Hackintosher Psystar to pay Apple $2.7m in settlement
But it ain't over til it's over
Agentless Backup is Not a Myth
Apple and Psystar have settled a large chunk of their legal wrangling, with the Hackintosher agreeing to pay Apple $2.7m rather than continue to trial in federal court in Northern California.
The legal wrangling on Psystar's home turf in Florida, however, will continue.
In a filing by Apple's legal team Tuesday morning, the two companies agreed that Apple's charges of copyright infringement, Digital Millenium Copyright Act violation, and breach of contract should go Cupertino's way, along with Psystar's counterclaims of copyright misuse and unenforceability.
In addition, damages will be paid by Psystar in the amount of $1.34m, with an additional $1.34m covering attorney's fees and costs, both not to be paid "until any and all appeals in this matter are concluded or the time for filing any such appeal has lapsed."
Or paid ever, seeing as how Psystar, which only recently emerged from bankruptcy, is not exactly what you might call flush with cash.
This filing comes one day after Psystar filed its own notification of a partial settlement with the same court. That filling was far less clear-cut than Tuesday's agreement.
In Psystar's filing, the company claimed that its Rebel EFI software, which enables the installation of Mac OS X on non-Apple machines, should not be part of any settlement.
"[The Northern California District Court] should not give Apple an injunction covering a software product the legality of which Apple has yet to litigate anywhere," Psystar's filing reads, adding that doing so "would invade the jurisdiction of Judge Hoeveler of the United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida."
The Apple-Psystar imbroglio has been a long and convoluted series of claims, counterclaims, legal feints, and bankruptcy maneuvers. Although Tuesday's settlement wipes both Apple and Psystar's complaints off the docket in Northern California, it doesn't touch the issues still in front of Judge Hoeveler in Florida.
Psystar's focus on Rebel EFI in its Monday filing would seem to indicate that the company's days as a maker of Hackintoshes that come preinstalled with Mac OS X have come to an end. However, Psystar may have perhaps been unintentionally prophetic when it mentioned that "Apple has yet to litigate" against the Rebel EFI utility. ®
COMMENTS
Good riddance!
Oh well, no great loss. They ripped off Apple software and they ripped off the hard work of the OSX86 hacking community too! The founders already had a slightly shady past so I'm sure they will toddle off back to doing something more useful with their obvious talents of taking other's hard work and seling as their own!
I do love their defence though. "Did you license OSX?", "We bought inidividual copies of OSX install discs, but we can't find any of the reciepts at the moment!"...pure class!
Before you Apple haters get going again....
Don't start that crap about Apple being a monpoly, for the last time, they are not. They opened up the hardware to support other O/Ss, they even give you the bloody Windows drivers on the OSX install DVD!
Limiting their O/S to their hardware is the opposite of monpoly. Bullying retailers into only selling your product to the detriment of other's, is a monopoly. MS forcing hardware makers to only sell Windows and nothing else, that's a monopoly!
You're having a laugh, aren't you?
Whatever the merits or faults of GNU and other FOSS groups, and the reasons for them, what you say is ridiculous.
"(Quite why the GNU / FOSS movement *still* can't achieve something Apple managed to pull off with rather fewer resources and a lot less time escapes me, but you don't get to blame Apple for the FOSS community's failings.)"
Rather fewer resources?
Haha.
I don't really know the hard numbers (does anyone?), but I do know marketing is not cheap. And Apple's marketing is everywhere all the time -- I've lost the count of how many times I've seen that stupid iPod nano ad showing its video capabilities ("simulated", as the disclaimer obviously states) on TV last night only, for instance. So I guess it would be safe to assume that Apple spends more money on propaganda in a month than GNU has ever had their hands on for whatever purposes. Same would surely go for other FOSS projects like KDE, *BSDs, etc.
A lot less time?
Well, when you use someone else's free code as the basis of your OS, then I guess it does cut some corners. And anyway, "a lot less time" would be debatable. As I remember hearing, the first version(s) of OS X were quite crappy, and it took Apple some years to get it straightened out. Some might even say they still are trying -- like I feel like doing, every time I use that stupid Mac mini we have here at the lab (the old one we had was the same, so it's not just a bad, er, apple). The thing is quite buggy for a system so highly regarded. But that's propaganda for you.
P.S.: I don't hate Apple, and I think they are probably right in this court case against this particular "company". My girlfriend has a Macbook Pro and is very happy with its workings. Never had a (significant) problem, crashes are quite rare for her machine, and I'm happy I don't ever have to even look at it. What I do hate is the religion people here have, the "free-market" myth (wake up, it's non-existent and impossible) cult, of thinking that companies should be allowed to do whatever they want regardless of any consequences. Just because planned economies are demonstrably bad these people jump to the opposite conclusion with zealot fervor. You know, "drowning kills you, so never touch liquids again and you'll live forever" type of "logic"!
Re: Good riddence
I'm sure they will toddle off back to doing something more useful with their obvious talents of taking other's hard work and seling as their own!
So they are going to work for Microsoft then?
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