German Mac Cloner Skirts Around OS X EULA

The tech world has seen nearly a year’s worth of legal volleyball between Apple and Mac clone maker Psystar. It’s been a tireless back and forth of he said, she said, involving anti-trust suits, copyright infringement and who knows what else. All that said, there’s yet to be an offical verdict, and while Psystar continues to sell machines, another Mac Clone maker has cropped up in Germany.

According to Ars Technica, the PearC (Apples, pears, geddit?) actually packs some pretty impressive specs. Starting at €499, the company offers a starter PearC with a variety of dual-cores, either a GeForce 7200GS or 8400GS and up to 750 GB HDD. The Advanced model comes with a Core 2 Quad processor, a Blu-ray burner and a GeForce 8400GS, 9800GT, or 9800GTX. Lastly, the Professional model packs a Core i7 processor, 1TB of storage as standard, and up to 12GB of RAM. All come with the option to install Mac OS X.

With Psystar still busy defending itself against Apple (a year of legal costs sort of starts to add up), you’d think other aspiring clone makers would wait to see how things pan out before putting their own wares on the market. Apparently not. TUAW reports that PearC's parent company, Hypermeganet, says there’s no legal way to review the Mac OS X End User License Agreement (EULA). We passed the original article onto a member of our German team and he said the company’s main argument is that since you can’t read the EULA before purchase, it’s not valid.

While the law no doubt only stands in Germany and Apple will almost certainly file suit anyway, we’re still really interested in seeing how this develops. 

Check out Ars Technica and TUAW for more or less the same.

  • ram1009
    I wish I understood the attraction to MAC anything.
    Reply
  • MJRSnyder
    wait so the eula isn't translated so they say its invalid correct me if i'm wrong.
    Reply
  • JMcEntegart
    @MJRSnyder: Nah, basically the company's argument is that since the EULA is sealed and the terms and conditions aren't visible before purchase, they're void.
    Reply
  • There's also the argument that as a contract of adhesion that is unequal (meaning that all the terms benefit only one party and there is no benefit for the licensee) it could be declared unenforceable.
    Reply
  • ram1009
    anon131313There's also the argument that as a contract of adhesion that is unequal (meaning that all the terms benefit only one party and there is no benefit for the licensee) it could be declared unenforceable.
    WOW!!! Wouldn't the shit hit the fan if that happened. No EULA would be enforceable.
    Reply
  • cruiseoveride
    The saddest part about all this is that there are wannabes that want to run OSX on otherwise useful hardware
    Reply
  • megamanx00
    Well the OSX interface is more intuitive for some people, but definitely not for me. I prefer a KDE interface, but I gotta stick with windows for the games ^_^.
    Reply
  • tonitelaoag
    same with me, stick with windows when you game on your pc, there's nothing else like windows in gaming, i had my hackintosh for 1 year but my interest just subsides after learning how to use it on a personal level.
    Reply
  • curnel_D
    JMcEntegart@MJRSnyder: Nah, basically the company's argument is that since the EULA is sealed and the terms and conditions aren't visible before purchase, they're void.Germany has some very stringint consumer protection (And some major flaws) laws that make this very legal in Germany. I dont see it happening in any but a very few EU countires. But that doesnt mean that all of europe wont have their nice shiny pear computers (Reminds me of sims 2 lol) clones shipped in from Germany.

    Good article.
    Reply
  • bunz_of_steel
    good for them!
    Reply