Submitted by As was to be expected, Apple’s legal team got busy concerning the OSx86 Project. Just days after OSX 10.4.4 for Intel got cracked, the project closed down its forum with the following notice: “We’re sorry to report that despite our best efforts, the OSx86 Project has been served with a DMCA violation notice. The forum will be unavailable while we evaluate its contents to remove any violations present. We thank you for your patience in this matter.”
That’s a shame… but, well… it’s DMCA, we all know how it “works”…
I hope they can solve this problems soon. It’s a good project.
Considering that intel OSX cannot be bought off the shelf, people are downloading ISOs of OSX to crack. This is theft, there is no difference between walking into a shop and half inching a box.
The cracking itself, if done for personal use and not distributed, is legal.
Ergo, don’t think that because the EULA is not enforcable, that you are not stealing software.
If you are currently running OSX on non apple hardware – You have stolen from a company. There is _no_ way to deny that.
Edited 2006-02-17 13:25
“If you are currently running OSX on non apple hardware – You have stolen from a company. There is _no_ way to deny that.”
That young sir, is bollocks!
I have sat in front of me a 17″ iMac Core Duo, paid for with Pounds Sterling.
I have to the left of me a home built P4 running OSX.
I hae not distributed it to anyone, so I haven’t broken any laws whatsoever.
I have sat in front of me a 17″ iMac Core Duo, paid for with Pounds Sterling.
I have to the left of me a home built P4 running OSX.
I hae not distributed it to anyone, so I haven’t broken any laws whatsoever.
Yes you have, because copyright law only allows one installation copy.
Who said I run them at the same time?
The P4 had it installed as an experiment, to increase my knowledge. It’s called learning. All knowledge is power.
Some of us like to learn, strange as it may seem to some people here.
Who said I run them at the same time?
Doesn’t matter. It’s about whether you’ve got them installed at the same time.
In the USA, maybe (has it been tested in court?).
Outside the USA, I’d say you probably can.
Bear in mind that a lot of the limitations put in the EULAs do not really apply. And besides, you could have ONE homebuilt machine with OSX and one formatted Mactel machine, maybe waiting for a linux install: one machine, one copy of the software. Just not the same machine.
…yeah, I’m nitpicking. 😀
No matter how you look at it, copyright infrigenemnt != theft. They are parts of completely diffrent sets of law.
Theft is when you remove something from someone else with the intention to give it to yourself (that’s the definition by Swedish law atleast).
Downloading a copy of something without the permission of the copyright holder doesn’t fit that description. It is a breach of the copyright holders right though.
That takes care of the technicality of the matter.
You might want to argue that depriving someone of his/her monopoly is moraly theft.
Then consider this. Copyright is a time limited monopoly that the state takes upon itself to uphold. By doing so copies and derivative works becomes an artificially scarse resource, therby raising its value, which would otherwise be zero. The purpose of doing so is that the state belives that this is needed to create room for comerce in creative trades such as writing, programming or composing.
No matter if this acrually is true or not. Limiting a resource that could be free for everyone at the cost of noone cannot be defended as a moral right.
You have no inherent right to OWN copyrights. You are granted that right on the hopes that is is beneficial for society.
Theft (as defined by Merriam-Webster)
Main Entry: theft
Pronunciation: ‘theft
Function: noun
1 a : the act of stealing; specifically : the felonious taking and removing of personal property with intent to deprive the rightful owner of it b : an unlawful taking (as by embezzlement or burglary) of property
Definition of Copyright Infringement (by Wikipedia)
Copyright infringement is the unauthorized use of copyrighted material in a manner that violates one of the copyright owner’s exclusive rights, such as the right to reproduce or perform the copyrighted work, or to make derivative works that build upon it.
They are not the same.
Theft is a criminal penalty (in the US) and is treated as a criminal offense.
Copyright infringement is a tort crime (once again, in the US), a civil penalty.
Theft is the taking and deprivation of personal property.
Infringement does not deprive the owner of property; it merely infringes on the use of existing property.
IANAL; just a BS in CS.
The legal interpretation you see here is the author’s only; it is not meant to be use for any type of legal defense in a case, pending or ongoing.
Actually, if you’re running OSX on both the P4 and the iMac duo, then yes, you have broken laws, because you’re consuming exactly one more license than you have legally purchased.
I doubt it anyway. Just Blah Blah Blah.
The licensing allows one installation of the OS for each computer purchased. Same as Microsoft’s. So yes, you are stealing.
for the fifteenth time in this thread, infringing on the terms of a license agreement is not even _remotely_ the same as theft.
“The licensing allows one installation of the OS for each computer purchased. Same as Microsoft’s. So yes, you are stealing.”
It is different, as everyone keeps pointing out. The licensing allows one installation of the OS for each computer purchased.
So no, you are not stealing. You are violating the license provisions.
This is different from stealing, and different from violating the DMCA, and different again from breaking copyright law.
You may also, even if you are not installing it on more than one computer, but just in a way that violates the Eula, be violating the terms of the Eula which impose post sale restrictions on use.
In that case, what has happened in the EC is that the supplier has attempted to lead you to believe that you have entered into a contract of a sort which it is unlawful for him to make with you. That’s all. You have no obligations of this sort, moral or legal.
The only one whose conduct is legally and morally questionable, when you install your copy of OSX on one and only one computer which is not made by Apple, is Apple.
If you are currently running OSX on non apple hardware – You have stolen from a company. There is _no_ way to deny that.
How about if I own a Mac running Debian? I hold a license of Mac OS X, why shouldn’t I be able to put in use on a beige box?
“How about if I own a Mac running Debian? I hold a license of Mac OS X, why shouldn’t I be able to put in use on a beige box?”
You can.
Well, you can do anything you want as long as you’re not caught… But on the legal aspect, it depends on your local regulations and whether the licence is tied to the machine or not.
I must say your situation would be rather unusual. Unless you have specific needs, it would be more productive to do the opposite, especially if you care of your warranty.
“Considering that intel OSX cannot be bought off the shelf, people are downloading ISOs of OSX to crack.”
“This is theft, there is no difference between walking into a shop and half inching a box. ”
There’s actually a big difference. The former is a copyright violation and that latter is a theft. They’re not legally the same, no matter how much some “organizations” would want you to think they are.
Edited 2006-02-17 13:51
Kroc your no Judge Judy, nobody cares if your right or wrong.
