Apple Sue's Psystar: Is This the End for Psystar?

After several months of deafening silence, Apple has finally acted by taking legal action against Florida based Psystar, who have been selling unauthorized Mac clones for the past several months. It was only this past April when Psystar announced that it would be selling a Mac clone, originally called the OpenMac. The name, for legal reasons, was quickly changed to OpenComputer, but now the question is for how much longer?

Psyster's first Mac clone sold for $399, but that didn't include OS X, as that was an additional $155 option. In addition, the OpenComputer could also be ordered with either  Linux or Windows Vista installed in place of OS X.  Recently, Psystar has even been emboldened to begin offering clones of Apple's Xserve rack mounted computers, something that may have further prompted Apple take the action that it did.

There has been much speculation on why Apple decided to take so long in bringing legal action against Psystar, which clearly was in violation of Apple's EULA , one that plainly stipulated that OS X could only be used on genuine Apple Mac computers. Your guess is as good as mine on that, but something tells me that it won't be too long before this thing is over, now that the legal machinery is in place.

Even though, understandably,  many people loved the idea that someone, like Psystar, could offer them a choice in Mac based systems and at lower prices, it's really not a question of whether they could, but rather whether they should be allowed to offer them in the first place. The answer, of course, is obvious - it was and still is illegal. The desire to be able to buy a cheaper Mac's  from someone other than Apple doesn't give Psystar or anybody else the right  to just come along and do what ever they wish with somebody else's property, in this case, OS X. Besides, if somebody wants  the option to buy a cheaper based system, than what Apple offers, well, they already have that in the form of buying either a Linux or Windows based system. Nobody, after all, is forcing anybody to buy a system from Apple that I know of.

Despite what others may think, no one, and I mean no one, be it Psystar or anyone else, should be allowed to think that they can  make a profit by unauthorized use of others people's intellectual property. In a way, I wish Apple would legally license OS X to other OEM's, but until or unless Apple does, Psystar and others have absolutely no right to abuse the rights of other people's property. The fact that Psystar was legally buying OS X, at full retail, doesn't  justify their unauthorized cloning anymore than legally purchasing a gun meant that one could use it anyway they wished - including using it in a robbery!

With Apple's deep pockets, pockets that only Microsoft could hope to match, Psystar's hopes are slim at best and their legal battle with Apple may now be over before it even begins. For anyone wishing that Psystar could get away with selling cheap unauthorized Mac clones, well, your dream of  having the option of buying a Mac from someone other than Apple just got a lot slimmer.

So, in conclusion, now that it has been reported that Apple is out for Psystar's blood, I am predicting that the next news that we are most likely to be reading concerning Psystar's,  will probably read something like this:

Pystar -  2008 - R.I.P


And that's my 2 cents 4 this Wednesday, July 16 , 2008.


UPDATE:  http://www.psystar.com/ was offline earlier in the day, but is now back up and running as usual!

Image:  ArsTechnica

Please vote for this post by clicking the fire button. Thanks!