The week isn't even over yet, and we already have another instalment in the Apple-Psystar soap opera. Psystar has filed a new lawsuit in the Florida Southern District Court in Miami, asking for an injunction and damages because of Apple's "anticompetitive attempts to tie Mac OS X Snow Leopard to its Macintosh line of computers".
To read all comments associated with this story, please click here.
Member since:2005-10-12
No, its not a license just like the GPL. The EULA is an agreement, with a variety of different clauses in it, all of which may be binding and enforceable or not independently. To run the software you have to agree to it. When you agree to it, you enter into a civil contract with the supplier of the software. If you then violate the agreement, you may be sued in civil court.
The GPL is quite different. You do not enter into a contract with anyone. If you simply want to run the software, it does not affect you one way or the other. When it affects you is if you want to make copies or derivative works. In this case, the GPL gives you permission to do that under certain conditions, in particular making the source code available. It is needed because normally you would not have the right to do that. It would be a criminal offense under the law of copyright in all Berne Convention jurisdictions.
Consequently, even if all clauses in all EULAs were to be declared unenforceable, the GPL would still remain valid. Copyright law would not be affected in any way, and that is what the GPL is based on.
There are people who argue that the power to set terms and conditions of use of retail copies of software derive from copyright law. They typically argue that retail copies of software are not sold but licensed. They are wrong. But even if they are right, that has no bearing on the GPL, which gives the power to make copies, and does not make any restrictions on use.
Member since:
2008-10-09
First, this has nothing with "freeing" OS X from Apple branded hardware. Nor does it have anything to do with antitrust issues.
Psytar already lost their antitrust argument in California. They will lose again in Florida. Courts don't like litigating trying to game the system.
This is all about the doctrine of first sale, more importantly, the premise that terms and conditions of sale don't apply.
You may not like EULA's but it is a license, Just like the GPL. What Pystar is arguing is "We don't like the EULA and we want to ignore it." Imagine now how this would work if someone could ignore the terms of the GPL because they didn't like it.
I am willing to bet that the funding behind Psystar are anti-GPL entities.