You have brought nothing new to the table, your doing a predicable need jerk, think about this for a minute.
Cnet splash “OSX x86 hacked” it just looks plain bad and sloppy.
And makes Apple look cheap, Apple is 99% about public Image, that is their cash cow.
They sell hippness that’s all, you threaten that they will hunt you down. OSx86 Project will simply go underground in some hill in Russia and not gloat so much.
Apple will roll a few heads, to show some whip cracking, life will go on as normal
(now mod me down multi account karma stealers, make me right…again
)
Edited 2006-02-17 14:55
Considering that intel OSX cannot be bought off the shelf, people are downloading ISOs of OSX to crack. This is theft, there is no difference between walking into a shop and half inching a box.
Yes there is. If you “half inch” the box there would be no box left. If you replicated the box, or the contens of it, the box would still be there.
Sure there is.
I bought an intel based mac.
I have a copy of OSX, I didn’t steal it or get it illegally.
+5 that post is? Amazing.
If you are currently running OSX on non apple hardware – You have stolen from a company. There is _no_ way to deny that.
Copyright violation != theft, as some have already noted.
Furthermore, downloading a pirated copy of OSX is not by itself illegal – it is the act of distribution that is a copyright violation, so the downloader himself is not commiting an offense (the person sharing it is, however).
Kroc,
Re: “Considering that intel OSX cannot be bought off the shelf, people are downloading ISOs of OSX to crack. This is theft, there is no difference between walking into a shop and half inching a box.
If you are currently running OSX on non apple hardware – You have stolen from a company. There is no way to deny that.”
Actually Apple does sell OSX Tiger seperately as advertised on their own site portals. Not everyone running OSX on hardware not sold by Apple is doing it with a cracked copy.
To clarify the EULA for OSX doesn’t provide support for consumers who choose to run OSX on hardware not sold by Apple. The EULA also doesn’t allow for unauthorized distribution of copies. Though the company cannot legally stop consumers from running OSX on hardware not sold by Apple. Consumers can if they choose to legally run OSX on an emulator such as Xen, VMWare and PearPC. Since Apple does sell OSX seperately from the hardware then if a consumer can create a patch to run the OSX on x86 hardware with out emulation then it should be in their legal right to do so. For Apple to try to enforce a restrictive EULA on consumers who legally purchased OSX to not use it on hardware not sold by Apple will find the company being viewed as running a monopoly and possibly in court.
Edited 2006-02-18 06:12
While I hate most facets of the DMCA I think this is one valid use of it. Basically the site is blatenly shouting out that they are breaking the EULA and *(maybe) helping others do the same.
If you want to crack OS X go ahead and do it on your own time, but do go out and about advertising it expecting not to gather any unwanted attention.
* I haven’t personally visited the site, and kinda cant now, so I’m not sure the extent of information that was available there.
Basically the site is blatenly shouting out that they are breaking the EULA and *(maybe) helping others do the same.
The EULA doesn’t matter, because section 117 of the DMCA explicitly allows you to install a program on a machine no matter the other rights of the copyright holder.
Even if you can’t buy MacOS for Intel separately at them moment, you could theoretically wipe it off your new Mac and install it on a PC instead. (Haha!)
Therefore this is probably about something else: like cracking a copy protection scheme or reverse engineering.
You’re probably right, and my guess is that Apple is using the DMCA because its simply there. If it wasn’t I would hazard to say that they would have sued/done something bad to the site anyways.
Again, I wasn’t arguing that the folks doing the cracking were being ‘evil’, but I think they took the advertising of the accomplishments a bit to far.
The DMCA ammends section 117 of Title 17 to include (c) and (d) protecting those that repair computers from the interpretation of (a) that does not include “licenses” for software. Companies would still argue that (a) does not apply in this case because they do not “sell” copies of software.
While I’m not DMCA fan, I think that most of us know that the people using this technique would be pirating Mac OS X. Heck, even if they did purchase a Mac OS X package to compensate Apple, those packages are sold with the assumption that someone has already paid for a Mac computer. I mean, I can’t buy a Linux computer and then just grab a copy of Windows XP Upgrade and consider myself to have legally bought a license for that computer. Likewise, Apple only sells upgrade versions of Mac OS X (since all Macintoshes come with OS X and their EULA does specify that it can only be run on a Mac, they are defacto upgrade versions).
Piracy is never a good thing.
“Piracy is never a good thing.”
it sure helped MS get market leverage. The irony…
While I have a problem with piracy, I also think think you should be able to do with your OS that you paid for as you wish.
On the other hand, this topic ties in nicely with the other one about Microsoft requiring you to purchase a new license if you swap out your motherboard and were running an OEM version of Windows.
There are many issues of ownership and what that entitles regarding software.
Apple is trying to tie its operating system directly to it’s own hardware. To me it smacks of all the grief MS was given over IE being tied into the OS (I know software to software is not the same thing as software to hardware). It seems like it is legal for Apple to do this, but it also seems “shady” for some reason.
I own three Apple computers, btw, and will soon be buying another… so while I like Apple products, I don’t always agree with how they operate.
Nonsense. If Apple wants to enjoin me from putting a software product of their’s, which I’ve legally purchased, to a range of specified uses, then they will have to change their distribution method and require a signed and notarized contract stating such as a condition of sale. This is how other industries manage to attach restrictions on use to the sale of particular products. There’s nothing at all unique about software producers which justifies providing them a shortcut, in the form of the EULA, to get around the normal practices of contract law.
As with every other type of product sold, the purchaser of a software product should be assumed to hold all rights to use the product in whatever fashion they deem fit, except where a there is a valid contract specifying otherwise. Frankly, Steve Jobs can stick his EULA where the reality distortion field doesn’t shine.
The OS X boxes don’t say anything about “upgrade only”. Something can’t “de facto” be an upgrade. If it doesn’t say “you can only install this over an existing copy of OS X” on the box, then it’s not an upgrade.
Continue the good work outside of USA.
Please explain to me how cracking OS X is “good work”? I’m not sure I understand how this could be within the law or in the best interests of anyone other than those who don’t want to by an Official Mac box.
It would seem more profitable for those people involved to go and ask for a job at Apple. It sounds like they are good at what they do and I’m sure Apple would give them discount on the hardware so they didn’t have to hack together a beige…
For the cause instead of against…
Maybe they should put thier effort into Win on Mac.
