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There is nothing wrong with product tying, if I'm not mistaken. The only reason it was an issue with MS was because they were and still are a monopoly with full control over the PC market. The other issue was that IE was tied directly to the OS without any hopes of removing to install something else (at the time Netscape) and very little chance that a third party would be able to do the same with their browser (though we now know how bad an idea that was). Your argument holds very little water, you should be able to sue Canonical for including Firefox as default, or Apple for including Safari, but that is not the case because they are not a monopoly and thus can't sway masses of users by including one app. Product tying is not illegal and its done all the time, xbox, PS3, Wii, you name it, all of these products are tied to software or hardware or both. As it has already been legally established Apple is in competition with other PC manufacturers, what differentiates them from other OEM's is OSX, they have the eright as a company of selling their product with whatever they think will gain them an advantage. To to top it off they support running other OS's on their systems.

Nothing wrong as in "It's only illegal for monopolies"? Or nothing wrong as in "It shouldn't be illegal for non-monopolies"? I'm starting to wonder whether "tying" shouldn't be considered anti-consumer, and against the best interests of "We, the people (of the World)" across the board. The company I worked for for 20 years is tiny. Microscopic, really. And it certainly did a lot of things that were anti-consumer because the law allowed it. The clients in my charge were, to a great extent, insulated from that. And our owner wasn't a bad guy. Just someone who operated within the law and felt legality was more or less equivalent to morality. I'm descibing him in more of a negative light, here, than is really warranted, because he had a conscience and a value system that I respected, or else I wouldn't have worked there for 20 years. But let's just say that our ethical systems diverged.

I have to wonder if tying of materials and services should be quite as legal as it is. Would it be better or worse if it was not... as long as everyone had to play by the same rules?

I'm pretty much just putting this out for discussion. I'm not sure where I actually stand on it.

Edited 2008-12-25 23:18 UTC

Product tying is, in fact, fully legal, as long as you don't hold monopoly power. The idea is that, if you hold monopoly power, you can essentially force a customer to buy another product/service with the monopoly product by tying them together. Apple doesn't hold a monopoly on Intel computers or OSes; hence, they are permitted under law to tie the products together. Similarly, the courts recognize that certain products are designed to work in conjunction with one another. For example, a computer is useless without an operating system; hence, for all practical purposes, it is "natural" to tie the two products together.

Funny anecdote. There's a tire chain (Les Schwab) on the West coast that offered free steaks when you bought a full set of tires for your car. I'm not sure what possessed them to think that selling tires with steak was a good idea. This, in my opinion, was a good example of "unnatural" tying. ;-p



I doubt seriously that Apple has the power to force you, the customer, to run a separately purchased copy of OS X on their hardware, if you choose not to. There are legitimate reasons why copyright can be legally violated (e.g. Fair Use, etc). BUT, we're not talking about you, the customer, here. We're talking about a company (Psystar) that is RESELLING Apple's operating system and running it on alternate hardware, in violation of copyright. That's very different. The courts tend to treat copyright violation with respect to commercial enterprises more stringently because the potential for harm is greater.

There's an easy way that Psystar could have gotten around this issue. They could have had the customer buy the OS from Apple and the computer hardware from Psystar. They could have provided automated software to do the install on the Psystar hardware. Game over. Apple wouldn't have had a leg to stand on. But, no, unfortunately, Psystar opted to take on Apple directly (a bad idea, for a small company) by attempting to resell Apple's operating system. Big mistake.

My parents have a cabin on Grand Lake here in Oklahoma. I spent a lot of time there when I was growing up. Afton was one of the close-by townships. And one of the businesses near there was "Afton Radiator Repair and Flower Shop". I think you could do business with one division without purchasing from the other, though. So it wasn't exactly "tying". ;-)

Edited 2008-12-26 20:32 UTC