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Psystar To Sell 'Secret Sauce' Behind Mac Clones

informationweek.com — Despite its embroilment in a copyright lawsuit with Apple, tiny Psystar said that it plans on licensing its controversial Mac cloning technology to third parties.

Who dugg this? Made popular Oct 6, 2009

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  • Nephersir7, on 10/06/2009, -0/+36Would be nice if they hadn't had stolen it from the open source community in the first place. All you need to run Apple's OS on non-apple hardware is a bootloader. There are a couple of open-source ones, notably PCEFI and Chameleon.


  • dscan, on 10/06/2009, -0/+26I thought they were talking about Big Macs.
  • TheWindBlows, on 10/06/2009, -1/+15Psystar's "Secret Sauce", Darwin Universal Boot Loader, actually turns out to be Chameleon and they were in direct violation by repackaging and holding the code hostage. Thats why they're "releasing it", because there would of been a 100% no struggle lawsuit against them. As far as Psystar's legal standing is in their Apple case, it's just a long drawn out do-or-die for them ( leaning more toward the die side though ).
  • jasmus, on 10/06/2009, -0/+13Someone please correct emn if I'm wrong, but could Psystar not avoid all this crap by simply not installing OSX? Provide the computer as a system with a bootloader installed, and a Retail DVD of OSX seperately. I realise this will be an extra annoying, and possibly detering step for some customers, but those who are buying a generic PC with OSX on it are likely to have at least enough knowledge to do it themselves.
  • amishsamurai, on 10/06/2009, -6/+17I find it funny that Apple's advertising campaign portrays them as hip and loose, while the PC is represented by a tightwad pencil pusher.

    In reality, the PC environment has always promoted complete openness and freedom: No two parts in my system, except for the mobo and gpu, are made by the same manufacturer. Microsoft doesn't give two ***** what type of machine you install it on, or whether you choose to also install FREE OPEN SOURCE programs and OSs like Linux/KDE.

    Apple, on the other hand, requires their hardware, their software, purchased directly from their stores, and anything else is illegal. ...Oh, wait, but you can use Bootcamp for Windows! Never mind, Apple rocks! The day Apple allows Mac OS to be installed on a regular PC is the day I give a ***** what Apple's license says I can and cannot do.
  • virtualonliner, on 10/06/2009, -1/+11I am sorry, but you are wrong. Just last week, a judge ruled secondhand sell OK in Autodesk vs eBay seller. In that case, Autodesk claimed the exact same thing that they are "licensing" and not "selling", hence no resale.
    From the article below "But no matter how Autodesk describes the agreement with customers, it is transferring ownership to end-users, the judge, from the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington, found." So yeah, no matter how Apple makes it sound when you "buy" their software, they cannot have control.

    http://www.pcworld.com/article/172973/in_autodesk_ ...
  • MScrip, on 10/06/2009, -1/+11But the problem is still that fact that Psystar is *selling* those computers.

    It's like Jurassic Park: "You stood on the shoulders of geniuses to accomplish something as fast as you could, and before you knew what you had... you patented it, packaged it, slapped in on a plastic lunch box, and now you’re selling it, you want to sell it..."
  • Myztry, on 10/06/2009, -0/+10If you're buying through retail then it's actually a government deemed sales contract for which your rights are granted and limited by the government. That is actual law as opposed to terms which are POTENTIALLY empowered through court order and relevant contract law.
    Now, the EULA is what is termed an adhesion contract for it attempts to adhere to the existing contract of sale. You are under no obligation to accept the adhesion contract, and if you are coerced or duressed the contract is invalid anyway.
    Under a sales contract you have the right to modify the commodity in order to obtain or continue use. A car manufacturer (despite billions of dollars of IP and investment) can't forbid you from repairing or modifying your car to serve any legal purpose.
    There are limits as to what you can do with the commodity under law. You can't for example make a copy and sell it as a genuine item. You can add wings and a jet engine, and fly into airspace. But these are laws for good reason and not for the purpose of anti-competition.
    Now, this would all be different if the software was supplied under the terms of a contract of supply. Where the contract is formed prior to the goods being supplied. The software industry doesn't even bother to identity the parties in the pseudo contract. A basic prerequisite of any contract.
    The whole EULA scam is ass backwards and contrary to all basic concepts of rights. It's as stupid as selling someone a house and requiring them to enter an arbitrary contract in order to gain the key. Unfortunately it's gaining a common law like precedent as the practise in becoming so 'common' which I think is another of saying 'debased'.
  • DrANVIL, on 10/06/2009, -1/+10IT'S PEOPLE!!! THE SECRET SAUCE IS MADE OF PEOPLE!!!
  • PainToad, on 10/06/2009, -1/+9You mean the "secret" that they stole from the osx86 scene and is already freely available?
  • snafflepaffle, on 10/06/2009, -6/+14Apple isn't selling you software. It's selling you a license to run their software and as a license they have the right to tell you what you can and can't do with their software.

