keef247 can't help but feel your not getting this.
This is in the UK a 'grey' area. Even if it was somehow a law (i won't get into licensing vrs criminal law) it would be very anti-competitive.
Someone, its only a matter of time will test this, and it will be intresting to see the outcome, and how it effects the anti-competative/meglomaniac nature of apple.
throw new ArgumentException (String, String, Exception)
Keef, you're missing what the TheAnimus is saying. He has it spot on.
If Apple said they own your first born by installing OSX, would it be legal?
Originally Posted by Saracen
Wow, that's such a bad argument that I'm almost lost for words. We should start cutting off peoples fingers for theft. Since that's the law in other countries.
How can you call a company which accounts for a very small segment of the PC market megalomaniacal?
I also fail to see how it is anti-competitive. Microsoft opened up their licensing a long time ago, Apple didn't. I get the impression that you think it's only anti-competitive because they don't operate like Microsoft.
Apple don't make their money from software, they make it on hardware. If the EULA was tried in court and Apple couldn't defend not allowing other people the right to install the software on non-apple machines, they would be up the creek.
Probably not. The certainly wouldn't lose iPod sales, or iTunes sales or iPhone Sales etc.. Plus loads of people would still buy their (often) expensive hardware because it's pretty and has the right logo on the box. I've just had a meeting with a 'consultant' who couldn't work out how to use a PC (for his presentation) because he's a 'mac man'. Bless.
OSX will never be a mass market item so long as it's tied to Apple's hardware alone. I don't think Apple actually care though - it's not their business objective IMHO.
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I agree with you to some extent dangel, but you're contradicting yourself here. On the one hand you say that they probably wont be up the creek, but on the other you say OSX will never be mass market as long as it's tied to Apple hardware. As soon as its not tied to Apple's hardware, people start building their own machines to run OSX on, and Apple loses money.
Not a contradiction at all - if OSX went mass market then Apple (potentionally) gain a lot of software sales (MS seem to manage to survive on a software-fuelled revenue stream). People would be buying OSX, the service packs, the ipod, the itunes tracks, the iphone (and contract revenue from said) - do you really think they'd be up the creek as a result? Their margin on desktop hardware must be awfully good for that to be the case.
But as I said, it's not their business model - as someone else pointed out: Apple are all about control. They control OSX via hardware tie-in. The iPhone is neatly tied up with contractual revenue obligation and a (very) closed platform (as compared to Symbian or Winmobile).
I do think Apple would struggle to support the vast base of PC hardware than Vista does though - tieing it to limited hardware does give them a lot more control over 'quality' of drivers.
Last edited by dangel; 07-08-2008 at 10:56 AM.
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Apple make significantly less money on software than they do on hardware though, so there's absolutely no benefit in opening up their operating system.
MS don't make the hardware though, so don't have much control over the quality of components put into people's systems.MS seem to manage to survive on a software-fuelled revenue stream
Agreed to some extent. The drivers will be higher quality, yes, but that doesn't mean they'll be better drivers. Video drivers for Windows machines are much more well developed, I suppose this could be to do with Direct X but I don't know much about that.I do think Apple would struggle to support the vast base of PC hardware than Vista does though - tieing it to limited hardware does give them a lot more control over 'quality' of drivers.
Do you think you prefer Apple running a very tight ship with lots of control?
Keef I think you have your points mixed up.
- Dubiousness of OS X's EULA illegality/legality. Fine I agree, but that is also why it should be tested.
- Piracy, If I buy a copy of OS X from John Lewis in a box right now and install it on non-Apple hardware that isn't piracy it's EULA violation and possibly a DMCA issue, but this is like you say the UK not the US.
Apple benefited quite nicely from from plainly illegal action in the form of ripping CDs for use with iPods for many years until the law changed. That law was passed by the UK goverment. The EULA you get from Apple was drafted by Apple and without being legaly tested we just don't know 100% that it right or wrong.
In the US they prohibit tying. This is to stop say Ford only allowing Ford Tyres or Ford Radios in their cars. Now in the case of the Radios, sure they can go non-standard with the connectors and the dimensions, but there is no EULA saying you can't buy an adapter for normal headunits.
Software EULAs are something in general need to be legally tested in my opinion as they just seem to be a means of the publisher making up what ever the hell conditions they want regardless of consumer rights.
That's a hard point to substantiate isn't it? I mean, how do you know what their margins are and what they would be should they sell 5 billion copies of OSX versus a couple of million macs? Plus all their other revenue streams (which probably prop up Apple MORE right now anyway). Remember i'm talking about just the mac - not the massive revenue from the iPod, the growing iPhone and the 'software'' revenue from iTunes. My arguement was that Apple isn't all about mac anymore - and that without mac hardware I really can't see them "up the creek" accordingly.