“Please explain to me how cracking OS X is “good work”? I’m not sure I understand how this could be within the law or in the best interests of anyone other than those who don’t want to by an Official Mac box. ”
What you do with the software you own inside the comfort of your home is noones business. You can crack it and reverse engineer it as much as you want.
It doesnt get tricky until you start to 1) publish your findings and/or 2) redistributes modified versions.
The latter is without a doubt a copyright violation while the former is somewhat of a legal grey area.
Edited 2006-02-17 13:59
I definitely understand Private Hacking vs. Publishing Findings. Thanks for that description. If they keep it too that it IS learning…
“I definitely understand Private Hacking vs. Publishing Findings. Thanks for that description. If they keep it too that it IS learning…”
And by sharing information, they enable others to learn.
Same could be said for sharing the plans for a pipe bomb… “but, judge, I was just enriching peoples lives”
“Same could be said for sharing the plans for a pipe bomb… “but, judge, I was just enriching peoples lives”
You’d love it in China my friend.
Not exactly, in China person sentenced to death by a firing squad has to pay for the bullet/bullets being used, so maybe China would be much worse.
What if he doesn’t pay ? They’ll kill him ?
I don’t think one could refuse payment for those matters in China, if you cannot pay the government would take it from you one way or the other. On lighter side, they might shoot the guy in the leg for warning or probably one could use their credit card or write a check.
Edited 2006-02-17 21:22
Has our society really gone so far?
That anyone would seriously attempt to compare these two situations.
copyright/dmca/patent/eula violations != plans for a pipe bomb
Have the corporations, **AA, etc brainwashed us to the point where we believe that the sharing of such knowledge is THAT BAD?!
I’m not saying I agree or disagree with the project, frankly that doesn’t concern me. Some of the responses I’m reading does. Yes, some of what they are doing breaks the law. Just remember WHAT laws they’re breaking and the penalties therin.
And in fact I think even in the USA if you print or publish the info for making a pipe bomb it’s perfectly legal, isn’t it?
I heard you had this thingie called “freedom of speech” in your constitution… but maybe I’m wrong.
It’s still legal, thank God, but certain “think of the children” types (on both the liberal and conservative sides, unfortunately) are trying to put an end to that.
There is nothing inherently bad about weapons. My chemical engineer friend and I were arguing the other day about how to make the most destructive weapon possible for $100 (after an episode of “Myth Busters”). A web page on pipe-bomb plans would’ve been useful in the discussion. Does that mean we’re planning to blow up a building? Heck no! Exploding things are their own reward
Free speech anyone? Publish it on a T-shirt 😉
What you do with the software you own inside the comfort of your home is noones business.
This isn’t a privacy or sexual behavior case. You don’t own the software. (Presuming that you paid for it,) what you paid for was a nonexclusive license to run the software within the restrictions specified by the copyright holder. So your [theoretical] example is kinda pointless and doesn’t apply in the way you described.
By the same token copyright doesn’t apply to “fair use” which includes things like being a student and learning about operating systems. You might want to look into that if you should actually be interested in what is allowed rather than simply making false assertions about what is OK and what isn’t.
I personally don’t give even the tiniest little bit of concern to modifying OS X and running it on better computers than Apple sells. That doesn’t interest me at all.
But on the other hand I do want to be able to modify or use any software I legally obtain in any manner I want. Whether that be to run Office in Wine, or to modify a binary I obtain to perform some arbitrary task, or even to reverse engineer some dictionary software released only for Windows so I can use its data files with a customized client on other operating systems. In short I don’t want my personal freedom arbitrarily encroached upon by companies that aren’t satisfied with having copyright protection given to them by the People well outside of my lifetime, and feel that’s really just not sufficient. I don’t want software to become littered with dozens of restrictions that content distributors will then use to rationalize increasingly placing such restrictions on every other kind of media. Personally you people that are so in love with Apple that you rationalize this asinine behavior that will be used everywhere else revolt me. People that so obviously just don’t want people diluting the image they invent for themselves through their choice of operating system that anything that they think prevents it being sullied is the bees-knees even if it comes along with regulating how you can copy, or even watch a DVD.
“I personally don’t give even the tiniest little bit of concern to modifying OS X and running it on better computers than Apple sells.”
You might have just nailed it there. And, I also think that’s one of the reasons the Mac-fanboys are so upset right now. They have spent so much money on overpriced hardware, that they feel like they’re among some sort of “elite” group, simply because of an image. However, if others start running OSX on cheaper, and far superior equipment, it really would shatter that world of being so “elite” that the Mac-fanboys live in. The reality is that Mac users bought an image – not a better computer.
But on the other hand I do want to be able to modify or use any software I legally obtain in any manner I want. Whether that be to run Office in Wine, or to modify a binary I obtain to perform some arbitrary task, or even to reverse engineer some dictionary software released only for Windows so I can use its data files with a customized client on other operating systems.
And then to re-distribute your changed binaries to others on BitTorrent sites? Something is wrong with this picture. You have to draw the line somewhere. I mean, how would you feel if you sold a piece of software for let’s say 50 dollars, that you created, and this was your source of income for a living. Then I buy it, make changes to it, and put it on BitTorrent? Is this perfectly okay, to you?
Edited 2006-02-17 20:44
My thoughts about copyright infringement have little to do with what I just said. If I want to write a client that uses, but does not distribute, files whose copyright is owned by another party, then I want to be able to do that. I personally don’t want to redistribute someone else’s copyrighted material, however I would have no qualms with modifying the binary and providing others with the means of doing the same. If the code in question were “open sourced” and I could redistribute a binary using that code that replaced a proprietary version, that would be fine as well.
What I object to is the acceptance that uneforceable provisions in EULAs should be considered binding, simply because people have a stick up their rectums about the plebes using their operating system. I also object to the provisions of the DMCA that make reverse-engineering difficult without committing a crime for the exact same reason. Companies have copyright protection that exceeds my lifetime for their goods. If that is insufficient to them, then they can pound sand. The members of the State do not exist for the purposes of catering to what is convenient or optimal for a subset of its businesses. People that encourage this tendency because they have a love-affair with Apple Computer are harmful to society. People should not permit their appreciation for the products of businesses to cloud their judgement into accepting arbitrary restrictions on the use of material that they legally acquire on the grounds of preventing activities that are already civilly actionable, or offend their false sense of superiority. That acceptance will be used to rationalize impositions on all media in all forms on everyone.
Since when is stealing a good work?
