Apple sues Psystar: the "open" Mac clone producer

[anime4christ]

Although I like Apple's software better than Microsoft's (better quality), I don't like their legal standings. And even though I do believe Psystar as at least partly guilty in this case (this particular article really highlights that aspect), it shows Apple's monopolist-at-heart nature as well.

http://www.tgdaily.com/content/view/40436/118/

I think that if Apple would be the size of Microsoft, they would probably abuse their monopoly worse than Microsoft has. Apple is best kept somewhat small (and Microsoft would be much better smaller as well).

[Colin Stolzer]

Monopoly and anti-trust laws are designed to prevent public use companies from driving up the price of products that are considered necessities, such as power, gas, heating fuels, phone service, etc.. They are not intended to keep companies that provide non essential products such as computers and software from wholly owning their product without competition.

I find it interesting that people think it is okay for a company to STEAL another companies product, and sell it for less making a higher profit margin without expenditure. Apple has spent Billions of dollars over the years designing, developing and marketing their products, just like Microsoft and several other software companies. Then this other company(Psystar) wants to come along spend only a small fraction of that, so they can steal a propriatory OS and sell it on their product for a fraction of the cost, undercutting Apples profit margin and recovery of expenditure to develop the software and market it. If they really wanted to compete with Apple in the free market, then they would spend the billions of dollars to develop their own OS and market it, not steal someone else's hard work.

Do I think Bill Gates and Steve Jobs could stand to loose a little profit, of course, but I don't think they should loose that profit because another company doesn't want to put forth the effort to develop a better product. I think they should loose money based on the ability of someone else to produce a better product at the same or less retail price.

C

[anime4christ]

I didn't mean it that way, I would actualy side with Apple here. If Psystar would actually buy Mac OS in bulk from Apple I might have sided with them, but I know that's not the case. Psystar is stealing and that part of what they're doing is wrong.

But my point was that with Apple, there's more vendor lock-in than with Microsoft in some cases and I'm just speculating as to how things would be if Apple was today's Microsoft.

There are other cases in which I wouldn't side with Apple, but I just brought this issue up becasue it was the most recent.

One thing I wonder about though: Would Apple innovate as much as they do now if they were in Microsoft's place?

[Invicta]

Isn't Mac OS a clone of Unix?

[anime4christ]

Isn't Mac OS a clone of Unix?

Mac OS X was built on top of BSD UNIX, mostly FreeBSD, which actually descended from the original UNIX.

[anime4christ]

What I don't agree on with Apple is their reliance on the DMCA. While I believe Psystar should be punished for stealing the OS, the DMCA is the wrong way to go about it and overall I think the DMCA is wrong. There are other copyright laws I agree with, but not the DMCA and it's associated technology DRM. Mostly because it doesn't work, and is a burden for honest people while not doing anything to stop black-hat hackers.

Perhaps though, Apple just figured it'd be the easiest way to win the case with Psystar. I don't know.

[deafnva77]

Isn't Mac OS a clone of Unix?

I've heard that Windows was a clone of Mac

[anime4christ]

I've heard that Windows was a clone of Mac

The original Windows GUI was somewhat of a copy of Apple's original GUI (which I believe wasn't on what was called Mac OS a bit later) which in turn was a copy of the Xerox GUI. Since the beginning, all the operating systems have been copying things from each other all the way till now.

[anime4christ]

Mac OS X was built on top of BSD UNIX, mostly FreeBSD, which actually descended from the original UNIX.

I'd like to clarify that only Mac OS X (as in roman numeral 10) "is" a UNIX. The classic Mac OS up through OS 9 was a completely different animal.

[anime4christ]

edit: oops. this was a double post, can someone please delete it?

[deafnva77]

The original Windows GUI was somewhat of a copy of Apple's original GUI (which I believe wasn't on what was called Mac OS a bit later) which in turn was a copy of the Xerox GUI. Since the beginning, all the operating systems have been copying things from each other all the way till now.

, I think it is the design. I think they use what work for people. I have linux right now.. and I'm using gimp. I have to admit that some things are hard to find because the naming and the setup is different from photoshop.