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Tuesday August 26, 2008
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Psystar hasn't exactly been on the defensive since it was sued by Apple back in July for selling Mac clones. The company has even gone so far as add Leopard startup disks to its still-shipping PCs. And now this.
Today, the Florida-based company held a press conference announcing plans to file a countersuit against Apple under two antitrust acts, calling the company's behavior pertaining to its ties between hardware and software "an anticompetitive restrain of trade."
According to CNET, the suit is set to be filed later today. "My goal is to provide an alternative, not to free the Mac OS," Psystar head, Rudy Pedraza told the site. "It's not that people don't want to use Mac OS, many people are open to the idea, but they're not used to spending an exorbitant amount of money on something that is essentially generic hardware."
Psystar's OpenComputer Mac model is not to be confused with Open Tech, another Mac Clone manufacture that made news today by putting itself up for sale for $50,000. Unlike Psystar, Open Tech's models don't ship with the Apple OS.
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August 26, 2008 7:57 PM
Hah! The old "monopoly" argument, eh?
There's a really great report on this over here:
http://cultofmac.com/psystar-sues-apple/2616
Namely that this argument doesn't fly. If that were the case, we should allow anyone who wants to pick up a proprietary OS, like the XBox OS, the iPod GUI, the PSP GUI, and the TiVO GUI, steal it, sell it, and sell it on their own generic devices.
August 28, 2008 2:51 PM
Ahhh...but the difference is, you can BUY a copy of OS/X (a license), where as you can NOT buy a copy of the XBox OS, the iPOD GUI, etc...
When the software is not offered except pre-installed on a device, you are correct. But if Psystar is selling the machine AND a copy of OS/X (which it is legally paying Apple for) then that argument does not hold the same strength. The question then is: Is Psystar legally obtaining and then legally reselling copies of OS/X? Lets say, for instance, that Company A makes and sells hardware, and Company B is a valid reseller of Apple OS/X. Company A and Company B have an agreement that Company A will load a copy of OS/X on its devices IF the consumer purchases a copy of OS/X from Company B at the same time that they purchase a device from Company A. The law does not preclude a third party installation of your legally licensed copy of the OS. Then the only recourse Apple has is the wording of its license agreement, which in part states "This License allows you to install and use one copy of the Apple Software on a single Apple-labeled computer at a time". Psystar devices are not "Apple-labeled" computers, so the end user is then in violation of the license agreement. And THAT is where they are really sitting ducks...so that is where they are arguing their case that Apple's license agreement is anti-competitive.
August 28, 2008 3:30 PM
Wow - that's a really solid point, Anon. :) We'll see how the courts weigh in on that one; the repercussions could be significant if they find in Psystar's favor there!
August 29, 2008 12:08 AM
Way back when (1960's ?), IBM was found to be anticompetitive when they bundled their mainframes/OS software, and were forced to separate the two. When I was in graduate school (1970's), the university used an IBM plug-compatible mainframe manufactured by ITEL (not Intel!) that ran an OS purchased from IBM.