Psystar, that pesky little thorn in Apple's side, has released Rebel EFI. According to Psystar, the app, available for $49.99 through the company's site, "allows for the easy installation of multiple operating systems," including Mac OS X, on a vanilla PC. Besides bypassing EFI requirements, Rebel EFI can also detect for Mac OS X compatible and incompatible hardware, and automatically download appropriate drivers. Skeptical? No worries: the app is free to try (as an ISO download), with a two hour time limit.

To each their own, and if running Mac OS X on non-Apple specified hardware floats your boat, then you should also be aware of the risks involved. In other words, back up your data if you are attempting such a thing. Second, and more importantly, there's the issue of licensing: Apple prohibits the installation of Mac OS X on non Apple-branded machines.

Psystar giveth and Psystar must also taketh. One wonders how Psystar will react when people illegally use Rebel EFI, just like Psystar is allegedly misusing Mac OS X, as pirated versions inevitably circulate around the Interwebs.

Thanks to everyone who sent this in.

[via The Loop]

Apple and Psystar have been embroiled in litigation for quite a while now. At the core of the dispute: Psystar modifies Apple's operating system software so that it can run on its clone machines. It then sells its computers with Mac OS installed to, well, anybody who wants one. As you can imagine, this does not make Apple happy.

Anybody familiar with The Great Clone Crackdown of 1997 will tell you that Apple likes to keep a very tight grip on any device that presumes to run its software. Apple points out that Windows machines are a mishmash of often conflicting hardware and suffer from quirks and errors and incompatibilities that such a set up can bring.

So Apple's cadre of lawyers descended quickly on Psystar. In July of last year, the company sued Psystar for copyright and software licensing violations, quickly amending its lawsuit to additionally charge Psystar with violations of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA).

And there was much lawyering.

More than a year later, now that discovery has been completed, the two parties have each filed for summary judgment, which, in effect, asks the judge to rule in favor of the filing party because enough evidence has been shown that either makes or breaks the lawsuit.

Psystar's argument, and the one covered in its motion, somewhat relies on the "first sale doctrine" which says that any purchaser of a copyrighted product can then take that lawfully-made copy and sell it, so long as no additional copies can be made. For its part, Apple says that when one "purchases" its OS, you are only purchasing a license to use the product. Its Software Licensing Agreement (SLA) quite clearly states [PDF link to Snow Leopard SLA] that the user cannot modify the software to run on a non-Apple system.

The idea that what you are purchasing is a license to use the product is pretty commonplace among software manufacturers, because, the argument runs, you can cut any software company's profits off at the knees if every purchaser became an owner with free rein to redistribute the software. Apple states that no software company in its right mind would put the money into research and development of any software product at all if that were the end result of bringing its product to market. Groklaw suggests this could have ramifications for FOSS and and the GPL.

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]

Earlier this week, David Welker (co-founder of lawfirm Welker and Rosario) left Psystar's legal team. He will be succeeded by Eugene Action, who is already listed as the council of record.

If you're unfamiliar with this story (and who could blame you, it's so ridiculous), here's a primer. Psystar sells Mac clones with Leopard installed. Apple played the conspiracy theory card and then declared copyright infringement and sued. Psystar responded with a counter suit, filed Chapter 11, recovered, sued over Snow Leopard ... you know what? Just check the history here. It's an epic exercise in red tape manufacturing.

At this point, Psystar is like that cricket you hear but can't find. Ultimately harmless, hard to ignore and supremely annoying.

Apple has a new General Counsel and senior vice president on its executive team. Bruce Sewell, who held the same position at Intel Corporation, will be joining Apple in place of Daniel Cooperman. Cooperman, who has been General Counsel and senior vice president of Legal and Government Affairs for the past two years, is retiring at the end of September.

Apple CEO Steve Jobs was quoted in a press release as saying "We are thrilled to have Bruce join our executive team, and wish Dan a very happy retirement. With Bruce's extensive experience in litigation, securities and intellectual property, we expect this to be a seamless transition."

Sewell has been responsible for leading Intel's legal, corporate affairs, and corporate social responsibility programs, managing a team of attorneys and policy professionals located throughout the world. In his new role at Apple, Sewell and his team will defend Apple against attacks on the company's intellectual property. We'd like to give Mr. Sewell one big piece of advice for his new job -- read up on the Psystar case as soon as you can.

