Apple wins attack of the clones

Sees off Psystar

By John Oates, 16th November 2009

Apple has won its long legal battle against clone Mac maker Psystar.

Psystar came to the attention of Apple's many lawyers in July 2008 a few months after it started selling a $400 box capable of running Apple's OSX.

Apple claimed infringement of copyright, trademarks and of its licensing agreements while Psystar claimed fair use rights.

Judge William Alsup's court of Northern California ruled in Apple's favour on all counts. Psystar is now likely to face claims for damages from Steve Jobs. Psystar is attempting a parallel defence in Florida, where the firm is based.

The court heard that Psystar installed a copy of Mac OSX onto a Mac mini. It removed the bootload and removed and replaced certain kernel extensions so the software would run on non-Mac hardware.

There are some issues around trademarks, breach of contract and unfair competition still to be sorted out.

The court will reconvene 14 December. Groklaw, as ever, has the details and a copy of the actual judgement.

Back in the olden days Apple used to support a variety of clone makers offering non-Apple hardware which could run Apple software but the plug was pulled when Jobs returned to the company in the late 90s. ®

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Posted Tuesday 17th November 2009 06:00 GMT

Stephen 2

Microsoft forced to disable IE

Reading this reminds me of Microsoft being forced to remove IE as the default browser in Windows OS.

Everyone keeps commenting about how Apple have the right to do what they want with their software and limit what others can do. Why don't M$ have this right?

Posted Monday 16th November 2009 21:58 GMT

Ian Davies

@RTNavy

Dear Numb Nuts, please explain how Apple could possibly provide support for an installation of their OS that has been altered in order to run on non-Apple hardware?

As someone else pointed out, Apple is not in the OS business, they are in the computer systems business. Hardware. Software.

Apple doesn't want to sell copies of the Mac OS to run on other people's hardware any more than it wants to sell hardware that just runs someone else's OS.

Where have you been while history was happening? The previous guys at Apple tried licensing the OS and it very nearly killed the company.

Posted Monday 16th November 2009 21:27 GMT

Anonymous Coward

I built a Hackintosh ...

And it actually outperforms the genuine Mac Pro that it thinks it is. All off-the-shelf bog-standard cheap parts in a rather natty case with a real Mac wireless keyboard. I did buy a licence, too. OSX boots via a software EFI implementation in mere seconds, as well. It even updates itself. But it took a lot of blood, sweat and tears on my part and I learned a LOT along the way. I'm rather proud of the result.

I think what Psystar was doing was wrong, though. I built the Hackintosh for non-commercial experimental reasons. I also own a "real" Mac (paid for with actual earned money) as well a a Linux lappy.

I can't say I think Apple are doing themselves any favours by not making this easier for people to do. I know it isn't their business model -- but go on, Apple ... sell an OSX for PC hardware. You will make billions along the way and for not very much work.

AC for obvious reasons.