It isn’t stealing, it’s modifying proprietary code to work on broader range of hardware. Besides crackers probably paid for that OS. Btw. what does DMCA law have to do with “stealing”?
Finally a good use for DMCA.
Time to start smacking down some of these people who think they’re entitled to anything they want.
“Please explain to me how cracking OS X is “good work”?”
Speaking as a teacher, I can say that it is a great learning experience for the cracker.
“It would seem more profitable for those people involved to go and ask for a job at Apple.”
Some things are more important than money. If you can’t see that, then you never will.
Hey! My cardboard box house is just as good as yours!!!
After all, I don’t really want money either, It would seem silly to have money in todays society now that everything is free!
“Hey! My cardboard box house is just as good as yours!!!
After all, I don’t really want money either, It would seem silly to have money in todays society now that everything is free!”
I take it you have a crap job where you don’t have to use your brain.
Some of us have brains and like to find out how things work.
Some of us have careers where we can then apply the knowledge we have gained, thus earning more money!
Must be nice living in a rented place eh?
Thanks Pizzahut boy.
“Some things are more important than money. If you can’t see that, then you never will.”
vs.
“Some of us have careers where we can then apply the knowledge we have gained, thus earning more money!”
I’m guessing you’re a Quantum Physics Professor.
“I’m guessing you’re a Quantum Physics Professor.”
No I’m a Software Engineering Lecturer, and hey guess what? As I know more than some of the other lecturers, I earn more than they do.
Some lecturers earn more than me, as they know more than I do.
I used to earn more money than I do now when I was a professional software engineer.
As I said, some things are more important than money.
Not everyone is obsessed by it. Thank God.
“Not everyone is obsessed by it.”
It’s beautiful world Nic.
If only I could get a job…
“If only I could get a job…”
Start to educate yourself then! 😉
But I only have an IQ of 55.3 and KFC don’t trust someone with a criminal record.
Could someone with the appropriate skills please hack OS X so that I can run it on my cell phone… I’m SURE that is what Apple expect for us to do… It only make good sense! Think how usefull the it would be if I could run it on a piece of hardware for which it was never intended…
I know, maybe my cordless kettle! Yeah, that would be great.
Toaster
Stereo
Digital Camera
Coffee Coaster
Pocket Calculator
Ugly Alienware Box
Man, my life would be perfect.
(Irrelevant, I know)
And tried to talk reasonably, there are some things to be aware of.
A) the site isn’t only about ‘cracking’ OSX, it was also used by legitimate users to talk about projects on OSX86 and to find out about x86 happenings in the OSX world.
B) The site itself isn’t the problem, some of it’s constituency is.
That said, I’m not very popular on the site, because I’ve not only pointed out the theft / legal issues in the forums, I’ve also maintained that I won’t support a customer using OS X on non-Apple certified hardware with my software projects. EG, you want to use it, and get funky behaviour, that’s not something that I’m going to even consider looking at.
The interesting thing here is that Apple is going after the messenger, and not the message. We know that the ISO is available as a torrent, and that the origin site of the material is also apparently down, as well as a couple of other sites carrying the material.
Unfortunately the viral nature of these patches, they are out in the wild, and it’s going to be difficult to keep them under wraps.
The worst part is that the legitmate customers are the ones that will bear the brunt of this, since Apple when strengthen security and have to spend more on prevention on a legal action, and that ultimately comes out of the paying customer’s pockets, not that the piratebay type communities care. They don’t, it’s not about who it costs, only about what they can get.
The worst part is that the legitmate customers are the ones that will bear the brunt of this, since Apple when strengthen security and have to spend more on prevention on a legal action, and that ultimately comes out of the paying customer’s pockets, not that the piratebay type communities care. They don’t, it’s not about who it costs, only about what they can get.
Or they could simply sell MacOS to anyone who wants it and remove the restriction to Macs, under the condition that only Macs would be supported.
The small minority that is hackers and enthusiasts would be happy, but a full-scale Mac clone business would still be infeasible, because they’d have to pay full price for an unsupported OS (with the occasional little incompatibility thrown in
).
Then again, this whole saga is pretty good PR for Apple, because it makes MacOS look more desirable, leading to more paying customers.
Or they could simply sell MacOS to anyone who wants it and remove the restriction to Macs, under the condition that only Macs would be supported.
The fallacy of this assumption is that the resulting support costs wouldn’t effectively bury the company, and that the associated bad PR with regards to unsupported hardware and quirky behavior on poorly implemented hardware, (nVidia chipset cards with poorly executed peripheral chips overclocked to iffy speeds causing hardware issues that are exposed by the less tolerant Mac drivers as one example). You absolutely have to look at both sides of this equation. If it’s sold over the counter, it’s got to be supported, and thus begins the cycle that prevented OS/2 from having a chance of succeeding, and has made it tricky for Linux to get a toehold in the general marketplace, and is why RedHat, Suse, etc have all focused on business oriented distro’s as the commercial products and let the ‘Home’ market be community supported (which you can do with a ‘Free’ OS, not a commercial product).
The problem is that if you look at this from a techie POV, it’s a no brainer, but as a business case, it’s a loaded gun, aimed at your own head, with the safety off and someone elses hand on the trigger (with an itchy trigger finger I might add). Me, I’m all for an OSX revision on non-Apple hardware as a techie, but as a business owner, I fully support Apple’s hesitation and understand the dilema they face of HAVING to enforce the copyright or risk losing control of it. It’s an unpleasant situation for them, where on one handed knowing it’s cracked and in the wild and working s a viral marketing tools is a good thing, and on the other, they can’t publicly let it go on without risking serious legal problems when they subsequently have to go after some company selling bootleg copies of OSX.
Legal ramifications of inaction far outwiegh the short term issues these DMCA violations cause (and in this case the DMCA is doing what it is supposed to). Either way, Apple is screwed, because they paying customers get the shaft in bearing the cost, or the shareholders get the shaft when Apple loses it’s right to protect it’s copyright for not doing so.
Why? all because a smalle percentage of users who for reasons of their own want to run the OS but are unwilling to part with the money required to do so, and as such are willing to shunt the burden of cost onto thousands or even millions of other people.
You seem to be confusing two issues. Downloading a copy of OS X, for which you do not have a license to, is copyright infringement. On the other hand, copyright alone is not sufficient to constrain someone from putting software they have a valid license for to any particular use they deem fit. Running OS X on non-Mac hardware is using that software and copyright law doesn’t constrain any form of use.
