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Actually, if the Apple license falls under copyright misuse, then Apple is prevented from enforcing it until they take care of the misuse. "

And if the sun goes supernova tomorrow then we're all dead. Problem is, the chances of either happening are essentially zero. Or, you can actually give a coherant argument as to why there is even a hair's breadth chance of Apple's license falling into the category of copyright misuse when there is already court precedent on these very issues?


Limited monopolies, enforced through the abuse of copyright, can do nothing but harm the market. Competition is known to improve the market, not allowing it hurts the market.
You tell me, how does Apple EULA _help_ consumers? By limiting their choice of hardware to one? "

I'm afraid you've lost me. How is their hardware choice limited to one? Did every other hardware manufacturer suddenly go out of business? Oh, wait, you mean every manufacturer who includes OS X. Well, yes, there is only one of those. As there was only one manufacturer of Palm OS devices. For all intents and purposes there is only one manufacturer of Tivo products. Only one manufacturer of Playstations, Xboxes, Wiis. I guess we better start forcing Microsoft and Sony to start cross licensing their consoles so there is some competition.

So here's some advice if you decide to respond. First, I don't need to prove that their EULA helps consumers since I never made that assertion. The lack of harm does not indicate the creation of help. Second, you need to dissassociate with this idea that just because you want something in a different packaging the manufacturer is obligated to provide it. As I've given half a dozen products that you can only get from a single provider you need to prove that somehow that is causing harm in the market, even when there is credible competition between different products in the same market (i.e. computers with OS X versus computers with Windows, the different game consoles, Tivo versus other DVR makers, Palm OS versus other handheld OSes).

Better yet , let reality and the judge repsond :

"In an order signed on Friday, U.S. District Court Judge William Alsup gave Psystar the go-ahead to amend its lawsuit against Apple. According to Alsup, Psystar may change that countersuit, which originally accused Apple of breaking antitrust laws, to instead ague that Apple has stretched copyright laws by tying the Mac operating system to its hardware."

http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleB.....

Actually, if the Apple license falls under copyright misuse, then Apple is prevented from enforcing it until they take care of the misuse. "

And if the sun goes supernova tomorrow then we're all dead. Problem is, the chances of either happening are essentially zero. Or, you can actually give a coherant argument as to why there is even a hair's breadth chance of Apple's license falling into the category of copyright misuse when there is already court precedent on these very issues? [/q]
I'll bite. I've given you my precedent. Where's yours? I had given it two pages ago, but you ignored it. I explained it in my previous post again.


Does Palm sell the OS separately? Does Sony, MS or Nintendo sell the operating system of those consoles separately from the hardware? Not as far as I know. Then why in God's name would you bring it up?

Fair enough. But I thought that you had such a view. My bad if you do not.

As I said, since Apple is selling the OS separately, that means it already provides it in a different packaging. If you want not to sell it except bundled with the hardware, that's fine. Selling it separately and then saying "oh, but, wait, you can't use it except with our hardware" is not.

Although I'm on Apple's side on this issue, your facts are wrong: Palm OS was not only on many devices, legally, Palm spun it off into a separate company and that company sold it to other Palm OS device makers.

Remember the Sony Clie, the Handspring Visor, and numerous other PDAs that used the Palm OS? (You don't? That's because you're a whippersnapper. ;-) ) The only reason why you only see Palm making them now is because the PDA market dried up, making everyone leave except Palm in the Palm OS PDA market, and nobody else was interested in making phones with it. (Though the first PalmOS phones were also not made by Palm, but a small company that no longer makes such phones to my knowledge.)