This might be of interest to Linc, goddam freedom hater ;-)

[diazamet]

http://www.macrumors.com/2008/04/14/ope ... rom-apple/

It will be interesting to see how this plays out!

[Tsuroerusu]

"Steve: Lawyers attack!!!"

[diazamet]

Lol!

Not sure how this will play out in court. I remember reading a while back that EULAs were on dodgy legal grounds because you cannot prove who clicked the 'Agree' button.

[dann]

http://www.psystar.com/psystar_open_com ... wheel.html

That's the link to the real product. They state if you buy the OpenMac and a copy of Leopard from them, they will install the OS. I wonder how long this will last. If you head over to the OSx86 project even they remark about Psystar getting sued for this.

http://forum.insanelymac.com/index.php? ... opic=99201

Some good comments there...

[Patrick]

Why do people want to turn OSX into something that Apple clearly does not want it to be? If you love OSX so much then buy the friggen hardware and be done with it. If you want an open platform with complete freedom run Linux or BSD. People need to get it through their friggen heads that Apple does not want this. It the same deal with people hacking iPhones. It's not an open platform. If the open platform is not to your liking then do something about it. All this energy into cracking and half assed hacks is such a waste of resources.

[davijordan]

If you have a big investment in Apple from application software or software development, I can see why someone would want to go that route to get what you need to save on the budget. I hope Openmac (Opencomputer) has more success than Umax did. Even if they do lose, Apple's proprietary systems could more and more look like the emperor's new clothes. We win either way.

[Patrick]

http://www.informationweek.com/blog/mai ... maker.html

The article raises a couple points that are probably obvious to us:
- Apple hardware is overpriced
- EULA agreements suck
- Apple is a monopoly


Apparently the company is willing to go to court with Apple. Even if they don't win there are some positives for us. The above points will be written about and hopefully more people will see the light. They need to make a conscious choice of whether or not they want a closed computing system.

[greggh]

If they had to change their name from OpenMac, they should have gone with OpenFruit instead of OpenComputer, IMHO.

[greggh]

Gizmodo uncovers that the whole Psystar OpenComputer thing may be a scam

http://gizmodo.com/380488/psystar-expos ... ike-a-hoax

[Wally Balljacker]

I would be seriously interested in something like that. My biggest complaint with Apple's product line has always been the absense of a low-end tower. I don't want a Mac Mini or a stupid iMac, and the Mac Pro is WAY too expensive. This is exactly what Apple needs, a cheap tower to compete with the Dells and HPs of the world for under $500.

[snarkout]

I don't want a Mac Mini

Any particular reason why? After getting one for my wife last xmas, I have very little but disdain for my freaking xbox huge megafucking towAr. To me, at least, it's nothing short of amazing that there is such a powerful computer in a very small silent box.

[greggh]

Video of the elusive OpenComputer running, Leopard, as well as Windows XP and Ubuntu.

http://gizmodo.com/384137/psystar-video ... apparently

I thought it was funny that the Windows box was black (evil) while the other two were white.

[Wally Balljacker]

I don't want a Mac Mini

Any particular reason why? After getting one for my wife last xmas, I have very little but disdain for my freaking xbox huge megafucking towAr. To me, at least, it's nothing short of amazing that there is such a powerful computer in a very small silent box.

Because for $600 I'd rather get a much more powerful and expandable desktop PC. When I was shopping around for a new desktop last year, I had roughly $800 to spend. That completely eliminates all of Apple's offerings except the Mac Mini. And performance-wise, the Mac Mini doesn't even compare to the system I bought from HP. My HP has 3GB RAM (expandable to 8GB), 400GB storage, and a 2.8GHz dual-core Athlon. You can't even buy a Mac Mini with those specs, and if you could you'd be spending about twice as much money.

[greggh]

Psystar's "OpenComputer" seems to be anything but...

http://gizmodo.com/384302/psystar-wont- ... y-yourself

A MacFixIt reader had a very interesting email exchange from Psystar's support, who told him that they don't want customers installing Leopard themselves. Here's the quote from the support team:

We absolutely do not support customers attempting to install the Leopard operating system on our Open Computer themselves. This is due to a difficult process that we go through to get Leopard to function on our computers. We encourage you to purchase an open computer, and select the option to have Leopard Pre-installed. Currently, (shipping the computer back to us) is the only option available. If the HDD dies, you can ship it to us for $50 plus shipping, so we can replace it for you.

If we look at the only viable way to install a Leopard on a vanilla OS X machine right now, which is using a hacked version of the OS, this decision makes sense. Psystar can't very well distribute hacked versions of Leopard with every computer. The most they can do is give out copies of the real Leopard, which is uninstallable as-is. But that's not what they said before.

Back when we first heard about them, they claimed this:

The highly extensible OpenMac is a configuration of PC hardware capable of running unmodified OS X Leopard kernels. If you purchase Leopard with your OpenMac we will not only include the actual Leopard retail package with genuine installation disc, but we also include a Psystar restore disc for your OpenMac and we will preinstall Leopard for free so you can begin to use your computer right out of the box.

What happened here? Are they still going to include a restore disc? If so, that might run afoul of Apple and/or the guys who came up with the hacking method in the first place. If you're going to have to mail your hard drive in every time there's a problem, this might be too much trouble for the money you save.

Original name: OpenMac
Current name: OpenComputer
Tomorrow's name : ClosedHackintosh