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I'd suggest sending him an email. He's a really great guy and will probably answer your email in a few minutes.

I actually did email sales@quocomputer.com earlier

You'll notice the quocomputer website is very careful about their wording.

You'll note that they claim to be Apple enthusiasts, and that their computer will run "any OS" - but they're targeting Windows users, and that their machines will lead to an easier switch to Mac...

What they're implying, is that their machines are capable of running OS X, but they're not outright saying it...

I'm not sure if that will hold off Apple's lawyers, but it's less in-your-face than Psystar. Also, this article indicates that the owner provides "installation support services" which may include installing whatever OS multi-boot configuration the customer requests. This indicates the customer has chosen the hardware, and the OS platform, rather than buying something pre-installed. It seems the store is performing the service of installing said software.

I'm sure that if there's ever a legal issue, they will have to revert back to "we only install OSes we can legally install" - but that won't stop their customers from doing the multi-boot installation themselves anyway, possibly with phone-support to walk them through the process

Edited 2009-07-20 23:11 UTC

Interesting. I think it would be a lot safer for them to not do the install. Telling someone else to do something illegal ( if the pystar case determines that it is illegal), doesn't absolve the person of all guilt.

Maybe not. But I think Quo operates under the principle that they're customizing the computer to the customer's specs. It seems to me to be a different tactic than what Psystar has used so far.

Definitely, it is not illegal to install a legally purchased copy of OSX onto any single machine. However, such an act by the end user may violate the EULA.

If such an act were illegal, the criminal justice system would prosecute Psystar, Quo, etc., instead of Apple filing civil lawsuits. EULAs are (at most) private contracts, not government laws.

Thus, the Psystar case will not determine whether or not it is illegal to install OSX on a non-Apple machine -- the outcome of the case will only determine whether or not the civil courts deem valid the particular EULA clause(s) in question.

Edited 2009-07-21 02:01 UTC

Yes. Rashantha mentioned that Quo has legal input.


None. In some respects, Quo would like to distance themselves from Psystar. Rashantha told me that he has been in contact with them Psystar and he feels like his business operates under a different vision.


Likely never. Rashantha actually worries about this. Rashantha actually hopes to speak with someone from Apple one day to iron out their differences.

Wow, with all the questions you can answer, you sure did a thorough interview with him! Good job, oso2k!

Thanks.

BTW, there was tons more I wanted to write about but our 4 hour conversation made tons of tangents and wouldn't have been a very coherent article.

Exactly that's what I was hinting at ;-)

It's the other way on actually. Until the particular clause in that EULA can be enforced then it isn't worth the screen space it is written on.

Yeah, what happens if it is enforced?

I'm just saying, that I wouldn't be too eager to invest my money in the venture. I also wouldn't bother springing for any kind of warranty from them either.

The clause has been around for a long time and it still isn't being enforced. The market doesn't stand still. In terms of weighing up the risk and getting a new market that can give them competitive advantage then an OEM is currently going to choose the latter every time. If it becomes untenable then they can always stop.

They can always stop. Of course, its just a matter of if the circumstances surrounding their stoppage will allow them to continue as a profitable business.

I can always stop myself form falling out of an airplane. However, there are some circumstances around the stopping that will allow me to continue living, and others that will not.

Whatever happens it won't stop them being an OEM and it won't stop them making money in the meantime.


That's a really stupid analogy. There is a big incentive for OEMs here that is definitely worth any risk. Not paying attention to Apple's EULA simply can't be compared with the risk of falling out of an aeroplane and 'continuing to live'. That's the kind of bullshit that Apple zealots come out with who believe in Apple's God-like power.

Edited 2009-07-22 23:25 UTC

So, Apple don't argue and other groups pop up all over the world and suddenly, Apple are no longer selling Macs and stop developing Mac OS X, except for iPhone.

I owned a PowerComputing clone and it was great. They gave me the machine that Apple either didn't want to sell or couldn't build for some reason. However, the whole mess nearly finished Apple and Macintosh but this time, no one is paying royalties.