When I was a kid my neighbor had an enormous St. Bernard dog named Caesar. It lived in a grungy dog house in their back yard. Caesar's hobbies included barking incessantly. In fact, that was all he ever did. All day and all night that furry, drooling monstrosity barked. LIke a canine jackhammer to the face.

Caesar wasn't half as annoying as Psystar.

To keep a ridiculous story short: Psystar sells its own computers capable of running Mac OS X. The back-and-forth battle between Psystar and Apple has done almost nothing to dissuade the clone maker, and this week it's gone to a whole new level.

Psystar has moved to sue Apple over the release of Mac OS X Snow Leopard. In short, Psystar wants an injunction and damages due to Apple's "...anticompetitive attempts to tie Mac OS X Snow Leopard to its Macintosh line of computers." That's right, in some wacky attempt to turn a profit, Apple has released a proprietary OS meant to run on its proprietary hardware.

They claim that their method of running Snow Leopard is different than Apple's method, and if they buy copies of the OS and install them on machines which they then re-sell, then everything should be OK. I support Psystar's right to capitalist goodness, but their stubborn adherence to a lost cause is annoying.

Like Caesar.

Over the weekend, The Mac Observer posted a detailed analysis of the latest chapter in the Psystar saga. It's taken me a few days to come down from vacation and try to wrap my brain around the legalese, but here's the condensed version of what happened.

Psystar was granted its motion to dismiss its Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing in the State of Florida. The judge in the case must feel that Psystar will either try to file for Chapter 7 (liquidation) bankruptcy or try to delay Apple's case in California against the clone maker (now scheduled to start on January 11, 2010) with another Chapter 11 filing. Why? The judge has stipulated that Psystar will not be granted an automatic stay in the case if they file for Chapter 7 bankruptcy, and has blocked Psystar against filing Chapter 11 again for another six months.

Translation: "Hey, Psystar! You can't use bankruptcy to weasel out of Apple's case against you."

We don't know if Psystar has been selling a lot of Mac clones or if there is a secret admirer with deep pockets lurking in the wings, but by removing Chapter 11 protection, creditors who are owed money can now file suit for financial relief. Those creditors include Psystar's previous law firm, Carr & Farrell, which is owed about $88,000. One of the other companies that may line up for compensation could be Apple, which may very well be owed payment for shrink-wrapped copies of Mac OS X that were purchased by Psystar.

More legal moves will undoubtedly unfold in the months leading up to the January court date, so keep your browser pointed to Court TV TUAW for updates about this seemingly never-ending battle.

The infamous Mac-clone maker Psystar is apparently set to emerge from Chapter 11 bankruptcy, and it seems that they are planning on getting right back into their previous routine with a new hardware offering to boot.

In an e-mail newsletter that went out to subscribers today, the company states that the Chapter 11 protection was "critical" to their daily operations, and that they are now ready to "emerge and again battle Goliath." More information is expected to be available "in the coming days" when they are formally discharged by the Bankruptcy court.

Along with the announcement, the newsletter also introduces Psystar's newest hardware offering, the Open(7), which "brings together OS X and Intel Nehalem Xeon technology" in what they are calling their "fastest and most quiet computing configuration." In addition, they are stating that all new systems will feature a new bootloader, called the Darwin Universal Boot Loader (DUBL), and mentioned plans of an open source release in the near future.

The e-mail was wrapped up with a simple anecdote: When life gives you apples, make applesauce. So this begs the question, are they referring to the fruit, or the company?

Update: @JoeWilsonTV responded in the comments that Quo Computer is open (telephone number in his comment) and that they are taking orders in the store. The website is supposed to launch next Monday. Thanks Joe!

It seems like it was only last week that Mac clone maker, Psystar filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. Oh, that WAS last week. Surely, this would be the end of US companies trying to unauthorized Mac clones, right? Right?

Come on, this is America -- that would be too easy. In fact, it took just three days for the next would-be Mac clone retailer to appear.

As CNET reported over the weekend, Quo Computer plans to sell its Mac clone offerings both online and in a retail store in Los Angeles. The retail store was set to open yesterday, June 1, 2009, but I was unable to locate a phone number for the store (and LA's directory assistance didn't have a listing).