Apple has every right defend its copyrights, but that is limited to stopping unauthorized distribution not undesired usage on the part of those who have licensed copy.
The fallacy of this assumption is that the resulting support costs wouldn’t effectively bury the company …
Speaking of fallacious assumptions: How much does it cost to not support it on non-Apple hardware?
You can’t simply ‘not support’ a product like you are proposing. Ask Microsoft what it spends supporting VB6, a product that has been unavailable for years, and has been officially unsupported for a while now. Generally speaking, if you tacitly condone the use of a product on a platform, you have to support it at some level, and that costs, even if it’s nothing more than training your staff to ask the question, and reply, that it’s not a supported configuration, and no, we can’t give you a refund on that software, you need to talk to the vendor that sold it to you.
Unfortunately these realities don’t seem to have penetrated the minds of the many clamoring about why Apple is resisting this. The costs of the PR black eye alone justify the fight.
For the DMCA to apply the servers need to be located in the US, right?
And how is the page breaking the DMCA? They are only a news and forumsite…
+1
any way, i hope OSx86 guy will move their server to another country……. like irak, iran… somewhere law don’t exist…..
They only got what was coming to them. I hope Apple takes them for everything (which isn’t much) they have.
These punkass kids with homebrew sites think they can hack other peoples software/operating systems, then brag about it, generate a ton of traffic and get 15 minutes of fame.
Not to mention trash talk Apple while they are at it.
Did I say hah already?
Buy a Mac to run OS X, quit being a cheap ass.
Now if you will excuse me, I am going to go glue BMW emblems on my Ford to make it hot.
Edited 2006-02-17 14:52
“They only got what was coming to them. I hope Apple takes them for everything (which isn’t much) they have.”
They can’t “take” anything from them.
“These punkass kids with homebrew sites think they can hack other peoples software/operating systems, then brag about it, generate a ton of traffic and get 15 minutes of fame.”
Apple stole much more than that and is famous for it. Hacking OS-X this way is rather bragworthy. It’s an accomplishment as much as hacking Enigma was.
“Not to mention trash talk Apple while they are at it.”
That’s a matter of personal preference. If they put their effort to hacking it they surely think it’s worthy in the least. IMHO apple should be trashed.
“Buy a Mac to run OS X, quit being a cheap ass.”
Sorry, I don’t buy something which prevents me using it’s parts on anything else.
“Now if you will excuse me, I am going to go glue BMW emblems on my Ford to make it hot.”
You should stick to manual labor, it will do you good.
This has been a part of the plan all along. Jobs has been wanting to make the jump to commodity X86 hardware for years, this is just the latest step along the way. I don’t believe for a minute that Steve Jobs ever for a moment gave up on the dream to own the desktop. Oh maybe for a small while he did while at NeXT when he decided to focus on the University and high end markets, his work with Pixar and all. The dream though, that was the one thing that wouldn’t die.
Steve Job’s plan was and is incredibly brilliant and if he manages to pull it off his future will be insanely great. First he managed to get people to fund the company’s warchest by pushing out yet another revision to the old MacOS code base and managed to make it work via the power of advertisement. Oh and colours, mustn’t forget the colours of the iMacs err.. Rainbows. Meanwhile he began convicing the faithful to start learning how to program in Coca and Carbon (IE he started getting them to learn how to program using the power of a crossplatform API. Drumming up an old OpenStep FAQ brings the information that:
“We believe that any application that uses the standard
development environment and Object kits provided by
NeXT should simply compile and run. Only applications
that use architecture specific features or data formats,
will require additional time to port. Several developers
have already ported applications to NEXTSTEP/Intel.
Appsoft Draw simply recompiled and ran, Lighthouse
Concurrence took 3 hours, other programs took 1/2 a
day to 2 days, and this was all on a very early release of
NEXTSTEP/Intel 3.1!”
[ http://www.channelu.com/NeXT/NeXTFAQ-new/NeXTFAQ.131.html ]
Meanwhile Steve Jobs has that famous meeting with Linus Torvalds, you know, that well known open sourceGPL guy who founded the Linux Kernel all the kids are talking about? Strangely nothing ever comes of the meeting, yet in two years the first edition of Darwin is released as MacOS X Server 1.0 and in two more years you see the establishment of the OpenDarwin project. Interestingly it runs on X86…that same year for the first time in a long while there is a sudden upswell in rumors that Apple has a working port of MacOS X for the X86 processor. So what happened?
The iPod hit its second revision and began /really/ taking off. I mean this was a big big deal and Apple was looking at the first insanely great product that the public wanted /bad/ since the original macintoshes. Oh Apple did their best to promote the original iPod as the ‘NeXT’ big thing for them, but no one really thought it’d be as big as it was. So when Steve Jobs presented the third generation of iPods on April 28, 2003, with an iTunes for Windows shortly after and iPods suddenly began making them more money than the Macintosh was the urgency to move to X86 began to taper off. In truth I think that no one but Steve Jobs still wanted this move but as we all know Steve has this strange effect called the Reality Distortion Field and through its power Steve is usally able to get what he wants..
So meanwhile as iPod and iTune mania begins to taper off and the novelty of Apple slowly but surely going through everyone’s list of ‘Things Apple Will Never Do’ and crossing off items one by one and releasing such things as the Headless Mac, and the Mighty Mouse the idea of MacOS X on X86 began to seem less and less unlikely. Although I’m sure Apple had to do some fancy footwork to avoid the hype that otherwise known as the Cell processor. Then in May 2005 Steve Jobs made the future clear–The NeXT OS Apple released would run on X86. As I’m sure everyone knows this recent history I’ll skip the leaked releases of the developer’s edition of MacOS X and the various hacking using Darwin Code. What I’ll point out is the interesting timing of things. Things such as Weston Pawlowski known for (his port of vMac to Win32, but even more interesting for) his MACE project which started in 1999 and then suddenly had to be dropped so it wouldn’t conflict with his responsibilities to his employers. The fact that Sheepshaver was opensourced in 2002…roughly the same time that OpenDarwin .01 is released is also interesting. May 2004 saw the release of PearPC (which I’m sure we all remember) what I find to be interesting beyond words is that Rosetta is intended to be in general relase in 2006. I don’t know if anyone else has noticed but most of the major stepping stones leading to a MacOS X86 tend to happen in two year intervals.