You must be joking... they're paying for a full legal copy of OSX.

If Apple didn't really want people to do this, they shouldn't sell retail copies - or they should increase the price.

Apple surely must have known what would happen, and if their plan all along was to cry foul, and hope that somehow they would find a way to legally prevent their own paying customers from using the software they purchased however they wished, then they are at fault for making stupid business decisions.

but thats the problem, like iTunes the software is there to attract users to the hardware. iTunes is there purely to drive the iPod and now iPhone, the store is just a cherry on top for users, apple doesn't make much money from itunes sales after bandwidth, credit card and music royalties.

This is the same for Mac OSX, the price is cheap as it drives people to use their hardware, to keep with apple. Apple is not out to make a profit through Mac OSX sales purely in the software space, if they were we would see Mac OSX for any intel machine.

So apple isn't really getting much money from the sale of Mac OSX which has incurred a lot of expense during the development of the product.

I can see that if more clone makers pop up, this will start to hurt apple, to which i can see them introducing a hardware method of stopping the install on non apple machines.

Apple's hardware and software is a complete package, it's different from Microsoft's software sales / OEM provider approach. This is why you can't force apple to start selling OSX which works on any computer, it's part of the overall package. It's like asking for the software behind any piece of hardware to be released so you can run it on any machine, for example the symbian OS in nokia's

Apple never had a problem with the hackingtosh scene, however i feel they are the ones that are going to suffer with the increased amounts of clone makers appearing on the scene, as others have mentioned, clones nearly destroyed apple the last time around.

You can find Samsung phones, for example, that run on the same Symbian S60 platform. Nokia is reasonable about this and they license their software to others.

I support the clone-makers because they are freedom fighters. Apple is all locked up at the expanse of their customers. There is nothing wrong with installing legally purchased copies of OS X on any hardware that can run it.

Apple can still profit without problems. It's not like they are installing pirated copies. Also, there will be people who will choose Apple hardware anyway, because of its quality and design.

Currently, Microsoft is a very open and friendly company, compared to Apple. It's time Apple did something about this.

i want a copy of the os in Xbox360 so that i can build my own xbox clone and sell it

Edited 2009-07-21 12:02 UTC

I would support that just as much..

...provided that for each XBox clone you sell, you bought an original copy of the 360 software - meaning, you would have to buy a 360 for each clone you sell, since Microsoft does not sell the 360 OS at retail. You would also have to remove said 360 OS from each and every 360 you bought.

If you can do all that - be my guest. Don't think you'd make much of a business though.

Suppose I'm a knife maker that inherited the business from my father, who used to sell knives for $50, say. I worry that people might hurt each other with my knives, so I offer them at a huge discount ($25) to those agreeing not to cut or threaten anyone with a knife with my brand on it.
I later realize that I should only sell knives under such a contract, to maintain my moral integrity. Indeed, I don't actually sell them the knife, but rather a perpetual license to use it subject to the terms of my "EULA", and the licensee ("buyer") must return it if I the license terms are broken.

How is this different from Apple putting arbitrary conditions on the use of their software? While it sucks that they do so, is there anything wrong with what Apple does from a legal or moral standing?

RMS saw this kind of thing as a social problem, which he solved by initiating GNU, not forcing the IBMs and Apples of the world to change policy.

For the 1 millionth time, Microsoft derives their revenue from software and Apple derives theirs from hardware mostly. Even the software they've acquired was reduced in price immediately to provide a path to Apple machines.

If there are so few people buying Apple hardware, there is no reason for Apple to continue Mac OS X or to pay for their engineering staff to develop hardware. Once the computers are gone, there isn't much reason for them to be in business as the iPod/iPhone business isn't much of a money maker by itself.

Trying to sell it without hardware, for Apple to make money on the Mac OS X client version, they'd have to sell it for around US$299 and we all know how popular Microsoft's upper end is. People will find any way around the pricing. Besides, for that price, people will just stick with Windows.

