most of their trucks have Ford engines, but Ford doesn't build their trucks. You think Ford would warranty all those engines without their permission? As for looking like a Ford, I recall a company in California that built '69 Camaro bodies that just needed engines. GM sued them and won. GM now licenses the company to sell the bodies. Companies have a right to protect their trademarks. The Mac is a trademark as is the Finder icon and of course the Apple logo on the screen, which appears twice during startup, BTW.

As for the running Windows on the Mac, Apple allows that. Its not a hack. But Microsoft's logo is still on the OS. If you are using virtualization software it still looks like a Mac. (I'm not 100% sure of this as I'm still using a PPC and my wife refuses to install windows on her new MacBook.)
Message was edited by: tony_d

[robgb]

"But when I turn on the Psystar the screen looks like a Mac."

I don't own a Psystar machine, so I can't tell you what it says. But if it's like a Dell or an HP, then the first thing that comes up is the computer manufacturer's logo. And just because Vista is in front of me doesn't negate the fact that it's still a Dell or an HP.

[Grapho]

Well informed clear and eloquently written. As always, good summery of this entire discussion.