Archive notice: This article was originally published on July 17, 2008. Links and embedded videos are preserved as part of the historical record.
Apple is now taking legal action against Florida-based Psystar, which has been offering low-cost desktop systems with Mac OS X Leopard since April. Psystar’s use of OS X on its “Open Computer” violates the Apple operating system’s license terms, which permit its use only with Apple hardware. Psystar may base its defense on criticism of those very license provisions. However, the company’s violations may be more extensive, as it uses software tricks to make the operating system believe it is running on Apple hardware.
“Apple licenses the use of its Macintosh operating system (‘Mac OS’) only for use on Apple-labeled hardware,” states the complaint filed for Apple on July 3 by the law firm Townsend and Townsend and Crew. Psystar violates this provision with both the Open Computer and OpenServ, introduced in June and running OS X Leopard Server. In an InformationWeek interview in mid-April, a Psystar employee attacked the Mac OS X end-user license agreement, claiming it violated US antitrust law. “What if Microsoft said Windows could be installed only on Dell computers?” A similar argument may be presented in court.
Psystar’s systems promise customers significant cost savings compared with official Apple hardware, but they are not without problems. Psystar must make OS X Leopard believe it is actually running on Apple hardware for the Open Computer systems to function. Apple strengthened its safeguards against operation on third-party hardware with the update to version 10.5.3. Psystar countered this with a special script and therefore appears to be using software-level hacks, which could present another legal problem.
At one point, the complaint also describes enabling others to install or use Mac OS X on non-Apple computers as a license violation. Although this is essentially an aside in this case, it could prove significant for another offering. “EFiX” aims to free OS X from the Apple-hardware requirement through a hardware module. In this case, the operating system itself is installed by the end user. However, EFiX is specifically designed to enable others to install and operate OS X on computers not manufactured by Apple.
