my sometimes-skeptical social commentary

Archive for the ‘Geekstuff’ Category

I use Google’s applications with my domain name WoodsWebDesign.com quite a bit, and I use Gmail separately, so I have noticed that there are some differences in what features are available through those separate services. What I want from Google is for every feature/service that’s available in the low-end version of their free services (i.e., everything that’s offered in Gmail) to be available to users of their mid-range free services (i.e., Applications).

When Gmail came out with themes this week, I was glad to see they had done something to update the Gmail service. And other innovations, such as video chat built-in to the Inbox, are cool, too. But why can’t all of those services be made available to those of us who have made the leap and are using Google Applications?

Okay, I have to admit, I tend to blog most about computer geek stuff these days, but hey, it’s what I do. A lot. (Remember when I used to photo blog every day? Remember the good old days when I blogged all my bike rides? Oh, where has the time gone?)

Anyway, I’ve been reading so much about this particular news story that I’m just plain surprised no one else (at least not that I’ve read yet) has written about this one (seemingly major) point, so here goes.

Did you see the news articles about a company that is selling computers that run the Apple Mac operating system? If you’ve managed to miss all these articles, here’s a quick news.google.com search for “psystar”. As of this moment, Google’s news aggregator found 257 articles with the word “psystar” in them.

Psystar is selling computers that run Mac OS X. The big deal is that the Apple company has, since about 1997 anyway, said that their operating system is not allowed to be run on any other hardware besides their own. Not allowed–scary terms, aren’t they?

Apple’s end-user license agreement (their EULA, which no one I know has ever actually read) says “This License allows you to install, use and run one (1) copy of the Apple Software on a single Apple-labeled computer at a time. You agree not to install, use or run the Apple Software on any non-Apple-labeled computer, or to enable others to do so.” When you purchase a license for the Mac OS, the EULA is basically a contract that restricts what you do with the operating system.

Some people have interpreted the legal strength of any EULA (not just Apple’s) to be only as strong as the software publisher’s ability to enforce it. In other words, if you can’t make me stop violating your EULA, I don’t have to stop violating your EULA. So if I get a copy of a program from my friend at work, install it on my own computer in violation of the EULA, so what? Maybe, for example, a music program’s EULA limits HOW you use the program to certain NON-professional activities, such as playing music for your personal enjoyment or the entertainment of your family at home, if they can’t make you stop playing music for pay as a D.J., then that’s the music-software publisher’s problem. Right?

Okay, I don’t want to go all righteous on you, but I wanted to put an analogy out there for your consideration. It’s not just the Mac OS EULA that is getting violated, but that’s the main point of all the articles I’ve read about PsyStar so far.

The most common sentiment I’ve seen so far is that, somehow, for brazenly violating the Mac OS EULA, PsyStar is a brave contender in an otherwise scared-of-Apple-lawyers battlefield.

To me, this is more like the theft of intellectual property of downloading illegal copies of movies. And it also seems to me that this is exactly like the theft of intellectual property that thousands of people have committed against Microsoft when they “borrow” their friend’s Microsoft Office install disk or use their friend’s XP license to upgrade from Win2K. That kind of theft is exactly why Vista, Microsoft’s latest operating system, has better authentication methods built into it. Microsoft wants everyone to pay for Vista. (Hey, maybe THAT’S why Vista hasn’t been as popular as XP was when XP was still kind of new. Or maybe XP is so good that people don’t feel the need to upgrade to Vista.)

Prior to Apple’s move to the Intel chip, it was pretty hard to run the Mac OS on any hardware other than Apple’s design, so very few people bothered, and frankly the kind of people interested in running the Mac OS are the kind of people who are not just willing, but actually excited about paying more for Apple’s hardware than that hardware, sans Mac OS, might be worth in the open market. (Go ahead and Google it though, you’ll find some hard-core geeks have found ways to run earlier versions of the Mac OS on various non-Apple machines.)

So, because it has only recently been EASY (easy being a relative term) to run OS X on non-Apple hardware, PsyStar gets a lot of press for selling computers with OS X already installed. Up until now, if you wanted to run OS X on other hardware, you pretty much had to figure out how to do it yourself, and if you were lucky you found some advice, directions, maybe even a driver or two if you were lucky, online.

Think about it. If one has to do all kinds of geeky research and download weird files and do strange things to one’s NON-APPLE computer hardware to get OS X to run on it, is it more or less likely that one is going to FIRST go to the Apple store and buy a license for it?

I suggest that it is perfectly unlikely. So now Apple is out the cash they would have received from the sale of that license. Does Apple need the money?

Does Microsoft need to sell every single copy of Vista in order to stay in business? Does the band U2 really need my $12 for their latest CD, or can’t I just burn a copy from my friend?

To me, the main thrust of all the news stories I’ve seen about PsyStar SO FAR is that everyone is kind of impressed (even if they couch their enthusiasm in polite, legally defensible techno-speak), that PsyStar is doing its thing. Maybe more people will do the same. Maybe the big corporations are finally going to get their comeuppance from the common folk. Yay, Common Folk! HURRAY FOR EULA VIOLATORS EVERYWHERE!

Maybe it will finally be AFFORDABLE for people to get great operating systems and have the freedom of choice for any kind of hardware they like, whatever is available on the market. Can you live with Linux? Can you remember that CUPS stands for “common unix printer services”? That’s what it will be, folks, if you don’t start paying for your operating systems.

What is the world coming to, a total abandonment of all things refined? Do we really want to have to deal with the kludgy, socially awkward geeks who install Linux, or can’t we hold onto the shiny goodness that is the Apple store?

I, for one, like, no LOVE, that I get to spend my work day and my free time clicking away on my shiny, (mostly) perfect MacBook Pro; my funky, retro G4 iMac; and my shiny, gorgeous, hard-working iMac Intel Core 2 Duo. I demand that you all to go to the Apple store and fork over whatever it takes to have one in your home and your office too. Heck, get one for your car while you’re at it.

The alternative is unthinkable. Unbearable. If Apple goes out of business, I’ll blame you personally.