more on OS X hack sites closed;

[Dave Farber <dave () farber net>]

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Re: [IP] more on OS X hack sites closed;
Date: Mon, 20 Feb 2006 04:37:24 -0500
From: Dan Shoop <shoop () iwiring net>
To: dave () farber net, ip () v2 listbox com
CC: RJR RJRiley.com <RJR () RJRILEY com>
References: <43F7D1F9.9090907 () farber net>

At 9:03 PM -0500 2/18/06, Dave Farber wrote:
> -------- Original Message --------
> Subject: RE: [IP] OS X hack sites closed;]
> Date: Sat, 18 Feb 2006 20:10:03 -0500
> From: RJR RJRiley.com <RJR () RJRILEY com>
> To: dave () farber net
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Dave Farber [mailto:dave () farber net]
> Sent: Saturday, February 18, 2006 5:29 PM
> To: ip () v2 listbox com
> Subject: [IP] OS X hack sites closed;]
>
> What are the odds that the duscussion just moves off shore. djf
>
> -------- Original Message --------
> Subject: Re: [IP] OS X hack sites closed;
> Date: Sat, 18 Feb 2006 12:07:00 -0500
> From: Dan Shoop <shoop () iwiring net>
> To: dave () farber net, ip () v2 listbox com
> References: <43F65804.9020304 () farber net>
>
> <<It should be noted that both of these site were advocating and
> demonstrating how to break the EULA that Apple ships Mac OS X under.
> That's breach of terms. The sites were aiding and abetting users to violate
> their agreements with Apple.>>
>
> The terms have become unreasonable.  DMCA goes way too far and it is long
> past time people revolted.
>
> Understand that I value intellectual property, but something is really wrong
> when something like DMCA is passed.  Eventually the backlash will damage the
> industry severely.  People should be boycotting companies over the use of
> DMCA.
>
> The insidious attempts to abridge fair use are outrageous.

I hardly see how "fair use" can be argued here.

This isn't a record company saying that music that you purchased
can't be copied for online sharing. This isn't a movie studio
prohibiting you from making a backup copy of the DVD you purchased or
quoting/excerpting material from it for fair use.

This is a company protecting their assets (software) from reverse
engineering and modification to run on hardware which they do not
support. This is a company protecting what they see as the value of
their intellectual property.

A "Macintosh" is sold not as a OS or a piece of hardware, but as a
complete system.

These users could not have legitimately purchased a copy of the OS.

You currently can't buy a copy of Mac OS X for Intel. The only way to
obtain it is to purchase a new iMac with an Intel processor. Thus the
license is already assigned to that machine as it was included in the
purchase of the system, a bundle. This isn't like taking the Windows
license that comes with your new Gateway PC and using it on another
machine while you install Linux on that machine. It's one license per
machine. That's the terms of the contract. That iMac can't run
without the OS. The terms of the Apple contract permit the Mac OS X
on Intel OS to be used on the system it was purchased for. The
Installer discs that come with the machines only permit installation
on Apple branded Macs of the same class. (Which is no different than
the Installers that Apple's been shipping for years.) The only way
you could install the OS on another machine would be to (a) violate
the contract which provided the OS for use on the hw it was purchased
with, and (b) hack or reverse engineer the application. It would be
like rewriting Shakespeare and then claiming it was still Shakepeare.

This situation is no different then when DEC tied VMS OS licenses to
their VAX machines. The license stayed with the machine, not the
owner of the system. OS and hardware were considered integrated. This
is the value Apple stress when buying a Mac, the synergies they can
provide by tuning hw and sw. Breaking this bundle "breaks" their
product and destroys the value they attempt to create. While this
could be acceptable if you had actually purchased the OS, in this
case you didn't, a copy of the OS was granted to you for use on the
machine it was purchased on only.

The terms of the Apple EULA are not unreasonable, they license the OS
for use on their equipment which they sold you as part of a system.
They don't license it for use on equipment they can't properly
support and the don't permit you to use the software licensed for
that machine on another machine.

Additionally Apple already provides most all of their OS under a open
source license already that people have been running on Intel
hardware for some years. Those parts that aren't open source but
proprietary code Apple should have a right to protect.

How is this "outrageous"?
-- 

-dhan

------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dan Shoop                                                   AIM: iWiring
Systems & Networks Architect                     http://www.iwiring.net/
shoop () iwiring net                                 http://www.ustsvs.com/
1-646-217-4725

pgp key fingerprint: FAC0 9434 B5A5 24A8 D0AF  12B1 7840 3BE7 3736 DE0B

iWiring provides systems and networks support for Mac OS X, unix, and
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