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Psystar Sues Apple Over Snow Leopard

By - Source: Tom's Hardware US

Psystar late last week filed a lawsuit seeking an injunction and damages due to Apple's "anticompetitive attempts to tie Mac OS X Snow Leopard to its Macintosh line of computers."

It seems like the Psystar/Apple saga is never going to end. Just when we thought the Mac clone company was running out of steam, Psystar has filed a new suit in the hope that it might be allowed sell machines with Snow Leopard pre-installed.

AppleInsider reports that Florida-based Psystar is eager to bring Apple's latest OS to its line of knock-off Macs. In a court filing Psystar claims that it is entitled to buy copies of Snow Leopard and install them on its own computers, which the company then re-sells. AI reports that the suit alleges that the company is already capable of installing the new operating system on its hardware.

"The Psystar computers that run Mac OS X Snow Leopard are able to do so by running software, written by Psystar, that interfaces with the open-source portion of Mac OS X Snow Leopard," the filing reads, according to AI. "The manner in which Psystar computers run Mac OS X Snow Leopard is entirely different from the manner in which Psystar computers run Mac OS X Leopard."

Check out the full story here or hit up the links below for more on the back and forth between Psystar Apple.

There are 63 Comments. B
Top Comments
  • 23
    anonymous@guest , August 31, 2009 9:44 PM
    But..but if Pystar is allowed to pre-install Apple OS, we won't have the pleasure of paying the $500+ Apple Tax!
  • 12
    tayb , August 31, 2009 11:10 PM
    Sigh. I wonder if you people are so segregated on all of your everyday things. You love college ruled paper and absolutely despise and refuse to use wide ruled. You love chocolate but you berate anyone who likes vanilla. You have a Mercedes and every BMW is an overpriced pile of crap.

    Just don't get it. OS X is really cool. So is Windows 7. Can't fathom why so many people would choose to not only refuse to try the other but actively attack and berate anyone who does. I can spend $1,300 and get a damn fast refurb Apple laptop that comes with the exact warranty of a brand new machine and a brand new battery. Matching the specs with HP, Dell, Lenovo, Toshiba, etc the price is a complete wash. HP is a little cheaper, Lenovo is a little more, Dell is about even, etc.

    Why do you sit in a corner, refuse to come out, and ridicule the other corner endlessly. Without OS X the best OS Microsoft would have released is Windows XP. Vista was a disaster and had Apple not existed Windows 7 would be a shell of what it is right now. Thank you competition. At the very least if you can't manage to utter anything but "Apple sucks" acknowledge that the presence of Apple alone makes Microsoft try harder, and when that happens we all win.
  • 12
    Sicundercover , August 31, 2009 10:33 PM
    Im just curious how Psystar can afford all these law suites. Of course you gotta love how relentless they are, but at want point are you just throwing money down the drain.
Other Comments
  • 23
    anonymous@guest , August 31, 2009 9:44 PM
    But..but if Pystar is allowed to pre-install Apple OS, we won't have the pleasure of paying the $500+ Apple Tax!
  • -5
    Tech-Boy , August 31, 2009 9:45 PM
    Come on with the apple news! Oh, well.
  • 3
    tayb , August 31, 2009 9:56 PM
    The OS is cheap because they make so much money on the hardware. You can't have the cake and eat it too. Pystar wants to buy the OS at the discount given to hardware consumers without buying any of the hardware. Apple should just make an edition of Snow Leopard available to companies like Pystar except price the software at about $500 per license and tell them they can install it on whatever hardware configuration they like.
  • 8
    megamanx00 , August 31, 2009 9:57 PM
    That's nice, except, I don't care about OSX so.......
  • 10
    audioee , August 31, 2009 10:09 PM
    tayb,

    If Apple did start to sell a hardware free version of OSX for $500 or even $300, Apple fanboys could not use the high price for Windows in arguements about how OSX is better.
  • 4
    adamovera , August 31, 2009 10:21 PM
    taybThe OS is cheap because they make so much money on the hardware. You can't have the cake and eat it too. Pystar wants to buy the OS at the discount given to hardware consumers without buying any of the hardware. Apple should just make an edition of Snow Leopard available to companies like Pystar except price the software at about $500 per license and tell them they can install it on whatever hardware configuration they like.


    That's actually not a bad idea for Apple.
  • 12
    Sicundercover , August 31, 2009 10:33 PM
    Im just curious how Psystar can afford all these law suites. Of course you gotta love how relentless they are, but at want point are you just throwing money down the drain.
  • -7
    IzzyCraft , August 31, 2009 10:38 PM
    I'd hardly agree it's their right to do that, as most company's have a pretty tight grip around distribution deals etc. I would agree on principal that apple has the right to deny them from doing that, but i mean after some of these anti trust poundings to various company's for various random shit who knows now of days.
  • 12
    tayb , August 31, 2009 11:10 PM
    Sigh. I wonder if you people are so segregated on all of your everyday things. You love college ruled paper and absolutely despise and refuse to use wide ruled. You love chocolate but you berate anyone who likes vanilla. You have a Mercedes and every BMW is an overpriced pile of crap.