The website, though currently just a splash page, will apparently be ready sometime later this week. Apparently three models with OS X Leopard pre-installed will be offered, with pricing set to start below $900.

According to CNET, Quo's founder, Rashantha De Silva, expects that Apple will sue Quo, just as they sued Psystar. Well, at least he isn't completely delusional. More below...

In the fight for the right to party sell unauthorized Mac clones, there may be a victor declared sooner rather than later -- if not legally, then fiscally. Psystar, which has been playing with fire for quite some time, recently hit a snag in its battle with Apple. The Mac Observer is reporting that Psystar has filed for bankruptcy in Florida on Thursday thereby slowing Apple's case against the Mac clone vendor.

As TMO points out, this action seems to indicate that the financial supporters of Psystar are seeing the writing on the wall and believe Apple will likely be the victor in the legal battle for distribution rights of OS X-running Macintosh clones.

One outcome of Psystar's decision to file Chapter 11 is that its equity creditors will be revealed, finally pulling the curtains off of the secret of who has the (possibly) deep pockets in Psystar's legal battle. Another outcome is that Apple's case against Psystar will be temporarily delayed as the bankruptcy proceedings require all other legal action involving Psystar to be put on hold.

Currently Psystar is still selling its 'wares online, however, once the Federal judge presiding over the bankruptcy filing lifts the stay of legal actions, it is likely that Psystar will fold under the financial pressure. Psystar's chutzpah notwithstanding, the bankruptcy hearings are set to begin on June 5; stay tuned folks, this is still going to be messy.

[via Twitter, a tip of the hat to @PaulKent!]

Say, just for the sake of argument, that you're Psystar. You've been served by Apple for selling (they claim) illegal clones of their machines, and selling their OS (which you claim isn't even copyrighted) on illegitimate hardware. Sure, you've won a minor victory in the battle, but generally, the opinion is that you're a dead company walking -- when a company like Apple not only has it out for you but has pretty legit claims to back themselves up, you could be said to be in trouble. And so, what do you do?

Well if you are Psystar, you apparently release more computers. Determined to stick it to Apple as hard as they possibly can before they're legally wiped off the map, Psystar has announced the release of the Open(3), a desktop running OS X and packing up to a 2.53GHz Core2Quad Q8200 processor, up to 4GB of RAM and 1TB of storage, and all of the other usual options you'd want on a machine like this (6x Blu-ray burner, GeForce 9500GT). Technically, the box starts at $599, but as Engagdet notes, even if you max it out to around $2000, you're still paying less than an equivalent Mac Pro.

This is pretty much the computer retail equivalent of Bugs Bunny kissing the hunter. We can imagine Apple's lawyers steaming from the ears at this point -- here's hoping Psystar gets to have their fun while they can.

While we're pondering the consequences of RIM announcing that programs in the Blackberry "App World" must be at least $2.99US, there are alternatives to the iTunes App Store emerging from the jailbreak side of the iPhone world. The Wall Street Journal reports that Cydia is making the transition from package repository to a full app store. There are also plans for an adult-only app store and a new jailbreak service.

The big question at the moment is how will Apple take this? Apple filed a complaint with the US Copyright Office last month claiming that jailbreaking is illegal. They're not going to take firing a direct salvo at the App Store itself lightly. There is competition for the iTunes Music Store, but Apple could argue that the homegrown app stores infringe on its copyright by using modified versions of its software.

It's not a huge shock that App Store competition is popping up; the only surprise is that it took this long to happen. After all, developers are frustrated that excellent programs such as Podcaster are passed up in favor of the latest, greatest novelty app -- then to make matters worse, those same features turned up in an official iPhone update.

While there are a lot of really terrible apps out there that have no place on the App Store -- I won't even begin to tell you about one adult app pitched to TUAW, we do want to remain a mostly family-friendly site -- there are a lot of good software that get turned down because of Apple's stringent developer's agreement. These developers want an avenue to distribute their programs, and homegrown app stores are one answer.

Cydia's Jay Freeman told the WSJ that he has lined up a lawyer in case Apple comes knocking at the door. He may also want to get in touch with the team that represents Psystar ... just in case.

[via Engadget]

Previously in the Apple-Psystar legal battle, the clone maker amended its countersuit to charge that Apple was unfairly leveraging its copyright by binding Mac OS X to Mac hardware.

