News Apple seeks injunction against Psytar

http://www.bit-tech.net/news/bits/2009/11/26/apple-seeks-injunction-against-psystar/1

Apple is seeking a permanent injunction against hackintosh retailer Psystar following a summary judgement against the company - and is also looking for monetary damages.

 

I can understand Apple wanting to protect themselves from other people selling their IP

What I can't understand is that they won't sell the OS separately for themselves. Sure less people would may buy the workstations / laptops, but there will always be a hardware market share for Apple - especially as many people seem to live by a form over function ethos.

The fact that people will still install it shows that there would be a market for the OS on it's own - if there wasn't a 4 figure sum involved for the overpriced hardware to go with it.

TLDR - They're not going to stop people using OSX on non-apple systems. People in the know will still go out and do it. Why not make money from the people that want the software and not the hardware...

 

Solution; get Pystar to pay royalties/licensing fees. Apple wins, Psytar wins, and the consumers win.

 

Brooxy if you manufactured cars would you really want your customers coming to you and demanding you only sell them the steering wheel?

 

Same argument goes for movies, really. Why won't they offer a legitimate movie download service? Because they're a bunch of &*@^s.

 

They usually do if you ask them - a cheaper one can be found at a scrapyard, but they will sell it to you if you ask...

Besides I wasn't saying to ONLY sell the OS - I know some people that have bought Macbooks, only to put XP on them as they like to look of the laptop.

 

this would be more a case of wanting to buy only the engine, not the chassis

 

It's their software and such so they have the right to do what they want.

But it this just not another example of badly used power?
They can just stop Psystar making these systems, and cripple the business nevermind the rest of this crap.

And in terms of damages, honestly what non tech person knows what a hackintosh is?
Its a load of BS. Theres still millions of fanboys out there.

 

Brooxy. The point being, if you had a hugely successful company that you had spent a couple of decades building up to a market cap of $200billion, they seem to be doing alright. Maybe post your idea on their forums and see if they'll discuss it with you

 

They don't offer just the OS because they are not a software company, they are a hardware company. They make money by selling a smaller number of machines at a high margin. OSX is just a tool used to sell their hardware. Many of the people who install OSX on a hackintosh would go with a cracked version even if you could buy a full version. There are a certain number of people however, that would buy just the OS, but buy the whole system because you can't buy just the OS. It is these people Apple doesn't want to lose money on.

It's also not as simple as just changing the eula to allow the installation on other systems. There are numerous drivers to write, training for support staff, and providing support for all of these new possible system combinations. Whether you think its a good thing or not, Apple systems are more generally stable, and support(not claiming reliability) is better because of the limited number of systems they support. Apple is going to stay a hardware company for now, and if I were a stockholder, which I'm unfortunately not, I would want them to prevent the sale of cheap OSX boxes as well.

 

Fair point. I can understand that they are a successful company building on an existing marketing ethos (not sure if that is the correct term). I was merely saying I don't understand why it is the way it is. Until reading the reply from frojoe - I forgot to take into account the costs for support staff and new drivers

/has admitted defeat already

 

Brooxy. I reckon in time, then they might go much more diverse and maybe even give Microsoft a headache at the same time. But what they do, they do really well and it's not a case of them abusing powers, they just run a business alongside Microsoft but MS is much more prevalent due to cheap PC's everywhere.

 

Of course, if they diversified, they would have the same problems as MS. So crack down on Psystar? Let them sell Hackintoshes to people who can't afford Macs, then Apple gets more money than it would if that kind of person didn't actually buy anything from Apple and Psystar gets the flak in terms of tech support.

 

+1 I'd let them ( Psystar ) pay a fee to use it then pay for the support as well. At least that way more consumers could get a feel for the Apple OSX which in turn could lead to more people buying Apple hardware as well. Can't really see how they ( Apple ) could lose if they took this route.

 

If the cheap psystar machines ran into troubles it could harm Apples reputation of being problem free. I'm not saying that would happen, but it is a possibility. I could see it going either way for Apple if they let psystar continue.

 

Apple will never allow OSX on other hardware. The majority of Mac users don't buy them because there better, the buy them because they think there buying into a exclusive club. Remember the reactions both on Bit and the rest of the net when it was rumoured that Apple might release cheap macs?

It'll just add the first quote from teh BT comments section:

"It removes sort of a specialness of owning a macbook if people can get a budget one. Kind of annoying if they bring it in."

Most Mac users I've met have this attitude, I used to spend alot of time fixing the things so have come across alot of Mac users (probably 2000+)

 

I wouldn't mind giving the OS a trial, but I don't want to buy an apple.
Thanks to Apple's narrow mindedness this'll never happen.

 

Injunction goes against Psystar, Psystar owners launch under a different name, everything starts over - Apple waste more money on silly legal battles. etc etc

 

Who cares if it only is 900mhz just as long as it costs over 9000!

 

I feel like this is really close to the line between IP rights and fair use. If Psystar can legally purchase copies of OSX then I think it's fair use to put them on any hardware they want to. I'm not sure about the legalities here, but ethically I think Apple has overstepped that line here. If you make and sell a product you don't get to tell customers how to use that product.

What if it were the other way around? What if some company bought a bunch of legit copies of windows and installed them on, say, a PS3 (I know it's not possible, but bear with me here). Can you see MS even raising an eyebrow, much less suing to stop them? I agree that the IP in OSX is a valuable commodity, but being a commodity means that it can be bought and sold, and once sold the seller does not get to say how it can be used.