    I'm sorry if you don't like it that way but there is well established legal precedent.
  • patriamus, on 10/06/2009, -0/+8the secret sauce for big macs is 1000 island.. try it if you think i'm lying
  • a22e, on 10/06/2009, -0/+7I read this as "Psystar To Sell 'Secret Sauce' Behind BigMac Clones" My first thought was: 'Boy, is Ronald going to be pissed!'
  • MScrip, on 10/06/2009, -3/+10I'm not outraged at Psystar... Apple is.

    You don't see Apple kicking down the door of some guy's house as he builds a Hackintosh, do you?

    No. But Psystar publicly said, "We're selling open computers... ignoring everyone's copyright in the process. What could possibly go wrong?"
  • inactive, on 10/06/2009, -1/+8I wonder who is behind Psystar, regarding legal backing. Surely Apple would have the legal means to tie up anything Psystar does. How can Psystar afford to stay afloat?
  • inactive, on 10/06/2009, -0/+6palehorse: More specifically, that's how the PC market came into existence. Without the reverse engineering of the IBM-PC BIOS, the PC market as we know it wouldn't exist in its current form. IIRC, it was compaq that did it, the "Psystar" of the 80's if you will.
  • alpha88, on 10/06/2009, -0/+5They can't.
  • snafflepaffle, on 10/06/2009, -1/+6Can you say 'injunction'? Judge would grant that in about 60 seconds.
  • amishsamurai, on 10/06/2009, -2/+7that wasnt my point. my point is they dont have retarded stipulations on how/where you install it.
  • fuzzynyanko, on 10/06/2009, -1/+6Believe it or not, if they can prove that Psystar is using Apple IP to do it with, they do. However, if someone buys a legal copy of Mac OSX and doesn't modify it using any of Apple's stuff and makes it run, it's probably legal
  • palehorse864, on 10/06/2009, -1/+6Are they actually using something of Apple's code in this or coming up with a workaround?

    Years ago, IBM had its own PC and had a special protection chip so that none of it would work without them building it. Someone found a way to reverse engineer it and I believe there was a suit and a case about it. IBM lost and now a large proportion of us are using IBMPC compatibles.

    It would be interesting if someone did the same with apple osx.
  • enantiodromia, on 10/06/2009, -1/+6Pystar's secret sauce is neither "secret" nor "sauce"; it's "twenty minutes of browsing any bit torrent site"
  • sleeplesson, on 10/06/2009, -0/+5So what I get from most people's comments is.

    Violating an OSS license is bad. Violating a non-OSS license is just fine.
  • MattBlackCat, on 10/06/2009, -1/+5Kill your competition by dragging them through the courts until they give up or go bust.
    It's hardlly an ethical business practice.
  • gaymathman, on 10/06/2009, -3/+7It'd be perfectly fine if they were selling computers with an OSS bootloader, the problem arises when they won't give out the source or claim it's their own if it is a modified OSS project. For example, Apple sells OS X, of which most all the technical portions are open source. People buy it because of the GUI and Apple development libraries; it's a win-win. Apple gets a better OS than they could have made by themselves, and the BSD project gets paid Apple employees developing.
  • Myztry, on 10/06/2009, -1/+5About the same time as it takes to write a cheque...
  • srg13, on 10/06/2009, -0/+4@gaymathman: Mac OS X's kernel is APSL (Apple Public Source Licence) licensed, not GPL. Also, the kernel is based on NEXT's Mach/XNU kernel, with parts of BSD plus Apple's IOKit framework. Cocoa and Carbon are closed source.
  • jasmus, on 10/06/2009, -4/+8Microsoft is a software company, they don't care what you install their software on. Apple is a hardware company, they don't care what you install on their hardware, including FREE OPEN SOURCE programs and OSs like Linux/KDE.

    I purchase my copy of Snow Leopard from a local retailer, not Apple. I purchase generic RAM to upgrade my Mac mini, and could have purchased a generic hard disk as well. None of this was illegal.
  • tnoy, on 10/06/2009, -0/+4There a few different issues at play in this case.

    1) Apple claims that Psystar is potentially using Apple's intellectual property in their method of getting OS X to boot properly. Say, Psystar gets some code of some ROM that is built into Apple hardware and using that. A future court case is going to show this to be true or not. If Psystar is doing this, then they're violating copyright.

    2) Apple claims that Psystar is violating the EULA by installing OS X on non-Apple hardware.

    3) Psystar is claiming that Apple is violating anti-trust laws by illegally tying the sale of OS X to the sale of Apple hardware. Tying two products is illegal in the US when the two products can be used separately and are in two different markets. (roughly; things like market size, value, and how the tying is enforced are factors)

    4) Psystar is claiming Apple is also violating anti-trust by putting in extra code with Snow Leopard that makes it more difficult for them to get OS X running on non-Apple hardware. Since the legality of what Psystar has yet to be determined, Psystar is able to make the claim that Apple is illegally shutting out other OEMs. If Apple is not illegally tying their products, and Psystar is illegally using OS X, then this claim will just be thrown out.
    possibly others, but thats the main points going on right now.
  • enrq, on 10/06/2009, -0/+3a whole bunch of people above you did too.
  • theCoffee, on 10/06/2009, -4/+7I'm not a lawyer...