1999*2000-2001 – Meeting with Linus, MACH kernel selected, MACE Project starts then is stagnant for years as project leader puts it on hold to avoid employer contract conflicts. GnuStep project nears API completness. Simply GnuStep begins.
2002-2003 – MacOS X Server released, OpenDarwin Project started, iPod blows away all previous timelines (temporarily anyway) Sheepshaver is Opensourced (although honestly its been around since 1998..) SheepShaver works on Linux. Marklar fever reaches fever pitch then disappears.
2004-2005 – PearPC released, CherryOS makes headlines everywhere for criminal stupidity, Apple announces the existance of the Rosetta project– /part of the highlights is that of Theo Grey declaring it only took two hours to port Mathematica/ remember that bit from the OpenStep documentation? Simply GnuStep Activity suddenly stops near beginning of 2004.
2006-200? – Maxxus cracks OSX86 for Intel in 0 days; more support to follow, ??????, 20?? MacOS X for Intel released for all machines?
*These developments in 1999 tended to occurr at the end of the year.
Bottom line is that to my reading of recent and not so recent history (GnuStep was started waaaaay back in 1994-1995) Steve Jobs has been slowly manipulating people and software projects to bring about just this very situation. You have countless hacker geeks working with MacOS X86, these same people will of course be trying to reverse engineer and write drivers for their machines and these drivers will no doubt find their way into the Darwin code base. Meanwhile it is currently possible for MacOS to run on ‘Wintel’ but not for Windows to run on Macintosh. Its also possible for developers to write programs for the MacOS using GnuStep. Over time there will eventually be enough support in both hardware and in applications for MacOS X86 for there to be massive Hardware Compatibility Lists, the way Windows NT 4.0 and Windows 2000 had and hardware manufacturers will begin including drivers on their disks.
By the time we hit 2008 or the begining of the NeXT decade Steve Jobs will ‘bow to overwhealming public demand’ and release Official support for OSX86.
So don’t let anyone fool you, Apple is just as unhappy with reverse engineering of MacOS X on Intel as say Microsoft is with the piracy of Windows XP in China..
–bornagainpenguin [who can’t believe he wrote all this in one go! @_@;]
Edited 2006-02-17 15:34
–bornagainpenguin [who can’t believe he wrote all this in one go! @_@;]
You are living in dreamland.
1. Apple derives its user experience from a tightly integrated vertical hardware and software stack.
2. Attempting to support beige-box x86 machines is just not in the cards. To do so while providing a reasonable user experience and hardware compatibility would require resources Apple doesn’t have.
3. If Apple or Steve really wanted to support beige-boxes in the limited fashion that NextStep did, then he would have released OS X on x86 from the start. Why spend so much time and effort porting NextStep to PPC, fostering a development community around OS X PPC to only drop it a few years later? It would make more sense to do it when there was a clean break-point between OS platforms (OS9-OSX).
There is no grand plan, just business decisions. But hey, you can go right on dreaming if it makes you happy. Just don’t be disappointed when your dreams of OS X everywhere don’t come true.
-Mak
But hey, you can go right on dreaming if it makes you happy. Just don’t be disappointed when your dreams of OS X everywhere don’t come true. —makfu
Well first off you forget that Steve Jobs needed to get all the programmers using the crossplatform API, which is why he went through all the motions of porting the OS to PPC. There’s also the fact he already had a half-finished edition of the port from previous efforts to port the OS while NeXT was still making hardware.
While no doubt you’re right that Apple has no wishes to support generic beige boxes, I’d imagine that they have every hope of becoming part of a tightly integrated network of partners with Apple controlling their partner’s releases in a rebranding scheme. Look at the HP iPod for an example of what I mean. Apple puts it all together and their partner rebrands it and sells it as theirs. Complete compatibility.
What I expect is that Apple will allow these opensource hackers to continue to hack in support for the OS on generic hardware, while occasionally busting heads (as we’ve just seen) all the while they take the driver support and add it to the main OS they themselves maintain. Sure you won’t be able to buy a non-Apple engineered machine with OS X86, but I imagine that over time hardware manufacturers will eventually begin adding support for the OS quietly and in the background the HWC list will grow. I mean look at how far the NT series of hardware support has come since the early days of NT4.0 and 2000! I still have the manual that comes with my NT4.0 box and its 60 page HWCL–and as hard as it may be for some to understand there was a time when driver support was not guaranteed for Windows. Its only in the last five or six years that everything is generally supported across the spectrum and hardware comes with drivers for Windows XYZ.
Then with Darwin as a base those drivers can be rolled back into Mac OS X quietly and without fanfare until like I said, everything is supported on a generic level and Jobs can do a little song and dance about how he’s only doing it because the demand is so strong….
Then Bang! Dell and etc announce they’ve reached a historic agreement with Apple. Unlike the other times Apple tried licensing the OS, this time they have the iPod to fall back on, the iTunes music and video store. mega bucks in their warchest, and they’ll require all models to be sold as high end devices, require inspection by Apple for quality control, etc..
How many years ago was it we heard the rumors (from Steve IIRC) that major PC-makers were clamoring for a chance at OSX86 on their hardware? Almost a year ago, wasn’t it? Let’s give it another and see what happens. And as I’ve already pointed out something bring this type of thing closer and closer seems to happen every two years or so…
–bornagainpenguin
Meanwhile Steve Jobs has that famous meeting with Linus Torvalds, you know, that well known open sourceGPL guy who founded the Linux Kernel all the kids are talking about? Strangely nothing ever comes of the meeting, yet in two years the first edition of Darwin is released as MacOS X Server 1.0 and in two more years you see the establishment of the OpenDarwin project.
Interesting theory, but you’re forgetting the fact that Darwin is based on FreeBSD and Mach, not Linux.
No, I’m just pointing out that while that mneeting was unfruitful for Jobs as far as getting Linu=s Torvalds to come work for Apple it did show Steve once again how well opensource could work for him without him needing to do much of anything.
–bornagainpenguin
PS: Speaking of MacOS X server, isn’t interesting that it wasn’t until its final release that the OS was prepared for PPC? The first few devloper releases as far back as 2000 were still mostly X86 specific. Hmmmm…
What about those who pay for a copy of OS 10.4, but then don’t run it on a mac?
They are *CLEARLY* not stealing. They paid for it. They have the reciept.
