Skip to Content

Psystar to pursue OEM licensing program despite legal woes


Legal issues? What legal issues?

Psystar has announced that it plans to license its virtualization technology for OS X to third-party vendors despite its continuing legal issues with Apple. The Psystar OEM Licensing Program, designed to allow Intel machines to run Snow Leopard -- actually, certified machines from Psystar running the company's Darwin Universal Boot Loader -- can support up to six operating systems at a time in a single piece of hardware.

"Once a product is certified, consumers can purchase it off the shelf or through standard channels and when labeled Psystar Certified would allow the installation of Snow Leopard simply by inserting the retail OS X DVD," Psystar said in a press release issued today.

The cost of this licensing program is not available at this time.

Apple and Psystar go to trial in January 2010.

[MacDailyNews via Apple Insider]

Legal issues? What legal issues? Psystar has announced that it plans to license its virtualization technology for OS X to third-party...
 

Add a Comment

*0 / 3000 Character Maximum

18 Comments

Filter by:
David

Basically Psystar can do this legally.. It’s under the first sale doctrine (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First-sale_doctrine) Basically if you buy the software you have a right do do anything you want with it. It’s the same if you bought a CD and then resold it to another person. Once you buy whatever you have a right to re-sale.

(The first-sale doctrine is a limitation on copyright that was recognized by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1908 and subsequently codified in the Copyright Act of 1976, 17 U.S.C. § 109. The doctrine allows the purchaser to transfer (i.e., sell or give away) a particular lawfully made copy of the copyrighted work without permission once it has been obtained. This means that the copyright holder's rights to control the change of ownership of a particular copy end once that copy is sold, as long as no additional copies are made. This doctrine is also referred to as the "first sale rule" or "exhaustion rule.")

Unless Psystar is making copies of the software they have a right to sell their PC’s with the original disk purchased from Apple.

If Apple wants to stop this then they should not sell their software.. They should pre-install and never make the disks available to the public.

Apple is powerful but they do not have enough power to over turn the Supreme court.

October 07 2009 at 9:29 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
1 reply to David's comment
charli

actually no, the DMCA prohibits the very functions of the boot loader. making what they are doing illegal. Regardless of whether you believe that First Sale applies to software or not.

October 09 2009 at 10:44 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Liquidmark

'Paying 2 to 3 X more for hardware that has a certain white glow to it is a bad deal'

OMG! Look at you troll!

'Being stuck with an awful trackpad is a bad deal'

Too bad the multitouch trackpad is actually the best. Seriously. I can't even touch a regular touchpad anymore. They are so limited.

'Having a logic board go out is a bad deal.'

Ever heard of a warranty? As long as you didn't d anything to cause it to go out, there should be no problem.

'no firewire port,'

Wait, what?

http://www.apple.com/macbookpro/specs.html
http://www.apple.com/imac/specs.html
http://www.apple.com/macpro/specs.html

Only model that doesn't have a firewire port is the MB AIR. Your info is out of date.

'Having no choice on what hardware I can run the world's best operating system is a bad deal.'

You are a whiner. There's nothing wrong with Apple's hardware quality. They have won numerous QUALITY awards. What you want Apple to do is lower their standards so you can get in on the cheap.

October 06 2009 at 7:09 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
1 reply to Liquidmark's comment
Bernard Ramsey

No, not a troll. I'm a human and an avid Mac user. All of my points were valid and some still are. The G4s I owned had massive logic board problems, there are thousands of posts on the trackpad being too responsive in the unibody, and we pay a premium for design over function. Granted, I love Apple's products, but Apple limits what their software can do by limiting our hardware choices. Case in point, again: Where's my tablet? It's been years and I'm still waiting.

October 06 2009 at 6:09 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
pika2000

"license its virtualization technology"? WTF? It's OSx86 community's hard work for God's sake. Psystar is simply a leecher, trying to profit from a freebie. What a bunch of douche.

October 06 2009 at 1:51 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
1 reply to pika2000's comment
charli

yep. it was information freely given with the caveat that no one could use it without substantial change and make a profit from. much like the BSD that Apple used as part of the base for Mac OSX (adding their own work as well).

And apparently said community has contact Psystar over this usage issue before. I'm sure they will be happy to know that Apple is tired of the dancing and as filed for a summary judgement in the new Snow Leopard case. And after they get it, they will likely use it to try to get a summary judgement in the original Florida case. And have it established once in for all that no one has the right to clone Macs until Apple decides to restart that program themselves, even if they never do.

October 09 2009 at 10:41 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
mdzorn

I find it quite ironic that Psystar licenses their software to circumvent Apple's licensing conditions! Slapping a "Psystar Certified" logo on the box when they obviously want to deny Apple the same right is just ludicrous.

October 05 2009 at 7:00 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Liquidmark

ok, they need to go to jail. Right now. I can't begin to explain how illegal this is.

October 05 2009 at 6:33 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Mike

im very surprised these guys are still going at it and not behind jail.

October 05 2009 at 5:50 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
colouroflight

Go Psystar!

October 05 2009 at 5:19 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
1 reply to colouroflight's comment
Joseph

you do realize that the clone wars was severely crippling to apple and set them back substantially. This could help end apple if they actually allowed it again. Apple is a hardware company, the software is just a perk and subsidized by the hardware. Their business model is not for us to decide, it's for them. They did it the way everyone wanted once and it was detrimental.

October 05 2009 at 5:31 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
bobmutch

To funny! It is a good idea though. A ceritifed box with the bootloader installed when you can select that bootloader and insert your apple os x cd that you just picked up at the apple store and in 30 mins you have mac os x installed on your computer and can do minor updates. Sweet idea!

October 05 2009 at 4:28 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
2 replies to bobmutch's comment
x23

yeah. that will be awesome. just the other day i was thinking :

'you know what would be fantastic? $300 OS upgrades... and the fun and good times to be had by all with the addition of serial number authentication!'

the only people that think this is a good idea are the same people that wouldn't actually be hassled by this to begin with. the people that will be hassled the most would be the people that actually buy their software.

or the addition of actual hardware locking on the OS.

Psystar 'winning' punishes both the legitimate Apple consumers *and* the people that enabled Psystar to exist in the first place : the hackintosh community.

i see nothing noble about anything Psystar has done so far.

October 05 2009 at 6:59 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Bernard Ramsey

x23, $300 for an OS really isn't that bad if it's a good OS. Paying 2 to 3 X more for hardware that has a certain white glow to it is a bad deal. Being stuck with an awful trackpad is a bad deal (Unibody). Having a logic board go out is a bad deal. Having no screen glare/matte options, no swappable dual hard drives, no firewire port, at vary times throughout the Apple product line is a bad deal. Having no choice on what hardware I can run the world's best operating system is a bad deal. Sell Mac OS X alone and let's see if competition proves that Apple hardware really is all they say it's cracked up to be. I guarantee you Apple hardware quality (if anything) will improve. Their customer service is great, hardware questionable.

October 05 2009 at 7:19 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
bill cant fart

How come my Macbook can't boot 6 OSs?

October 05 2009 at 4:15 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
2 replies to bill cant fart's comment
colouroflight

It can.

October 05 2009 at 5:20 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
bill cant fart

Not with Boot Camp. I could only get 3 on using Wubi on the XP partition. When I tried to use rEFIt it kept breaking the XP partition.

October 08 2009 at 10:26 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Nick

Heh. This is so fun to watch.

I honestly wish them the best.

October 05 2009 at 4:01 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Buy an ad here

Hot Apps on TUAW

Tweets

© 2012 AOL Inc. All Rights Reserved.