Appletell

With so much mayhem surrounding Psystar, the company that announced last week the availability of what are essentially Mac clones, I thought it a good idea to give an easy-reader breakdown of all the fuss.

It all started April 14th, when Psystar came out of nowhere claiming to be selling OpenMac computers, essentially really cheap Macs. The internet erupted with questions over the legality of it all. Someone named Robert then came forward and said that Psystar would challenge Apple’s license agreement in court. Then an official spokesperson from Psystar denied that Robert spoke for the company. The company’s website went down due to heavy traffic, adding to the pandemonium. Many assumed Psystar was a hoax or scam and had been taken down.

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Earlier this week I blogged about the Psystar OpenMac, a computer claiming to run Leopard.  This, of course, violates Apple’s End User License Agreement (EULA), as Macintosh computers are the only computers licensed by Apple to run Leopard.  In an interview with MacRumors, Psystar employee “Robert” says that making Leopard only run on Macs was like driving a Honda only on Honda-approved roads.  Robert also said that Psystar plans to challenge the EULA, insisting that all actions they have made were legal and that they are simply trying to prevent an Apple Monopoly over Leopard. 

The only legal advantage that Psystar has is the enforceability of EULAs, given that they aren’t actually explicit laws.  Also notable is the fact that the Psystar website is up and running again, and that the name of the computer has been changed from “OpenMac” to “OpenComputer”, taking any chance Apple would have had with a trademark infringement lawsuit away.  As soon as both Apple’s and Psystar’s Legal departments wake up and smell the coffee, certain actions are sure to be taken.

Via [MacRumors]

The few people who actually read license agreements before installing updates may have noticed that the Windows version of Safari 3.1 contained a very curious statement.

“This license allows you to install and use one copy of the Apple Software on a single Apple-labeled computer at a time,” was what the End User License agreement displayed to tons of Windows users using non-Apple-labeled computers last week. While just a typo, it is curious to think that they simply copied and pasted the Mac OS X Safari license agreement into the Windows version without bothering to check.

Don’t worry if you were, Apple has amended the Windows license agreement, deleting the bit about Apple-labeled computers.

Via [MacNN]