It’s just more hypocrisy from apple. Use linux. Apple and MS are both pieces of crap
Edited 2006-02-17 15:42
It may not be stealing, but by using the software you are agreeing to the EULA which enters you into a contract in which to agree to only use the software on Apple hardware. I don’t know how enforceable it is, but it is still a contract which you agreed to by using the software, and if you use the software on non-Apple hardware, you are in breach of contract.
“It may not be stealing, but by using the software you are agreeing to the EULA which enters you into a contract in which to agree to only use the software on Apple hardware.”
No, you don’t. Not outside the USA, at least: EULAs and shrink-wrap licenses mean close to nothing. Either you explicitly signed the vexatory clauses or you did not.
We keep going through this over and over again.
In the EC, those kinds of conditions are contrary to consumer protection and competition law. The vendors, including Apple, know that perfectly well. So, by seeking to impose such conditions, which are not simply unenforceable, THEY ARE ACTUALLY POSITIVELY UNLAWFUL, the vendors are indulging in a form of fraud, as well as violating competition and consumer protection law.
And you say, people have some kind of obligation to comply with these conditions? On the contrary, you have a positive moral and legal duty not to. As you have with any similar unlawful conditions people may seek to impose.
Uh, the only way to buy a legal copy of OSX for Intel is to buy an Intel Mac. That kinda makes your statement impossible right now. In 9-12 months when 10.5 ships, this might change, but not yet.
F the dmca it is killing all innovation. I dont care about putting osx on a beige box i only care about putting linux on a x86 mac
So hack away folks
The DMCA is everyone’s friend!
http://www.eff.org/IP/Emulation/Blizzard_v_bnetd/
OK, I just want to clear a few things up here. People keep calling this theft. That’s thats what the proponents of the DMCA want you to call it.
Theft is taking a physical item and not paying for it, it’s actually removing the item from another’s ownership and placing it into yours, without any explicit or implicit permission.
This is not theft, this simply copying, thus it is Copyright Violation. (bear with me, I’m still saying it’s ethically and morally wrong)
Copyright Violation has a different kind economic impact than theft. Theft actually removes the item once paid for, so if you walk into a store and outright steal a copy of Windows, the store, the supplier and Microsoft “take a hit”…but especially the store who likely paid a premium. Once Microsoft pays off development costs for a Product (let’s ignore code maintenance and updates and future software (hmm, MS…new products…that’s a joke) for moment shall we?), they get a full profit off newly sold items, barring the cost of the media on which it’s sold. So this isn’t stealing or theft, it’s just copying of their product. It’s still wrong, but it’s not nearly as bad as jacking a Microsoft semi and selling the copies therein yourself…or giving them away.
However if you walk into the store, buy the disc outright and copy it twice to give to two friends (for simplicity’s sake let’s just ignore cracking the validation, that’s another a can of worms). Microsoft, the distributor/supplier nor the shop you purchased it from actually “lose” any money. Here’s where it get’s very, very grey. The two who are using the copies may have purchased windows had they not got their hands on it, then again they may not have…who’s to say authoritatively that they were.
Is it still wrong? Yes. Is it blatant theft? No. It’s copyright infringement/violation, thus the economic impact is different, if not less. I hope that clears things up.
People who call copyright infringement is “theft” piss me off. Not because I think copyright infringement is permissable, but because it diluates the language we use to speak about the world around us. “Theft” has a specific meaning and “infringement” has a specific meaning. Some people are just apparently too stupid to be able to use precise words for precise thoughts.
looks like win2osx.net is also gone
Osx86project wasn’t making the cracks available themselves, they were linking to them. In that way, I suppose the site itself was a “circumvention device.” A prime target for the DMCA.
It’s an interesting measure of the difference between OSS geeks and Apple geeks that OSS geeks pretty much roundly decry the DMCA while Apple fans seem happy to embrace it [/generalization]
The DMCA is a disaster IMHO, used for prohibiting things that really should be allowed. A case like this is unfortunate in that it provides a nice example of the DMCA actually appearing to protect a company people like, justifying the DMCA’s existence. While Apple is in the right to do this (osx86project was pretty blatant, if harmless, I mean really), I’m sad that they are lending some legitimacy to the DMCA, a law so often abused by other entities.
It’s an interesting measure of the difference between OSS geeks and Apple geeks that OSS geeks pretty much roundly decry the DMCA while Apple fans seem happy to embrace it [/generalization]
No, that’s just the Linux trolls — they compensate for their size with volume.
If they were true OSS advocates, they wouldn’t use material that falls under the purview of the DMCA.
For starter it means that OS X is much more than eye candy, also that by applying 3rd party theme on your operating system you would not get OS X. OS X is mainstream operating system now, which is a good thing for apple. Btw Apple or Microsoft are corporations that have people like you and me working in offices whose pay is affected by software piracy. Apple is not just Steve Jobs it’s also thousands of regular 9to5 working employees, it is not justified to pirate anyhow.
> Considering that intel OSX cannot be bought off the
> shelf, people are downloading ISOs of OSX to crack.
> This is theft, there is no difference between walking
> into a shop and half inching a box.
Actually, there’s quite a big difference between theft and piracy: the former requires the subtraction of the good from the party being damaged by the act of theft, the latter does not. That is, after I steal a good from you, I have it, and you don’t have it anymore.
If I pirate MacOSX, no one is left without her own copy of MacOSX.
Whoever dares to put on the same footing both piracy and theft, is doing so either because of ignorance, or because of bad faith.
Isnt piracy the act of seizing and looting a vessle? Surely on the same foot as theft.
next year macs comes with windows vista and mac os x sold to microsoft
Yeah Right! After throwing tons of money into a solid unix based OS. With an entire Multi Media Suite, for Microsoft Windows. Please, oh and on top of that dis every Hard Core Mac Users, and recent switchers. That would BE suicide Mister. I think you need to wake up and smell the Aqua…….
I see the future and the leopord will Have STEAK!!!!
🙂
good, many people are getting out of hand thinking they can break the law. it’s really not that hard mac os x ONLY runs on a mac. if this keeps going apple might have no choice but to force more dumb anti-pirate system like MS has on windows users.
i dont want an X86 mac. i woudlnt mind going out and purchasing a copy of the OS for my home made PC. i also run debian on a REAL mac. which had a license for mac OS X. all technicalitys aside why is it not fair for me to run OSX on my PC and debian on my mac?? so far the only way to do this is to crack the software rather i own a license, or rather it is tranferable across platforms or not.
solution, APPLE should sell a ‘home’ version of OSX for peeple who want to and have the ability to build and setup their own computer. apple should NOT sell this software OEM, or to large corps like dell, etc.
as for the site, it will be back, minus links to cracks, as long as they post a reference to a file and let you find it on yur own then there wont be anything that can be done, rampant cracking is not a bad thing, i run cracks on software i own to avoid having to put the cd in every time. there are other examples but im tired of typing.
solution, APPLE should sell a ‘home’ version of OSX for peeple who want to and have the ability to build and setup their own computer. apple should NOT sell this software OEM, or to large corps like dell, etc.
