[AppleInsider] In an aggressive response, unofficial Mac clone builder Psystar has made a controversial claim that Apple doesn't legally own the US rights to protect Mac OS X, invalidating a major component of its lawsuit.


The addition to Psystar's mounting defense was filed last week in the Northern District of California San Francisco court playing home to the legal entanglement.

In its new submission, the Florida-based PC builder argues that Apple's complaint should be tossed outright as Apple didn't use proper procedures to register the copyright for Mac OS X. Without that copyright, the Mac maker is "prohibited from bringing action" against Psystar for DMCA violation claims and other copyright-related allegations.

The amended response also reiterates Psystar's earlier concerns that Apple is using a startup check in Mac OS X Leopard to block unauthorized systems from running the software. In the earlier retort to Apple's revised lawsuit, Psystar argues that Apple isn't using copyright protection as a failed check merely crashes the system.

Whether the new claim of invalid copyright can be sustained isn't yet clear. However, initial searches for copyrights through the US Copyright Office reveal that Apple does own at least a disc and manual copyright for Mac OS X Leopard published on October 26th, 2007 -- the day the software became available to the public.

Even so, Psystar is steadily becoming known for turning to unconventional interpretations of the law to try and thwart Apple's lawsuit, which itself has gone to the extreme of suggesting that secret contributors have helped Psystar get to the level of business it has today.

I'm not donating to this effort

My thoughts: OS X and OSx86 shouldn't be going head-to-head on this just because Psystar stopped being about the hackintosh effort and veered off down the road of commercialization. They lost my vote way back.

That being said... they are getting creative with their retorts.

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I would seriously laugh my ass off if this worked in favor of Psystar.

If it did, though, that would be the glroy days and end days of OSx86.

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Mac OS X Leopard 10.5.8 (9L30) | Chameleon 2.0 RC3 | Intel Pentium 4 3Ghz 800Mhz FSB HyperThread 1MB L2 cache SSE3 1MB L2 cache works, cosmetic display of 512KB L2 cache | Asus P4V8X-MX VIA Chipset, VIA-VT8237 Southbridge | AC97 VIA8237 | Dual 1GB 333Mhz DDR SDRAM | nVidia PNY GeForce 7600GS 512MB 8x AGP DVI/TV-Out/VGA [NVinject 0.2.1; QE/CI/QuartzGL/Rotation] | Darwin Kernel Version 9.7.0: Sun Jun 14 20:48:28 IST 2009; Voodoo 2.0 Intel alpha3 :xnu-1228.12.14/BUILD/obj/RELEASE_I386 i386

To be really honest, I completely disagree.

The above argument sounds like you are just mad that you can't always have OS X running on whatever system you want. OSx86 is about making it work despite those pitfalls. The lazy user just expects it to be done for them instead of doing the work (or research) themselves.

The reason I disagree is that Apple has made it a point that their OS was made for their hardware and have yet to make the complete effort to actually stop OSx86. They could do this but have actually made it quite easy (with early releases, leaked betas, etc.) for OSx86 to continue on as a hobby. The point that Apple is making by trying to stop Psystar is the commercialization of OSx86.

If you don't want to buy Apple hardware and you don't want to put the time in to learn how to make OSx86 work for you, go back to Linux (which is still a free ride) or to Windows.

They haven't. My system runs just fine on non-Apple hardware... and when KPs arise, I do the work to find out why and I fix it.

Do they really need to prove any of that? Rhetorical question... no, they've already made hardware that runs Windows better than a comparable PC would. Read above again for more reason on this.

Why should they? We already do a well-enough job of that ourselves.

How so? They've already made it work great on their hardware... and they are even extending their chipset line to include new technology (which will open big doors for OSx86 BTW) and yet still support their old hardware all the while.

Apple has made it easy to install and use Leopard by allowing it to run on hardware that dates back almost 10 years. Can Vista truly say the same with all of its hardware requirements? Don't get me wrong, Apple has their own hardware requirements... but not nearly as restrictive in terms of older technology.

Last statement I want to make... If you don't like Apple's policy, why bother downloading OSx86 in the first place? They haven't done what Microsoft did with Internet Explorer. I can easily uninstall all but the system software and still make my system run. This idea of an Apple monopoly just isn't true because Apple has made it abundantly clear by not going after the OSx86 community... just those trying to make some money off Apple's software (ahem... Psystar).

Good night and Merry Christmas.

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I couldn't agree more with you on that one.

Here's why I feel that Apple hasn't really paid too much mind to the OSx86 community. There's no doubt in my mind that Apple goes around and takes a look at our stuff. They do. I know they do, there are many Apple employees that I have seen come out of the woodwork to talk about using OSx86. I've talked to Apple Store employees about it. They can't officially talk about it, but when I would VNC to my home machine from one at the store to show them, all they can say is "Wow, that is so cool!". Apple knows about it. 100%.