    Just don't get it. OS X is really cool. So is Windows 7. Can't fathom why so many people would choose to not only refuse to try the other but actively attack and berate anyone who does. I can spend $1,300 and get a damn fast refurb Apple laptop that comes with the exact warranty of a brand new machine and a brand new battery. Matching the specs with HP, Dell, Lenovo, Toshiba, etc the price is a complete wash. HP is a little cheaper, Lenovo is a little more, Dell is about even, etc.

    Why do you sit in a corner, refuse to come out, and ridicule the other corner endlessly. Without OS X the best OS Microsoft would have released is Windows XP. Vista was a disaster and had Apple not existed Windows 7 would be a shell of what it is right now. Thank you competition. At the very least if you can't manage to utter anything but "Apple sucks" acknowledge that the presence of Apple alone makes Microsoft try harder, and when that happens we all win.
  • 0
    doomtomb , August 31, 2009 11:10 PM
    I don't like Macs even if they are made by Psystar
  • 5
    Major7up , August 31, 2009 11:47 PM
    If Apple starts allowing third parties to create Mac clones then they will have a very difficult time controlling their current image. Cheap Macs would be nice but cheaper systems tend to lead to less satisfied customers and could (at least in Apples eyes) tarnish the Apple image. But they also don't want to lose sales to competing systems. This article explains it all:
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_Computing_Corporation
  • 7
    deck , September 1, 2009 12:02 AM
    tayb,

    I berate Apple because they stole the linux kernel and returned nothing to the open source community. They do this, and then have audacity to tout how great "their" OS is.

    Then they take it a step further by launching a series of adds which are slanderous and inaccurate. They censor internet forums that speak poorly about their products. They contractually bind people whos iPods expload so that they can no longer speak publically about the incident.

    So to sum up, I berate apple beucase they are not a moral company.

    When Apple steals open source code, only Apple wins.
  • 3
    hellwig , September 1, 2009 12:28 AM
    taybSigh. I wonder if you people are so segregated on all of your everyday things. ... OS X is really cool. So is Windows 7. Can't fathom why so many people would choose to not only refuse to try the other but actively attack and berate anyone who does.


    Tayb: You have missed the entire point of Psystar's lawsuit. I don't own an Apple computer, I can't justify paying more money for slower hardware (I build my own desktops). Therefore, I (according to Apple's team of lawyers) am not legally able to run OSX. As good of an OS as it may be, Apple is actively telling me I cannot use it.

    Why would I have anything good to say about a product when the maker would sue me if I tried to run it on the hardware I already own? Microsoft never made me pay $1500 to run their OS. In fact, I bought a Student version of Win XP for less than $100 that I was able to install on my own hardware.
  • -6
    raptor550 , September 1, 2009 12:30 AM
    BTW, I am a M$ user.

    Apple is expensive because it still actually costs $1200 to make a good computer. Sure you can buy a piece of shit dell for $300... but it just doesn't compare to Apple's systems. I commend them for upholding their quality. That is why I use IBM, they are the Apple for Windows users. They have a high sense of quality. To be honest I wouldn't buy the crap that Psystar makes.
  • 3
    njalterio , September 1, 2009 12:33 AM
    taybSigh. I wonder if you people are so segregated on all of your everyday things. You love college ruled paper and absolutely despise and refuse to use wide ruled. You love chocolate but you berate anyone who likes vanilla. You have a Mercedes and every BMW is an overpriced pile of crap. Just don't get it. OS X is really cool. So is Windows 7. Can't fathom why so many people would choose to not only refuse to try the other but actively attack and berate anyone who does.


    Most people here (the sane ones) don't have anything against people who use Macs. It's when people (always with little or no computer knowledge) suggest Macs are somehow technically superior or a better bargain than Windows based computers folks here get irritated.

    tayb
    I can spend $1,300 and get a damn fast refurb Apple laptop that comes with the exact warranty of a brand new machine and a brand new battery. Matching the specs with HP, Dell, Lenovo, Toshiba, etc the price is a complete wash. HP is a little cheaper, Lenovo is a little more, Dell is about even, etc.


    It's been proven time and time again by the readers here (in addition to an article written by the staff) that for the same hardware, Apple is always more expensive. I'd like to see where you get your numbers from.


    tayb
    Why do you sit in a corner, refuse to come out, and ridicule the other corner endlessly. Without OS X the best OS Microsoft would have released is Windows XP. Vista was a disaster and had Apple not existed Windows 7 would be a shell of what it is right now. Thank you competition. At the very least if you can't manage to utter anything but "Apple sucks" acknowledge that the presence of Apple alone makes Microsoft try harder, and when that happens we all win.


