Building a Hackintosh Apple Can't Sue You For
Linked by Thom Holwerda on Tue 26th May 2009 20:56 UTC
Mac OS X Getting Mac OS X up and running on a computer without an Apple label has always been a bit of a hassle. You needed customised Mac OS X disks, updates would ruin all your hard work, and there was lots of fiddling with EFI and the likes. Ever since the release of boot-132, this is no longer the case. Read on for how setting up a "Hack"intosh really is as easy as 1, 3, 2.
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Windows Sucks
Member since:
2005-11-10

Unfortunately, you are completely wrong. The DMCA says that any circumvention of a copy protection device is against the law. It doesn't matter if all the pieces used to circumvent the copy protection are legal. It doesn't matter how trivial the protection is. The fact that there is a copyright protection device preventing you from installing OS X (which I'm assuming isn't under debate since you seem to have, at least implicitly, stated that there is one), any circumvention is illegal no matter how you go about it.


The question is: Did Apple actively put countermeasures or DRM on the retail Leopard install DVD's to stop users from installing it on a non Apple computers. Far as I can tell that answer is no. Apple did not include the drivers and other pieces of software that would be required to run out the box on a non EFI computer with a standard bios. But I have not seen any evidence that Apple put in DRM to stop people from installing MacOS. And even now (I have a MSI Wind U100 with Mac OS on it) when you install updates they don't add any software that in its self would kill a Hackentosh.

Just the same as Apple added a DMCA claim against Psystar but has not pushed it by asking a court for a DMCA infringement injunction to stop Psystar. I think that is because Apple does not have a case using the DMCA alone.

Reply Parent Score: 3

alcibiades Member since:
2005-10-12

Both DMCA and copyright allow you certain privileges in respect of acts which are either to enable competition or to enable interworking.

DMCA explicitly allows you to hack in order to bypass restrictions which limit competition. Garage door openers, mobiles and so on. Copyright in the US allows you to crack and alter in order to make interworking possible, and it also allows you to publish the methods.

If we consider that efi is an international standard, there is no way that placing your machine in a state to install OSX via it is unlawful.

Thom has of course violated the EULA clause which forbids installing on non-Macs. Whether this clause is enforceable? Because that's all that seems to be actionable in his method? Almost certainly not in the EU. Probably not in the US.

Reply Parent Score: 3