They don't do anything about it, though. How many times have you heard of a person like Jas, or pcwiz or myself, or anyone else who made/makes an OSx86 DVD get served by Apple? They don't. The only reason Psystar is in court is because they tried to cash in on the communities work. They don't go after us because of the simple fact that Apple releases source code for many components that are used in OS X itself, and many of these are used in OSx86 as well. I'm talking about patched kernels, AppleSMBIOS, and various other kexts/code.

But here's the catch: Why would Apple even really bother releasing the source code to things like their kernel or even AppleSMBIOS when they are used mostly on real Macs to begin with? They develop most of what they release when they do system updates. The average Mac user doesn't even know what a kernel is, let alone how to modify and build one. Apple knows this. Apple also knows that anyone familiar with the code can well enough build one like Voodoo did. They know what can be done with it. I personally feel that Apple just doesn't really care. They only care when people make money off of it. It's not like OSx86 is private stuff.

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Mac OS X Leopard 10.5.8 (9L30) | Chameleon 2.0 RC3 | Intel Pentium 4 3Ghz 800Mhz FSB HyperThread 1MB L2 cache SSE3 1MB L2 cache works, cosmetic display of 512KB L2 cache | Asus P4V8X-MX VIA Chipset, VIA-VT8237 Southbridge | AC97 VIA8237 | Dual 1GB 333Mhz DDR SDRAM | nVidia PNY GeForce 7600GS 512MB 8x AGP DVI/TV-Out/VGA [NVinject 0.2.1; QE/CI/QuartzGL/Rotation] | Darwin Kernel Version 9.7.0: Sun Jun 14 20:48:28 IST 2009; Voodoo 2.0 Intel alpha3 :xnu-1228.12.14/BUILD/obj/RELEASE_I386 i386

Psystar is the flea that wants that the dog is scratching. And this is silly. Psystar is the reason why Apple has problems with the existance of OSx86, if it would be used from private persons only they wouldn't care, I think. We should open an information web page that the OSx86 community does not agree with the way Psystar acts. BTW, Psystar does not have the copyright of the new drivers which are used in the OSx86 images. They are made for free use, but not to make money with it.

What we want is an free OS X which runs on x86-based machines as a stable alternative to Windows - Thousands of Linux derivates aren't the solution, at least not for me. The most people who are using OSx86 have not the money to buy a real Mac. For private persons OSx86 should be allowed. Free operating systems are the future, I hope Apple gets this, and not too late. Sun Microsystems changed their operating system 'Solaris' to 'OpenSolaris' which now anyone can use, and they are supporting OpenOffice. That's the way a company should act. If companies, computers and operating systems are connected too much it will become problematic sooner or later, we could see this on all the 80's and 90's home computer manufacturers, all are gone. I don't think Apple will happen this, but... hm, I think you get the point.

Anyway: Could Psystar have success with its efforts? In my opinion the copyright of OS X belongs to Apple, they developed the operating system. What do you think?

@Hara Taiki:

That's a question I'm asking myself for so long. Why it is so easy to get OSx86 running? I got the first Intel 10.4.4 image in November 2005, I had an early 10.4.5 running before the Intel Macs were out. Ok, with a lot of problems, but stable. I know a lot of curious copy-protections from C64 times, even protections for tapes were available. The operating system GEOS 2.0 used a 3-part copy protection which was nearly undetectable in the 2K RAM it was executed - it was the buffer of the external floppy drive. I think even today, with so many hackers, it would be possible to create a protection which would hold a bit longer. But Apple does anything like this - good for us. I think about further problems, especcially hardware-based. For example, the command set problems. The new Intel CPUs now have SSSE3, AMD Phenom has SSE4a. But if Apple would make heavy use of SSSE3 they wouldn't run on the first Intel Macs which hadn't this instruction set. So what problems

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2 Opteron systems: OSx86 10.5.8, Andy's 9.8.0 kernel, Asus A8N-SLI Premium, Opteron 185 o'clocked @ 2 x 2,95 GHz (2nd system 2.6 GHz), ATI Radeon HD2600XT 256MB Dual-Monitor 2x HP L2035, 4 GB RAM, Griffin FireWave as main audio device, Marvell + nForce LAN, Asus U3S6 USB3/SATA6 card, 5,5 TB harddisk, Firewire 800 card, Apple Remote + eHome IR receiver, 2x Wacom serial graphics tablet, Canon Pixma iP4700, Logitech Internet Navigator wireless keyboard/mouse combination.

My Audio stuff: M-Audio Transit USB (default audio), M-Audio ProFire 610, M-Audio ProFire Lightbridge (34 channels) using Creamware A16 ADAT converter • MIDI: M-Audio Midiman 4x MIDI interface • Behringer Audio Mixers: Xenyx 1002, Xenyx 1002FX, Xenyx 1202FX, Eurorack UB1002FX, Eurorack MX1804FX, Eurorack MX262A • FX devices: Lexicon MPX100 DSP, Behringer DSP-1000 Virtualizer, Behringer MiniFEX 800 DSP, Behringer Multicom Pro MDX4400 compressor • RETRO: MSSIAH midi/sequencer/synthesizer cardridge for the C64 (Dual-SID), Steinberg M.S.I. MIDI Interface for C64