There's news in the Apple vs. Psystar saga, and even though I know I promised not to report on this for a while, this news is a pretty important development, and we're more than two weeks down the road anyway. As you all know, Psystar filed a second lawsuit concerning specifically Snow Leopard in Florida, and Apple motioned to have the case combined with the Apple vs. Psystar case running in California, claiming there is no difference between the two. Judge Alsup has denied this request.
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Member since:2005-07-24
You misunderstand my comment a bit. You are not wrong, though ;-)
What I mean is that Apple can't simply rename an existing product and expect the law to care. They MUST, generally, show something very different for the new meaning to take effect.
A standard upgrade is not an 'upgrade version' in the software industry's standard vocabulary - which the judge would likely use in consideration.
The real problem is that this is largely untested waters. If the two products are 100% considered exclusive of the other, then the latest MacOS X 'upgrade' moniker could hold some weight in the second case. BUT, if the law merely sees them as different iterations of the same product (which is what is the case), then this changes things considerably.
This is to say that an 'upgrade' is not the same as an 'upgrade version.'
Microsoft nor Apple has any requirement to provide upgrade versions of their software to the retail channel, beyond some contractual obligations perhaps, BUT they do have to abide by the law when they do so in order for their non-signatory contracts to mean anything (EULAs / TOUs).
Microsoft does this by lowering the price on the upgrade versions. Apple could copy this by raising the price of MacOS X considerably, but changing tune and unlocking OS X from the hardware in full versions, but only supporting real Apple hardware in any official manner.
The "upgrade version" would be what they currently sell, except locked to the hardware. And the price could remain the same as is today, but is a relative discount to the price hike.
Then, if anyone hacks the upgrade version, Apple has the following going for them:
1. OS X "Upgrade Version" has a distinctive value from the unencumbered retail version
2. Support costs are a part of the hardware system, not the software product.
3. A renewal fee for continued support is included with each "Upgrade Version."
4. Sales of the higher priced full version will increase the costs of would-be cloners, reducing their ability to compete on price.
5. Apple makes money on each clone... even more than they do now, anyway.
I think you get the idea :-)
Of course, the way it should be.. and the it ends up being are far too often too far removed to make things like this truly predictable.
--The loon
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Official Apple statement on PRISM and privacy: "Regardless of the circumstances, our Legal team conducts an evaluation of each request and, only if appropriate, we retrieve and deliver the narrowest possible set of information to the authorities. In fact, from time to time when we see inconsistencies or inaccuracies in a request, we will refuse to fulfill it." This is basically Apple re-publishing their earlier statement in a more official manner. You either believe it, or you don't.
The open source Contiki operating system and its commercial Thingsquare distribution are making strides towards the connected home. According to a Computerworld article, a new LED light bulb manufacturer is putting small computers into their light bulbs. Each computer runs the Contiki OS, which gives each bulb an IP address and allows them to be controlled with a smartphone application. To connect the bulbs to the application, the bulbs use both Wi-Fi and the much lower power IEEE 802.15.4 mesh technology.
"Google asked the secretive Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court on Tuesday to ease long-standing gag orders over data requests it makes, arguing that the company has a constitutional right to speak about information it's forced to give the government. The legal filing, which cites the First Amendment's guarantee of free speech, is the latest move by the California-based tech giant to protect its reputation in the aftermath of news reports about sweeping National Security Agency surveillance of Internet traffic." Draining the ditch after the cow has drowned in it."I can't find one person who has been using the Nexus 7 for an extended period of time, and hasn't seen a massive downgrade in performance. Just what kind of downgrade are we talking here? I cannot pick up my Nexus 7 without experiencing problems like a lag of ten seconds, or more, just to rotate the display; touches refusing to acknowledged; stuttering notification panel actions; and unresponsive apps." Fully and utterly agreed. My Nexus 7 was blazing-fast and awesome for a few months, and at some point, it just started sucking. Just like that. I've tried loads of ROMs, and nothing helps.A new release of the hobby operating system MenuetOS! The release notes are a bit non-descript, but you'll have to take what you can get: "updates and improvements (picview, httpc, ehci, ...)"."The Internet is one of the most transformative technologies of our lifetimes. But for 2 out of every 3 people on earth, a fast, affordable Internet connection is still out of reach. And this is far from being a solved problem. There are many terrestrial challenges to Internet connectivity - jungles, archipelagos, mountains. There are also major cost challenges. Right now, for example, in most of the countries in the southern hemisphere, the cost of an Internet connection is more than a month's income. Solving these problems isn't simply a question of time: it requires looking at the problem of access from new angles. So today we're unveiling our latest moonshot from Google[x]: balloon-powered Internet access." Insane."MineAssemble is a tiny bootable Minecraft clone written partly in x86 assembly. I made it first and foremost because a university assignment required me to implement a game in assembly for a computer systems course. Because I had never implemented anything more complex than a 'Hello World' bootloader before, I decided I wanted to learn about writing my own kernel code at the same time. Note that the goal of this project was not to write highly efficient hand-optimized assembly code, but rather to have fun and write code that balances readability and speed. This is primarily accomplished by proper commenting and consistent code structuring." Just cool.
Member since:
2006-03-11
I don't know of any reason this is a problem. Where are there legal requirements related to this? All they need to do is change something (fix a single bug, change the splash screen) and they can market it anyway they want "NEW AND IMPROVED". They can also charge anything they want.
Again they can charge what ever they want to for their product and easily justify charging more for full product verses an upgrade to an existing OS. If I 'upgrade' my WinME license to Vista it is not a real upgrade it is a full new operating system, no real upgrade path. With MS even if you could upgrade you also had the option to do a clean install of the new system.