    But legally speaking, does Mac have the right to say which hardware their operating system can go on? And how does this count as "copyright" infringement?
  • MattBlackCat, on 10/06/2009, -0/+3You obviously don't work in IT then ;-)
  • Elranzer, on 10/06/2009, -0/+3Ironically enough, IBM no longer sells "IBM compatible PCs" anymore.
  • Atomic8086, on 10/06/2009, -0/+3That should work but I've always thought Apple should just bake the cost of the OS and all future upgrades into the cost of the device, then make the OS and all upgrades free and tie the license to run the OS hardware. They do this with the iPod and it works great. You buy apple hardware and you get a license to run any version of their OS you want that's supported on your hardware platform. No hardware, no license. Someone could manufacture compatible hardware but they can't sell you a license because the only way to legally obtain a license is to purchase apple hardware. No one makes a legal iPod clones because you can't buy the OS license to put on it. Apple is the only personal computer manufacture that's uniquely positioned to exploit this model since they make the hardware and the OS, I don't understand why they don't do this with OSX.
  • inactive, on 10/06/2009, -0/+2You assume Psystar has legal merit.
  • pika2000, on 10/06/2009, -2/+4Yay, go digg me down! Obviously the Apple haters love Psystar screwing the OSx86 project and communities.
  • bilbohicks, on 10/06/2009, -1/+3Do Dell, HP, Samsung, Sony or any other 'hardware company' make all their own *****?

    Thought not.
  • peterinjapan, on 10/08/2009, -0/+2Funny how these guys got zero support for anyone who owns a Mac. Total hostility to them by all Apple blogs that I saw. Interesting psychology behind that. Of course, Apple's protected "walled garden" system makes for a BETTER actual computing experience than all the open systems like Linux. But no one here will admit that...
  • merdok, on 10/06/2009, -0/+2hehe me too mate :)

    Patriamus is right though, its just a slight variation on 1000 island, but if you use hellmans 1000 island you can barely tell the difference.
  • mst3kcrow, on 10/06/2009, -0/+2No but you can turn it into a hot plate.
  • fuzzynyanko, on 10/06/2009, -1/+2Wow. It's been a long time since I have seen someone use "Wintel"
  • harvinator24, on 10/06/2009, -5/+6 Some of you seem to have a short memory. Do any of you remember the 90s when Apple almost died because they licensed their software to third party manufactures? They lost the market on their own computers buy allowing others to under sell them. Apple does not want that to happen again. Also, it would be a huge shift in their culture to start having to design software and trouble shoot problems on hundreds/thousands of different computers.

    They want to keep that 36 billion in the bank and make even more money then they have now. Yes, with just the iphone and the ipods Apple can stay afloat, but the heart of their company is and hopefully will continue to be with making great computers with a great operating system.
  • twodollars, on 10/06/2009, -1/+2I have to stop working at McDonalds, its all I see!
  • palehorse864, on 10/06/2009, -1/+2How does this relate to the IBM-PC issue years ago where IBM didn't want anyone making reverse engineered clones of their pc's?
  • Elranzer, on 10/06/2009, -1/+2Apple isn't above unethical practices.
  • ZellD, on 10/09/2009, -0/+1@Myztry

    I think the disclaimer of 'subject to terms and conditions' and the small print on the back of receipts takes care of that issue.

    But let's assume your right and a mom and pop store sells you OS X without any agreement. Then that simply means that the mom and pop store is in violation of Apple's IP rights. By purchasing the software as a retailer they agree to abide by apple's restrictions on how that IP can be distributed.

    In the real world they likely won't care to prosecute the mom and pop store. IP violations happen all the time that go unpunished. Simply because you bought it at a store without agreement, however, does not give you the right to do whatever you want with a piece of software. This would be akin to buying a stolen item.

    Using retail laws is not an effective method to get around IP laws. A better tactic would be fair use. In this situation it is almost a given that the courts will decide Apple is in the right and Psystar is in the wrong. Particularly because Psystar is modifying IP for profit. An individual might successfully claim fair use for OS X hackintoshing but a for-profit company would have a lot harder time.
  • Myztry, on 10/06/2009, -0/+1EULA adhesion contracts. Meh. Easily overcome by taking advantage of the fact that adhesion contracts don't survive transfer of ownership, or sale as we otherwise call it. The new owner does not inherit prior agreements made with third parties, and the right of sale can not be denied.
    The easiest method would be to install OS X on genuine hardware bypassing the behaviours that prevent legal use of the commodity by duress, and then sell the commodity as exists in it's usable form encapsulated in the hard drive while returning the goods back to the governance of the original retail sales agreement.
  • Elranzer, on 10/06/2009, -1/+2You can have open standards without being open source. When will people like enant learn this?
  • enrq, on 10/06/2009, -1/+2how does it NOT relate?
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