
Building a Hackintosh Apple Can't Sue You For - codeodor
http://www.osnews.com/story/21564/Building_a_Hackintosh_Apple_Can_t_Sue_You_For
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rufo
Section 2A of the Mac OS X Leopard licensing agreement:

2\. Permitted License Uses and Restrictions. A. Single Use. This License
allows you to install, use and run one (1) copy of the Apple Software on a
single Apple-labeled computer at a time. You agree not to install, use or run
the Apple Software on any non-Apple-labeled computer, or to enable others to
do so. This License does not allow the Apple Software to exist on more than
one computer at a time, and you may not make the Apple Software available over
a network where it could be used by multiple computers at the same time.

You may not be violating the DMCA, and chances are Apple isn't going to sue
you anyway, but you are violating their software licensing agreement.

from <http://images.apple.com/legal/sla/docs/macosx105.pdf>

~~~
onedognight
_You agree not to install, use or run the Apple Software on any non-Apple-
labeled computer,_

Did he not cover this by adding the stickers?

~~~
bmelton
I'm guessing that the interpretation of "Apple-labeled" means "labeled by
Apple" and not "labeled WITH Apple labels", but what do I know.

As far as I can tell, it's somewhat vague unless that is accepted legal
terminology to denote 'something labeled by Apple', so shame on them for
writing a less-than-ironclad TOS (if in fact it isn't.)

~~~
radu_floricica
The Apache Licence for example cares only that you keep the name of the
product. So it's not a stretch to interpret it this way.

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quoderat
Good guide, but I don't care if it's legal or not, because I feel it is my
duty to break unjust laws.

~~~
sp332
Couldn't you at least try writing your congressman first? Civil disobedience
is fine _when necessary_ , but otherwise you just come across as a scofflaw.

~~~
quoderat
I fought against the DMCA at the time, and have been doing such things as
writing to my congressman (and woman) since that time, and will continue to do
so. EFF donations and other organizations as well.

Meanwhile, I will also ignore laws that attempt to tell me what I can do with
products I've legally purchased. And now that the DMCA is being applied to
physical products (such as, say, cars) it's even more important to fight
against it, and I use all the tools at hand to do so -- including violating
that law, and doing so publicly.

The DMCA is one of the most dangerous laws ever passed, because it gives
private companies the de facto ability to legislate how you use products you
legally own. The First Amendment implications, at the least, should be
obvious.

~~~
bonaldi
_I will also ignore laws that attempt to tell me what I can do with products
I've legally purchased._

I take it you also object to laws that prevent you using the gun you've
purchased to shoot someone, using the lighter you've bought to start a fire,
driving the car you've bought over a pet dog, processing uranium in the
reactor you've bought, running off copies of your Stephen King collection on
the printing press you've bought, deafening your neighbours with the stereo
you've bought ...

I'm not being facetious either. It's a strange notion that took root among
hackers that their computers are somehow exempt from the law's regulation of
the products we purchase. That someone paid for their computer is utterly
irrelevant to the matter, yet continually you hear the cry "how can they tell
me what to do with bits in a machine I own!?!"

~~~
gdee
> I take it you also object to laws that prevent you using the gun you've
> purchased to shoot someone

Well it depends on the context but your example is wrong in any context. I
would object to a law prohibiting me to use a gun I bought (as if I could,
seeing how I live in Spain) as a hammer for example. Or to paint it pink (as
if I would). All stretched counterexamples, I agree, but there is an
underlying trend.

> using the lighter you've bought to start a fire

Wrong kind of analogy again. I object to being forbidden from engraving my
zippo. Or braking it to pieces.

> driving the car you've bought over a pet dog

Wrong kind of analogy again. I (would) object to being forbidden from
repainting the car. Or cutting it in half. Or reselling it to someone else.

I could go on with the reactor (oh please), the printing press (you're trying
to hard), the stereo and so on but it's useless because they are all dishonest
analogies. They put the focus on forbidden actions for witch the owned items
are mere tools. Objections to DRM are generally focused on forbidden actions
to witch the owned items are subjects. Like transposing a DVD to watch it on
my PMP. Huge difference. And I think you knew that difference already.

