The case between Apple and Psystar may in fact finally be over. AppleInsider is reporting on a document filed with the California court which says that the two companies have entered into a settlement agreement. However, since AppleInsider doesn’t actually provide the document in question, and nothing shows up yet on dockets, it’s all a little bit unclear. Update: Here’s the filing. It does not cover the Florida case, but pretty much ends the California one. Round 1 a smashing victory for Apple, round 2 has Psystar starting heavily crippled.
AppleInsider is claiming that in response to Apple’s motion filed last week, Psystar filed a document in which it explains it has entered into a settlement agreement with Apple, which should end “all” sales of non-Apple labelled machines with Mac OS X installed. Sadly, AppleInsider makes no distinction between the California (Leopard) and Florida (Snow Leopard) cases, but their use of the world “all” may indicate that this settlement covers both.
Under terms of the agreement, Psystar will pay an unspecified amount in damages to Apple. In return, Apple would drop the bulk of its case against the small clone maker from Miami, Florida. More details are said to arrive today.
“Psystar has agreed on certain amounts to be awarded as statutory damages on Apple’s copyright claims in exchange for Apple’s agreement not to execute on these awards until all appeals in this matter have been concluded,” Psystar’s court filing reads, “Moreover, Apple has agreed to voluntarily dismiss all its trademark, trade-dress, and state-law claims. This partial settlement eliminates the need for a trial and reduces the issues before this Court to the scope of any permanent injunction on Apple’s copyright claims.”
Psystar does hope that the injunction will not cover its Rebel EFI product. “[Rebel EFI is a] product that has not been litigated in this case, that has not been the subject of discovery in this case, that is presently the subject of litigation in the Florida case, that is composed exclusively of Psystar software, that is not sold in conjunction with any hardware, and that is sold entirely apart from any copy of Mac OS X or any computer running Mac OS X,” Psystar claims.
This bit does mention the Florida case, which could mean that this agreement only covers the California case, leaving the door wide open to continue litigation in Florida. Like I said, without the actual document, we have to rely on whatever AppleInsider tells us – which is very little.
I would presume that Apple would not drop its charges if Psystar didn’t drop its Florida case. Then again, Florida case or no, this settlement does save Apple a substantial amount of time and money on going to court in California. The California case was all but resolved in a slam-dunk win for Apple not too long ago, with only a few minor issues still open for trial – scheduled for January 2010.
I’ll update the item as soon as we can see the actual documentation.
Sad to see another tired man lay down his cards and quit the holy game of poker.
Hopefully we can all move on and obsess about something less trivial and offensive.
I suggest fonts, or text formats.
No it’s not over. All those settlement terms are Psystar’s wild fantasy. Apple will not give up their trademark and state-based claims. It has simply put them on hold until the judges decide where things go next.
Make no mistake, Apple will try to bury this kind of attempts once and for all. And for that they will need to see it through to the fullest extent. Psystar is just trying to wiggle out of anything it can get away with.
Oh, and stop reading anything by Thom if you want facts about Apple vs Psystar. Read Groklaw, it has the actual documents filed with the courts:
http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20091201131422651
Initial prediction: They stop pre-installing OS X and start shipping it side-by-side with the machines and instructions on how to install it.
Or: They continue selling machines that are OS X compatible but pre-install them with another OS pre-installed instead (such as Linux, etc.) – they provide instructions on how to purchase and install OS X for those who wish to do so, providing drivers/support or whatever as necessary.
Of course, without seeing/knowing the details of the settlement, who knows.
It’s important to note, that no matter what, Apple has already validated that Psystar machines *are capable* of running OS X – and the publicity that Psystar has gained from the entire situation has made everyone quite aware of their existence and that their hardware does indeed have the capability of running OS X with some amount of certainty.
Streisand effect at its best
Edited 2009-12-01 19:59 UTC
I don’t think that’s quite true. Those who generally followed the whole Appls vs Psystar story or that even knew about Psystar generally are aware of hackintoshes and how easy it is to build one.
Goodbye Psystar. You will not be missed. Neither will your attempts at making knock-off Macs.
But in their place, a million more.
You know what else is amusing about this whole thing? The people who were insisting that Psystar was “fighting the good fight” as it were, willing to take Apple on and doing it all for the cause of openness. There’s only one thing I can say to those people now: hahahaha.