This is completely backward. As I mentioned in an earlier post, the _costs_ associated with supporting a ‘Home’ product are insane. Licensing it to Dell is lot more practicable for Apple because Dell would control what hardware it shipped on (potentially even just black iMac’s with Dell labels on them), this would allow both Dell and Apple to mitigate the support costs as it would still be on a tightly controlled hardware platfrom. The problem is that this would create a price competition which Apple would be unable to compete in. We all forget that Power Computing, the old Mac clone vendor was started by a former Dell guy, and they were kicking Apple’s butt in the hardware market which ultimately led to the end of the Clones.
Admittedly that was before Jonathan Ive and the iMac which remade Apple and reesatablished why Apple is better. The internal parts are the same, and have been for years. The difference is all about design, and specifically, the little things in the design. Let’s talk Powercords, and the nice flush mount power cords on the imac, cinema display and powermac. Let’s talk about the flip tabs for wrapping your cord on the PowerBook, MacBook and iBook laptops. Let’s talk about the cord/flip out plug/international plug module on said power bricks. LEt’s talk about magnetic power coupling’s on the MacBook Pro.
Take the little details and compare them to the equivalent Windows machines, like say the Dell Latitude D810 I’m typing this on, with it’s enormous poer brick, and poorly designed cable management which wraps around the brick and is managed by a long rubber stap with a peg to poke through tat gets hung on my laptop bag 1/5 of the time. Let’s talk about the Intel Centrino metal sticker underneath my right palm and the blister I get from it when I have to to a marathon coding session. Or the hinges on my now retired Toshiba Satellite that broke after about 4 months of use, and Toshiba called wear and tear, despite the same problem happening to all 4 of them in the office.
The problem is that these things are part of the Mac package, which is more than the OS. It just works isn’t describing the OS, it’s describing the whole Mac experience, from taking it out of the box, powering it and updating it. You can’t enforce that in the Over the Counter beige box world, only a vendor that can restrict what hardware goes out in the box has that opportunity, so licensing is the only way to do this for Apple. I bet MS would love to kill the beige box market, it’s not profitable for them either, but the Dell, Gateway, IBM/Lenovo preinstall deals are, for all the same reasons. Remember who bears the cost of the support call on the Dell PC when it has a problem, Dell, not MS. The OEM and CompUSA copies of Windows ? Microsft does. Trust me when I say, they much prefer Dell customers, because they aren’t taking those calls directly.
“Or the hinges on my now retired Toshiba Satellite that broke after about 4 months of use, and Toshiba called wear and tear, despite the same problem happening to all 4 of them in the office. ”
I don’t mean to be nit pickety but you’ve obviously never used a Titanium powerbooks, or you’d know that the hinges break very easily and cost loads to replace. Or that the any of the 45/65w chargers for the powerbooks have lots of problems with the end conncector tearing apart and breaking, causing lots of problems with charging and even causing sparks ocasionally. Or poorly designed battery bays that break easy.
Apple’s have a lot of problems too. I’ve experienced that first hand.
I actually have one, it’s held up very very well.
As I mentioned in an earlier post, the _costs_ associated with supporting a ‘Home’ product are insane.
No you didn’t.
You may want to review what you posted and what it was in response to. In this case you would be correct. In the first case you made an incorrect response that didn’t have anything to do with a “Home” product that needed to be supported.
so sell a ‘home’ version and nix support for it other then the updates being able to be installed on it… all i want is for apple to SELL a bare OSX X86 compatible version that i can install and mess with on the stuff i build. me and the rest of the comunity with thouse interests couldnt give 2 cents about phone/technical support. i could care less about warranty’s, and any other SERVICE that these companys provide. i just want a truly legal way to run the software on MY BOX! and some authentic drivers would be nice but even that is just a nicety.
I like Mac OS X, but I don’t like Apple hardware. Is it ilegal running Mac OS X on a Pegasos or an intel laptop? Maybe, but ilegal != wrong. I buy the software cos I like it. I don’t buy the hardware cos I don’t like it. And in the meantime, Windows dominates everywhere.
I hope that in a few years we can see “the revenge of the nerds”, but so far those nerds that could call it for a change, like Apple, prefer maintaining the status quo.
They released a thing they had been keeping in a dark place in their labs (of Mordor), Mac OS X for Intel. But wait, this is only for Apple hardware, of course. Those crappy laptops heavy as hell or with screens as bright as the ruins of Moria. But hei! You can get one for just $1999 (mind you, “starting” from $1999).
But people like Mac OS X. And a few hackers manage to boot it even in a nice IBM Thinkpad. Apple is creating expectation. People is struggling to get rid of Windows, no matter how. Some geeks even try things like BeOS or AROS in our Windows-preinstalled laptops.
It may be that Apple is trying to take the better profit of their hardware too (of course). But if this hardware-sale pressure disappear, it may happen that in a few years Apple signs some agreements with some other hardware companies. It would be nice a mini-laptop from Dell or Fujitsu running Mac OS X. Widescreen, small, and with the real Apple sign, not a sticker from your i-Pod.
But so far, Apple it’s insisting: what you have there, it’s not an apple. It’s a banana.
[see Red Warf – Season 5 (or 4?) Episode 1]
http://www.img.cs.titech.ac.jp/~david/hhhalbum/unsorted/denial.jpg
Hey Macoz, I have OSX86 running here on a dual opteron and it is better than any of your new Intel white goods. Don’t cry about just get angry. Writte letters to Apple it makes you feel better. We like to be free. We like to save money. Just like millions like me all over the world. Don’t like it – too bad. Come and get us come and get us…
Hmmm I guess a pretty intel based mac mini for about 500 bucks when they come out. Is to much money to spend. Which I hope is very soon, don’t you.
And you can port your windows to it, then have the best of both worlds. In a pretty little box, which you can hide inside another beige box and pretend.
And you can have your “free linux” too……….
Edited 2006-02-23 07:32