The brothers behind Psystar - detailed article | Hacker News Reader

The brothers behind Psystar - detailed article

miaminewtimes.com

17 pointsbandris17 comments

"Robert says he found his own way around Apple's built-in security devices. The breakthrough meant that, among other things, the cheap machines were virtually immune to viruses and hackers."

what a bizarre article.

Journalists, eh? At least they wrote the rest of the article well enough.

Just a guess: he may be referring to the belief that Mac OS X is more safe than Windows on the same PC for ordinary users.

Random thought: if Psystar prevails, couldn't Apple just stop selling standalone OS X licenses? Force everyone to come in to the genius bar when they want an upgrade?

At the cost of making the process much more painful for legitimate customers, while recovering only a very small number of lost hardware sales.

(And that's before you consider that people will just find a way to lift the OS image off an installed Mac and share it on the Internet, whereas today at least a lot pay for their copies.)

Just thinking out loud. It's not like Apple is above imposing some inconvenient DRM to further their goals

(And sure people can still copy the OS, but then it's pretty indefensible copyright infringement)

How would that work?

Rudy scoffs at the idea he borrowed from the Hackintosh scene. "The first thing you have to do is unlearn everything you've read online about how to make this work," Rudy says, "because it's all wrong."

For something so wrong, it seems to be working fine for lots of people...

I love the fact one of the brothers complains about other clone makers ripping them off, letting them do all the legal hard work.

Sucks when people sell your efforts as their own, huh?

Slightly different... Apple still get the cost of the licence for OS X, so they still get revenue from every PsyStar sold. PsyStar are not imitating the Apple hardware design, they are not copying the Apple look and feel and cloning everything - they are simply shipping a PC with OS X installed.

I think he's referring to the fact that Psystar relies on the OSX86 community to do its R&D. The fact that Apple has singled them out for a lawsuit is entirely different.

Saying that you paid Apple for the Mac OS license is laughable. Mac OS license is not a separate product. The price for the license is 29$ only because Apple considers it an upgrade for the Mac computer you have already bought from Apple. Mac OS upgrade is a bonus and only Mac owners are qualified.

Yes, you can buy a $29 upgrade to 10.6 if you already have 10.5. But there's also a full version of 10.6 for $129 for users that have 10.4.

The question is not about the price, 29$ or 129$ it is still a bonus. Apple's business is about Macs, not Mac OS licences.

Yeah, this was a very uncritical puff piece. Psystar has been selling the open source stuff as their own, directly in violation of the APSL, etc. Here are some references:

http://netkas.org/?p=62 http://netkas.org/?p=310

I like this article. It frames it as David vs. Goliath and looks very good for Psystar.

rebuttal:

http://www.engadget.com/2009/11/11/psystar-founders-claim-th...

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