~~~
gdee
Also, to generalize the point, All the actions that you cited are actions that
are generally forbidden regardless of the means used. That's fine. The problem
is that they were cited as counter examples to actions generally permitted but
forbidden if done a certain way. Or more precisely only permitted in certain
ways. That's not fine. I'm expected to shell the money but only enjoy a movie
DVD at home (no transposing please, or else), in the "right" part of the world
(no region free players please, or else), with the "right" kind of equipment.

~~~
bonaldi
They weren't cited as counterexamples to _anything_ \-- the original poster
didn't give any examples, just said that he wouldn't hold with laws that
limited him over his possessions.

I see the distinction you're now drawing in yr comment above, but I don't
think it was there in the original. Even if it were, it's still not valid -- I
can't paint my car to look like a police car, can't alter my gun to look like
a toy (concealed weapons laws prohibit it), and the printing press analogy is
closer than you admit.

But the whole "legally purchased" line is _entirely_ the wrong way to go about
this. For example, in the case of Apple, the licence _specifically_ prohibits
purchasers from installing on a non-Apple machine. Breaking that means using
the software in a way that it _isn't_ purchased for, and the whole argument
collapses.

The problem with the DCMA and laws like it aren't that they "limit us doing
things with stuff we've legally purchased" -- the transfer of cash does not
imbue us with special protections. The problems with those laws are that they
infringe upon our other rights, such as fair use.

This distinction matters a lot, because by allowing this to be set in terms of
purchases and contracts, we're getting caught up in licences and property law,
when the argument should be much larger. Time-shifting recording is legal for
TV and Radio -- why isn't it also for Spotify or last.fm radio? There are no
purchases there, so the earlier arguments are irrelevant, but the same
ultimate principle is at stake.

OS X is Apple's property: there's no outcome of playing with property law that
lets you install it on any machine you want, DCMA or no. But cast in other
terms that aren't nearly as well explored yet, it might be possible. What does
"fair use" _mean_ in the context of software?

IP laws depend on our behaving as if these were physical properties we were
talking about. They aren't, it's an analogy that only loosely fits, and by
accepting their definitions and playing on their turf we are handicapping
ourselves.

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GHFigs
Apple hasn't sued anyone for building a Hackintosh.

~~~
weegee
they did however put some code in their ROM on the first macintosh...

[http://folklore.org/StoryView.py?project=Macintosh&story...](http://folklore.org/StoryView.py?project=Macintosh&story=Stolen_From_Apple.txt&topic=Software%20Design&sortOrder=Sort%20by%20Date&detail=medium)

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mattculbreth
I wonder if I could build a clone Mac Pro? Something really giant with 2
processors, 16GB RAM, 4TB disk space, etc. The retail Mac Pro approached $4K
for what I want and it'd be cool to do it for less.

~~~
stuff4ben
You might be able to do it for less, but you'd still be spending thousands of
dollars to do it. Plus you don't get support.

I think the sweet spot for hackintoshers is the exact market Apple is
avoiding. Basically a cheap version of the Mac Pro but more powerful than an
iMac. For just under a grand you can build a sweet quad core machine that
blows an iMac out of the water and probably comes close to a base Mac Pro in
terms of power. If I had to spend more than a grand, I would probably just buy
the real thing.

~~~
mattculbreth
Yeah you may be right. Another option is to go Craiglist or eBay and find
someone who wants to upgrade to the latest processor and is selling theirs.

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eli
Yeah, but it also doesn't work very well.

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weegee
excellent. the more people who run OSX outside of Apple hardware may yet
convince Apple to release a version of OSX for home builders. why they didn't
do this in the beginning I'll never know.

~~~
wmf
Apple probably felt that they got burned by the last time they allowed Mac
clones and ended up losing a lot of money. (I don't think that was the
cloners' fault, but I wouldn't bother trying to explain that to Jobs.)

~~~
redrobot5050
It kinda was the cloner's fault, but also the fault of Apple. Apple licensed
the clones with the hopes that "apple-certified" clones to grow the market.
I.e. figure out new and exciting ways to market macs to windows users, and
demographics where it was failing (families, because the PowerPC performas
sucked.)

However, Apple failed to certify more powerful clones (i.e. clones that were
better/faster/cheaper than their big iron) on a reasonable timeframe. Cloners
also contended that Apple was opening up the boxes to steal their trade
secrets.

And the cheaper models -- that were often equal or superior to Apple's
offerings, were a no-brainer for Apple's customers.

The long and the short of it is: Apple makes something like 30% profit off
direct retail of their hardware system. Even on a mini that's pretty good.
Compare that to $115 for the sale of OS X, and you realize they couldn't
afford to keep the cloners around.

~~~
wmf
_However, Apple failed to certify more powerful clones (i.e. clones that were
better/faster/cheaper than their big iron) on a reasonable timeframe._

As I remember it, the opposite happened. Power Computing skimmed the cream off
the Mac market because they had faster Macs than Apple.

 _Cloners also contended that Apple was opening up the boxes to steal their
trade secrets._

That's an odd complaint considering that Apple gave them the OS, the ROM, and
the chipsets to begin with.

~~~
redrobot5050
Not just faster Macs, but more frequent updates. And they were cheaper. I
owned one. And a UMAX.

UMAX complained because their C500 model later served to be the exact hardware
loadout of the Performa 6400 Tower. Apple let them do "research" on what
chipsets could do what, and then took the result for use in their own hardware
designs.