For anyone who thinks that a dead Apple will turn Mac OS X into the public domain, you can't be serious.

There was a whole article here disputing what you just said, so I won't bother repeating it.

That has to be the most unintentionally funniest thing I've heard all year. If I were a less jovial man, I would probably be disgusted. For your information, the following are what are generally considered "freedom fighters": –
-Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi
-Nelson Mandella
-Christiaan Boers

The following are not:
-Psystar
-Quo

So if you consider opportunistic companies to be champions of your freedom, if you… heh… consider yourself oppressed by Apple, consider yourself a VERY lucky man.

That is and has always been Apple's business philosphy, and I do find it a good one. But I also find merit in other people's remarks that OSX can be bought separately and that in fact, Snow Leopard will be cheaper than Leopard.

I think the Hackintosh resellers ought to have the right to exist. I see no harm in them offering machinery that allows more people to become accustomed to Mac OS and see what a great platform it is, at far lower cost than the official Macs. I think that most of these people will eventually see the added value of an official Mac. Because that is where the Hackintosh resellers cannot win: new features based on R&D.

Take my MacBook Pro, for example. I truly appreciate its subtle features: the unibody, the multi-touch trackpad (already can't imagine life without it), the LED battery indicator, the "sleep" light completely hidden from sight when it's off, the MagSafe connector (I had to throw away my old Dell laptop because the power connector was broken). Yes, I *am* willing to pay the extra price for it.

From the users' standpoint, of course having choice is great. But why do they have the right to run OS X anywhere? If Apple decides it doesn't like it, don't they have a right to set the terms to whatever they want, and we can use/buy something else if we don't like it?

I mean, suppose the opposite were true, that user's could set the terms to whatever we wanted. Then Apple might go out of business, or be less profitable and thus get less investment, which means less research $ and thus fewer cool designs, etc., a kind of slow death.

What if Apple refused to comply with the user's wishes to run anywhere, despite some potential law giving users' rights to run software anywhere? E.g., what if onerous measures were introduced, e.g., a minor chip put on the motherboard that is otherwise whitebox PC, or actually using TPM, or validating the serial # of the CPU, etc. In breaking this (fictitious) law, should Steve Jobs be put in jail?

All of this seems to say that if you have a principled problem with OS X restrictions, you must leave Mac entirely, and go GNU/Linux or BSD, etc.

So Apple has started making RAM, CPUs, motherboards, hard drives, etc? Or, when you wrote "Apple's hardware," did you actually mean "Intel's/Asus'/etc off-the-shelf hardware that Apple slaps a shiny case on"?

How exactly is that a "complete package?"



Horribly-flawed analogy - last I checked, Nokia doesn't sell their OS at retail.



If Apple is incapable of competing, then why should they get special treatment?



Except that today Apple IS a clone maker.

Speaking of Lenovo, it's often occurred to me that a good compromise would be if Apple licensed OS X - but only to specific companies, and only on specific "Apple-approved" models.

I know I definitely would be tempted if OS X were a BTO-option on some of the higher-end Thinkpads.

Here, here.

Indeed. The reasons for Apple moving to Intel were better performance and lower hardware costs via greater economies of scale. The side-effect of that is that it was obviously only going to be a matter of time before OS X could easily be installed on comparable machines with the same supplied hardware.

Apple will just have to lie in that bed now and they can't expect any help from Intel because Intel would have to be stupid to try and limit a potentially large new market for their hardware.

Of course, whenever a true Maclot is confronted with that reality, they will just stick their fingers in their ears and yell:

"La la la la, OS X only runs well on Apple hardware because Steve Jobs personally sprinkles magical pixie dust on every Mac. Anyone who disagrees is an Apple-hating Microsoft shill with Mac-envy who doesn't appreciate 'The Mac Experience' (and other vague, pseudo-intellectual horseshit)."

Edited 2009-07-21 17:01 UTC

They are not using EFI motherboards. They are using standard Gigabyte motherboards along with EFIX modules.