Exactly. Was about to say the same. Fighting the good fight my arse!
I wonder just how much good that attitude does for the world.Think about it, Jacob.
Edited 2009-12-01 22:15 UTC
Yeah, it’ll be just as funny when the ‘community’ hackintoshers are under a barrage of attacks from the same Apple lawyers, only now with the legal precedent set against them.
Apple, Inc would never stoop so low as to make legal threats against individuals. Against actual customers. It’s just not that kind of company.
True, But FUD is a heck of a weapon. Imagine more websites that will NOT POST the info that will help you to create a Hackintosh.
Yes, it certainly was amusing to see all the Apple apologists get their panties in a wad because Psystar had turned their own tactic against them. Even if Psystar loses completely, they’ve still accomplished the most epic troll ever of both Apple and their fanboys.
Oh come on, the celebratory Mac fanboy circle-jerk doesn’t officially start for another 3 hours.
There are actually some issues here which trancend your hatred of any particular group. And shouldn’t we at least distinguish between “Mac Fanboy”, and “Apple Inc, Fanboy” here? Because they are two different things, admittedly with some overlap. Are there not folks who like Apple’s OS who don’t care to buy their hardware. Or like Apple’s hardware, but don’t want to be tied to their OS? How about those of us who prefer commodity hardware with some other OS, but who think that other’s software/hardware choices shouldn’t be tied to their hardware/software choices for arbitrary political reasons?
The whole Apple/Psystar thing has been a bit “third party” from my perspective. But I’m not exactly sure that glee is an appropriate response from any reasonable camp, at this time.
Edited 2009-12-02 22:48 UTC
Last time I checked competition is a good thing.
Engadget reports that Psystar is going to pay Apple about $2.7 million. From the article:
Engadget article: http://www.engadget.com/2009/12/01/apple-dings-psystar-for-2-67m-ro…
Court filing (pdf): http://stadium.weblogsinc.com/engadget/files/apple-psystar-settle.p…
Here’s the issue as I see it…Apple switched to commodity Intel hardware. Other computer manufacturers noticed and thought it would be a good idea to sell hardware with the Macintosh software pre-installed. They purchased shrink-wrapped copies of OS-X for such a purpose. Apple’s lawyers got their panties in a bunch and sued. The other computer manufacturers were shut down. Umm, what’s wrong with this picture? I don’t know why Apple doesn’t just release OS-X for PC’s. That would really put Microsoft on notice wouldn’t it? The quality of computer operating systems would greatly improve, is my guess. Even Linux would be forced to compete directly with OS-X in this scenario and competition is always good.
Apple doesn’t *want* to compete with Microsoft. It wants the top 10% of the market where it can sell shiny hardware at ridiculous margins.
Long ago, Apple used m68k CPUs.
Back then, the Mac OS (back then, just called System)
was tight to the machine. If you wanted to run a different OS, you had to use the Mac OS as a boot loader.
For example, Apples own A/UX (Apple Unix) booted into Mac OS 7 first, and that would load the A/UX.
Later, Apple switched to the PPC CPU. Apple didn’t use the, back then, standard PPC (PReP) architedture, but it’s own. These Old World Macs had also this integration.
When Apple changed architecture to the New World Mac, it became an open system: OpenFirmware, a standard. This allowed the possibility to boot other operating systems out of the box.
This means, the hardware didn’t depend on the software anymore, so, from that perspective, the hardware and the software became separated.
After the switch to Intel, Apple decided to use EFI, this is also a standard, and also allows to boot other Operating Systems out of the box.
So, the hardware+software=one product, was once true for Apple products, but hasn’t been for years.
The PReP spec didn’t exist in it’s final when the first PowerPC Macs being developed. Indeed, they were released within the same period as the spec. Also, bare in mind the Mac of that time ran a lot of the OS (System 7.0) in emulation, so the PowerPC design had to be very specific to the old 68k one. Indeed CHRP was the one that should have been the “runner”, except it didn’t happen.
Secondly, Open Firmware existed on all Power Macs. The version got progressively increased and improved upon, but my PM6100, has OF. The Old world/New world thing is more to do with the general architecture changes that meant the Mac loaded most of the MacOS ROM from disk, rather than it being ROM based.
Lastly, most of the bootloaders that chained MacOS Old World PowerPC machines in to alternate OS load as extensions and usually happen before the full OS is loaded.