Hackintosher Psystar to pay Apple $2.7m in settlement
But it ain't over til it's over
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"!
what's at stake here
The MacFanatics can only see one issue in this: what Apple wants, Apple must get. What the wider effects of giving Apple what it wants may be, who cares?
So in the present case, what Apple wants is to be able to sell OSX at retail in a form which will install on many standard X86 main boards. However, it also wants to restrict what you do your installs on to only systems bought from Apple. It wants to do this by EULA clause in software sold at retail and unbundled from any hardware/.
These systems, on which the EULA forbids installation, may be no different technically from the same systems bought from other suppliers (with the exception of EFI which is a tiny piece of the thing). But Apple does not want you to use them, it wants to restrict what you install on based solely on how it is branded.
The thing you all have to realize is what the rest of us, who are not Apple users and never want to be, find worrying in this. And it has nothing to do with Apple or its wants, which we find to be the least important part of this question. This is our worry. We do not like the idea that software makers can tell you where to buy the hardware you run their software on.
We do not, for instance, like the idea that MS could stipulate in EULA that you may install Windows on any system you like in dual boot mode, as long as it is not labeled Apple. We do not like the idea that MS could stipulate in EULA that you may run Office under Wine on the system of your choice, as long as it is not labelled Apple. We feel very uneasy about the idea that there might come an amendment to the GPL that would ban the installation of any GPL licensed products on Macs. And so on.
The thing you all have to get your heads around, after you stop cheering that West Ham has won, is that this is not a ruling for or about Apple. It is a ruling on what powers software makers have. And it does not give these powers just to Apple. It gives them to everyone, to use against anyone they feel like using them against, and that includes Apple.
So, are you all so sure you really like them Apples, now?
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?
Oh belt up troll!
No one forces you to buy it? It's not the only choice is it? You have Windows, Linux, BSD, plan 9, etc.
As the maker they have the right to do want they want, if it causes them to go under, then tough luck, that's market forces. Just ''cos you don't agree, doesn't make it right!
Back in the 80's how many 8bit micro companies tried to lock people in? How many lasted to the present day? None! Who has lasted? IBM PC. Even sodding Apple know that the Intel based PC is king, hence the butchered abomination, the EFI Intel based iMacs.
Jeez, I am so sick of people like you thinking you have a God-given right to something. "If I buy it, it's mine to do what I want!' Is it fuck! You have a license to use product X in a manner that the manufacturer deems, you have rented the software!
Believe it or not MS have a perfect right to come round your house tonight and demand you hand back that copy of Windows and do you know what? They have a perfect legal right to make the request, if their reasons are just! So suck it up troll, the law does not match your opinion!
SOFTWARE IS LICENSED, READ RENTED! YOU NEVER OWN IT!