Well they do - but I think you mean literal components rather than peripherals. Apple don't really do that anymore either - macs are mostly off the shelf bits (ignoring the case/mb) aren't they? I'm not convinced there's more 'quality' as a result - perception of maybe (and shiny box does go a long way) - moreover the 'quality' is a result of the closed, limited hardware platform. Of course that's not all pluses.
It means you don't have thousands of crappy drivers destabalising your platform (aka Windows). Why do you think MS bit the bullet with user mode drivers for Vista?
Apparently so - as I said (twice) it's their business model..
Last edited by dangel; 07-08-2008 at 01:38 PM.
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Not at all, you can't apply two standards of logic on two identical issues. I purposely picked an extreme example to demonstrate how braindead this idea is.
Nobody is talking about downloading OS X, the argument is void. And even at that, the media is not at issue, it's the license terms, what defines the copyright.
That makes no sense at all, in one hand you're arguing that if it's legal here to download copyright material then it's actually illegal but nobody bothered to pass a law for it? If something is not illegal or no law exists for a particular act, it's not illegal, no ifs, buts, or maybes.
Nobody here is condoning piracy. Personally, I'm condeming the rediculous assumption that EULAs are the law written in stone, and nothing could be further from the truth. If someone has purchased a license to use a peice of software they purchased, nobody has any business telling them what they can, or cannot install it on. It would be akin to buying a painting, with conditions that it may only be mounted on a north facing wall. It's unreasonable, anti-competitive, and against fair play in the context of software.
If the company doesn't want to support the software installed on a given platform that's fine, but purposely crippling the software so it doesn't run on generic hardware is wrong, and rambling off pesudo-legalities when there's no legal presidence for it's legality is even more wrong, dishonest at best.
I think you're missing the point of law and how it ties in to copyright agreements, the purpose of the courts is to argue disputes in matters of law, if someone breaches an agreement or violates a law, it's up to the prosecuting party to prove that a particular section of the agreement is legally valid and reasonable, and in defence the defending party can argue presidences of similar issues and/or cite articles of laws which may dismiss the prosecuting parties claims and that they were within their rights to do as they did. The onus is on you to prove that it's illegal in the United Kingdom (the US is irrelivent for the purposes of this debate). Further more, my brief glimpse at copyright legislation already reveled two exemptions that allow an individual to ignore licensing terms for undisclosed periods of time.
The assumption of guilty until proven innocent is everything that's wrong with the world today, it violates human rights, and robs people of their freedom. This is especially the case when people assume that companies can make up arbitrary laws on a whim.
Last edited by aidanjt; 07-08-2008 at 02:57 PM. Reason: typo
I don't have a problem with that - but now apply that to an MS OEM lEULA. I install it on a machine I built - then a year later I scrap the machine. According to the EULA, the licence dies with it - but if you apply the quoted argument, I could go ahead and install it on another machine. It isn't being installed or used on two machines at the same time.
Apple say I can only install their software on apple hardware;
MS say I can only install on one machine - ever;
Same type of restriction. They are either both valid, or both invalid.
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Two points on those two EULAs.
- Tying a single copy of software to a single system is different to tying all copies to one make of hardware.
- Microsoft offer multiple licenses; OEM, Upgrade and Retail. Apple does not. If you need an untyed license buy a different one. Apple offer one.
How do I know the exact terms of use untill I buy it? so if I agree to the terms of use without seeing them is that even legal?do you not know that when you purchase the software your agreeing to terms of its use
Also just because someone wrote terms of use does not make them legal.
For example if terms of use stated I must give up a right that it is illegal to give up or do something that is illegal and I ignore the terms of use am I acting illegally or is it the terms that are?
It might fully be the case that the Apple EULA is 100% legal, then fine cool I'd be in the wrong if I broke it. The question is then is it? I get the feeling with a lot of these EULAs the only reason they get away with saying the things they do is that no body wants to test them and that they wouldn't want to either in case it blew up in their face.
So you are saying that because Apple chooses not to make alternative licences available, you are free to break the terms and conditions of the one they do sell?
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No I am saying these are two key points of difference.
I realise I am not making my position very clear. I am not say I believe that breaking the Apple EULA is guaranteed legal. What I am saying is I am unconvinced that it is legal for it to be tyed down in this way. I guess a two wrongs don't make a right situation.
This is why Apple has only gone after companies breaking the EULA, not individuals. As making money from helping people break a license is different to a private individual making that choice themselves. To be honest I think Apple have greater legal weight now they are on x86. On PPC they had a monopoly of driver writers and other developers. You could say were the monopoly on PPC based desktops. Now on x86 you are in a different kettle of fish. However they can't now claim that the hardware used to run the software infringes on their patents as frankly the whole x86 based PC market would have to stop. Really the big difference is that Mac's use EFI and the rest use BIOS. It's starting to feel more like DVD region locking than illegally cloning say a whole game console.
Anyway I have had enough of this. I would encourage to everyone to stay within the bounds of UK law including Apple.
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