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Posted on 02/09/2009 8:39:47 AM PST by Swordmaker
Psystar can argue Apple abused copyright laws, judge rules
A federal judge last week ruled that Psystar Corp. can continue its countersuit against Apple Inc., giving the Mac clone maker a rare win in its seven-month-old battle with Apple.
He also hinted that if Psystar proves its allegations, others may then be free to sell computers with Mac OS X already installed.
In an order signed on Friday, U.S. District Court Judge William Alsup gave Psystar the go-ahead to amend its lawsuit against Apple. According to Alsup, Psystar may change that countersuit, which originally accused Apple of breaking antitrust laws, to instead ague that Apple has stretched copyright laws by tying the Mac operating system to its hardware.
(Excerpt) Read more at computerworld.com ...
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There are MP3 players but none that have the iPod user interface.
Does Psystar purchase legit copies of operating system from Apple for their computers?
I don’t understand why Apple would fight this.
They could make much more money selling the software without the cost of producing the machine.
Originally, they bought some of them from Apple, but once Apple learned they were being installed in violation of the licence, they will no longer sell to them direct.
Actually, they would not. OSX development is subsidized by Mac sales. I’ve run the numbers several time and posted them on FR: Apple would have to dominate the OS market in both OEM and retail sales to merely replace the profit from computer sales. That’s without considering the escalated support costs for multiple platforms with a multiplicity of components.
Wrong. Apple makes the lion's share of their revenue through hardware sales. Their software is the sales tool for the hardware.
And the whole point being missed - while Apple hardware and OS may be a "closed" loop - this is part of the reason for the major difference in stability. When you write your OS and software for hardware that you produce - thus having control over the components, their firmware, and their interacting - then you can produce software that is much more stable. And while we Mac users can add Hard Drives, Optical Drives, memory, and quite a few other component upgrades (depending on the machine you have), those still fall into a set of parameters. If it does not - Apple does not officially support those changes.
One problem I see - if the court decides that Apple cannot limit other hardware makers from producing "compatible" machines and selling with Apple's OS, then the next step is requiring Apple to SUPPORT this other hardware - which is kind of like you buying a Chevy Truck, putting in a Ford motor, then expecting Chevy to be responsible for your truck's mechanical operation...
U.S. District Court Judge William Alsup gave Psystar the go-ahead to amend its lawsuit... [to] argue that Apple has stretched copyright laws by tying the Mac operating system to its hardware.Interesting.
Yes they did until Apple cut them off..
It's been that way since the very beginning. And we all know how that turned out...and why.
ping
I am not sure what to think about this.
> Wrong. Apple makes the lion's share of their revenue through hardware sales. Their software is the sales tool for the hardware.
> OS X development is subsidized by Mac sales.
Spot on.
Where do these people get the idea that Apple is a software company just because they sell an operating system with their hardware? APPLE SELLS SYSTEMS.
I think maybe it's because these people want to play Apple off as a competitor to Microsoft. Wrong. Apple's SYSTEMS compete with the COMBINATION of Microsoft and all the PC-hardware vendors.
Does Psystar purchase legit copies of operating system from Apple for their computers?
Actually, the court case is about the operative definition of "legit." It has been SOP for software vendors to specify in the license not only that it's illegal to bootleg a copy of the software but also what machine(s) a licensed copy may be run on. For example, a database software license might cost "x" for legally running the database program on a PC class of machine and "10x" to run the same software on a mainframe. And so it is with Apple, the vendor of OS X.AAPL is willing to license the use of OS X only on machines they build. Because, as others noted, AAPL's business model is that the software sells the hardware. Relatively few would buy a Mac to run only Windows/Linux without OS X, and many more would buy OS X for their el cheapo machines if that were legal. The problem being that AAPL can't make much money selling OS X and Macs seperately.
If the court were to break AAPL's business model, the money for further development of OS X would be diverted by clone makers and AAPL would be right back where it was before Jobs returned. OS X would stagnate. Microsoft might be in the same sort of pickle under the licensing regime demanded by Psystar because that might allow thousands of netbooks to run Windows and Office online - with a single supercomputer made with Intel CPUs doing all the work executing a single licensed copy of Windows and Office. It would be a "tragedy of the commons" situation just like when everyone is allowed to graze their flock on government property, and overgrazing is inevitable because nobody has any incentive to leave any grass for anyone else.
Of course successful competition by Linux against Microsoft would have the same effect, but that would simply mean that amateurs were able to beat pros, and there is therfore no reason for pros to exist. If that be the case, so be it - but if under its present business model AAPL can do a superior OS development which outruns the development of Linux, then we should want them to do it.
Note that I emphasize development, an ongoing activity, rather than the state of the art existing at a particular time. Socialism fails in competition with capitalism precisely because socialism assumes away all dynamism in the economy. Socialism solves oversimplified "straw man" problems but prevents the solution of the hard problems of real life. Socialized medicine is a solution to the problem of delivery of existing medical technology but is never going to lead capitalism in developing new medical technology. With the result, in the short run, that people die for lack of advances in medicine - and in the the long run they don't even save money because the cost of delivery of existing medical processes isn't driven down.
And modern management theory states that if you aren't trying to improve, you are getting worse. Socialists are so busy bean counting that they are incompetent at trying to improve, therefore practice under socialism actually degrades with time.
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