    You have no way of knowing what Microsoft would or would not have done, if anything, differently. Unless you are calling the shots at Microsoft, you have no idea what affect Mac OS X had on Vista or Windows 7; that is purely your conjecture. Regardless, Macs have roughly 10% of the market share, which is good, but it is not an even competitor with Microsoft.
  • 5
    Grims , September 1, 2009 12:41 AM
    raptor550BTW, I am a M$ user.Apple is expensive because it still actually costs $1200 to make a good computer. Sure you can buy a piece of shit dell for $300... but it just doesn't compare to Apple's systems. I commend them for upholding their quality. That is why I use IBM, they are the Apple for Windows users. They have a high sense of quality. To be honest I wouldn't buy the crap that Psystar makes.



    You do know IBM doesn't make PCs...right?
  • 0
    deck , September 1, 2009 12:46 AM
    raptor550BTW, I am a M$ user.Apple is expensive because it still actually costs $1200 to make a good computer. Sure you can buy a piece of shit dell for $300... but it just doesn't compare to Apple's systems. I commend them for upholding their quality. That is why I use IBM, they are the Apple for Windows users. They have a high sense of quality. To be honest I wouldn't buy the crap that Psystar makes.


    Strange, my computer is worth about $500. It is perfectly stable and does everything I ask it to. If you build your own computer and put your own parts in, there is no reason why you can't have a quality system for cheep. Your statement is completly false.

    Forcing OSX to only run on Apple hardware does nothing to ensure the "quality" of their systems. OSX running on apple hardware would be just as stable whether it was able to run on other hardware or not. Now whether OSX would be stable on Psystar or not is a completly different question. But allowing the OS to run on different platforms would not in any way affect the stablity of OSX on Mac Hardware.
  • 5
    Greg_77 , September 1, 2009 12:50 AM
    raptor550BTW, I am a M$ user.Apple is expensive because it still actually costs $1200 to make a good computer. Sure you can buy a piece of shit dell for $300... but it just doesn't compare to Apple's systems. I commend them for upholding their quality. That is why I use IBM, they are the Apple for Windows users. They have a high sense of quality. To be honest I wouldn't buy the crap that Psystar makes.


    IBM is no longer in the personal computer business. You are most likely using a Lenovo, the company that acquired the Thinkpad name. I, too, use a Lenovo Thinkpad and find it a great machine. That being said, the hardware in my Lenovo can be found in $800 dollar machines. My computer may have a better keyboard and better overall build quality (it has a metal frame), but I wouldn't call a lower cost machine a piece of "shit". Less durable, maybe, unworthy of being purchased, no.
  • -5
    tayb , September 1, 2009 1:10 AM
    njalterioMost people here (the sane ones) don't have anything against people who use Macs. It's when people (always with little or no computer knowledge) suggest Macs are somehow technically superior or a better bargain than Windows based computers folks here get irritated.


    Oh please. Do you even read the comments? The first things posted here were "I don't care about OS X." "Oh goody a $500 apple tax." And other nonsense. Who provoked them by talking about Apple being technically superior?

    njalterioIt's been proven time and time again by the readers here (in addition to an article written by the staff) that for the same hardware, Apple is always more expensive. I'd like to see where you get your numbers from.


    Um. Directly from the Apple website and directly from the other websites? 2.53Ghz, 13.3" LED, 4GB Ram, Illuminated Keyboard, 250GB Hard drive, Web cam, bluetooth, multi-touch trackpad. All for $1,300 + tax. Matching those specs on the competitors website the prices are a complete wash. It just flat out IS NOT more expensive. Getting a desktop from Apple is certainly more expensive but for laptops? No, not really. You just can't buy a slow underpowered machine from Apple, that's all.


    njalterioYou have no way of knowing what Microsoft would or would not have done, if anything, differently. Unless you are calling the shots at Microsoft, you have no idea what affect Mac OS X had on Vista or Windows 7; that is purely your conjecture. Regardless, Macs have roughly 10% of the market share, which is good, but it is not an even competitor with Microsoft.


    LOL. Okay then. Microsoft directly targeted Apple in an advertising campaign. I don't really think I need more proof that Apple had a direct effect on Microsoft.
  • 3
    balister , September 1, 2009 1:23 AM
    raptor550BTW, I am a M$ user.Apple is expensive because it still actually costs $1200 to make a good computer. Sure you can buy a piece of shit dell for $300... but it just doesn't compare to Apple's systems. I commend them for upholding their quality. That is why I use IBM, they are the Apple for Windows users. They have a high sense of quality. To be honest I wouldn't buy the crap that Psystar makes.


    You'd be very, very wrong. It's quite easy to build a great computer for $1200, a good computer will run you around $600 if that. Apple has no one to blame, but themselves for people hitting them right where it's going to hurt, the cost. The inflate the prices much, much more than they should be inflated.
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