On Friday, the federal judge assigned to the case ruled that the amendment will be heard by the court, a small victory for Psystar. It's something of a reversal for the company, since they had federal antitrust allegations thrown out in November. Similarly, Psystar's assertion that Apple is in violation of California's antitrust laws was thrown out Friday as well.

Judge William Alsup said, "Psystar may well have a legitimate interest in establishing misuse [of copyright] independent of Apple's claims against it -- for example, to clarify the risks it confronts by marketing the products at issue in this case or others it may wish to develop." This isn't to say that the judge necessarily agrees with Psystar's point, but just that it's legally reasonable enough to be argued in court.

Apple has also not yet revealed its 10 "John Doe" defendants: alleged conspirators who worked on Psystar's technique for loading Mac OS X on non-Apple hardware.

The case will decide whether or not Apple can disallow other hardware makers -- including Psystar -- from including Mac OS X on computers shipped to end users. Last week, a company in Germany claimed that Mac OS X's End User License Agreement didn't apply to them, and is selling Mac clones to customers.

The case is scheduled to go to trial on November 9.

[Via Macworld.]

Matthias Kremp, of German periodical Der Spiegel, has an interesting story about PearC, "Der PC mit Mac OS X." You don't need Google Translate to figure out what that means, though a mechanical translation of the story is available here.

PearC is offering three flavors of Mac clones in Germany, starting at €499. All of the options are built to order: The Starter edition can be equipped with anything from an Intel Pentium Dual Core E2200 to a Core 2 Duo E7300. The Professional version, though, starts at €1,499, and can be powered by a 3.2GHz Intel Core i7 Extreme processor for an extra €720 -- a processor that Apple does not offer. PearC also offers Blu-Ray optical drives as an option.

All come with the option to install Mac OS X. Kremp notes that PearC's parent company, Hypermeganet, says that since the End User License Agreement (EULA) is sealed inside retail copies of Mac OS X, there's no legal way to review the EULA. If you'll pardon the bad translation, "the restrictions that Apple [has] for its Mac OS X in the EULA [...] in Germany [has] no legal explanation," said Hypermeganet spokesman Dirk Blößl.

"Hypermeganet assumes, therefore, that the product (meaning the Mac clone) in Germany is legal," he says.

Similarly, Psystar, possibly bankrolled by a larger PC clone maker, is defending itself now against charges that it violated Apple's EULA by selling clones with Mac OS X. That dispute is ongoing.

Apple did not return Spiegel Online's request for comment. However, Kremp concluded by suggesting "one may probably assume" that Apple will pursue legal action against the clone maker.

Thanks, Hauke, Holger and Martin!

Psystar, as you may remember, is the computer company that has begun selling computers with Mac OS X Leopard pre-installed. Of course, they drew the attention of Apple legal right away, but that only caused them to further dig in their heels.

Last month, they challenged Apple's claim to the copyright of Mac OS X, claiming that Apple never registered Mac OS X with the U.S. Copyright Office.

Previously, Judge William Alsup had dismissed federal antitrust claims, which only prompted Psystar to amend its countersuit with all new claims.

Now, they're trying yet another angle. Psystar is claiming the first sale doctrine. Similar to the right you have to buy a book and re-sell it, Psystar says that since they bought legit, retail copies of Mac OS X from Apple and installed them on their computers, they're in the clear. If they want to then sell those computers, that's fine and dandy. Unfortunately for them, they also bought shrinkwrap EULA's which impose license conditions. They don't "own" the software.

Everything else aside, this seems like an awful amount of time, effort and expense just to sell computers. There are less difficult ways to sell Mac OS computers, folks. At this point, you're just being stubborn, Psystar. Let it go.

Back in April, Psystar went public with the first commercial Hackintosh clones. For US$554, they'd send you a Core 2 Duo minitower with Mac OS X pre-installed. In June, they released rack-mount servers with Leopard Server pre-installed in both 1U (starting $1599) and 2U (starting $1999) configurations.

Update: It seems that Psystar has included claims to the first sale doctrine, as some of our readers have pointed out, for a while now. However, we don't feel that it's a "linchpin" of the case -- first-sale hasn't been rejected by the court. More on this seemingly unending story as it develops. Thanks to Alex at World of Apple for the heads-up.