“Muzzle, a Dutch Hackintosh community site, has posted an interview with Davide Rutigliano, the co-creator of the EFI-X hack dongle and CEO of Art Studios Entertainment Media. Davide weighs in on the legality of the product and on what its future may be,” Filip Truta reports for Softpedia.
“‘…We implement real EFI in our device. There is nothing that links our product to the hack world… Yes, it is [legal]. We made sure to create a product that goes in the same direction of all other computer companies and not against them in any way,’ Rutigliano said,” Truta reports.
“It is well known that Apple’s EULA strictly forbids PC owners to run OS X, and that only Apple computers should be able to boot it. However, Davide reveals that, unlike Psystar, they’re selling something else,” Truta reports. “‘It is possible that we will go to court with Apple, but most likely supporting them, in case we ever find out that someone is selling PCs with our module installed. Selling a computer that can boot OS X is a unique right that only Apple has. And we enforce it.’ Davide explains.”
More info in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Note: Apple’s Software License Agreement for Mac OS X explicitly states: 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.
[Bold text added above for emphasis. – MDN]
I’ll buy one and the PC I build with it won’t somehow undo the purchase of my Mac Pro. All it will do is prompt the sale of another copy of OS X, that normally wouldn’t have been sold, to be installed on a PC that would have been built anyway.
When i’ll buy Leopard, i’ll be owner of a Tiger license AND a Leopard license. I have allways kept a boot possible on the ancient and newer OS version.
” width=”19″ height=”19″ alt=”wink” style=”border:0;” /> EFI-X doesn’t run on a PC… it runs on a dongle! Let’s see how this come out!
Now about EFI-X legality… well, law is ment to be twisted by lawyers and there’s a subtle lack of precision here!
@ Worked Around
Well said.
Mr. Legal here again:
As soon as the EFI-X is publicly used to run Mac OS X on a non “Apple-labeled” computer, aka an IBM derived PC, the device breaks the the Apple EULA because it, as MDN bolded at the end of their article, it enables other people to use Mac OS X illegally.
(“or to enable others to do so.”)
The statement Davide Rutigliano made to the contrary is bogus wishful thinking. It’s that simple I’m afraid. Where his company get directly tripped up in the inevitable lawsuit is:
A) The naming of the device with an ‘X’ in the title, which is obviously intended to refer to Mac OS ‘X’.
B) The reinforcement of the intent of the object by talking about Mac OS X at all with regard to the use of the device on non-Apple-labeled computers.
The ‘intent’ of the device may be the enabling of running Mac OS X on ye olde non-EFI Macs. But the fact that it also enables running Mac OS X on non-Apple-labeled computers means that it violates Apple’s EULA the first time an IBM derived PC uses it to run Mac OS X.
Yeah, that most likely confuses Sarah Palin fans. (I know! But ’tis the season). Still, that is the letter of the law. The fact that Mac OS X is not included with the device has no bearing on the case. The company is still bound by the EULA because of the enablement clause. The device is intentionally bound to the use of Mac OS X.
So, toss another device on the bonfire, along with all the PsyStar boxes.
As ever, I have no sympathy. One of the Mac’s greatest strengths is the marriage of hardware with software. Break that connection and you ain’t got no Mac, nor should Apple have any responsibility for supporting such franken-Macs. This is why they always get the serial number for any Mac you contact them about for support, as well they should.
Also note that if you give them the serial number of a non-EFI Mac running a copy of Mac OS X that requires an EFI Mac and you will be kindly turned down. You’re on your own. Apple will not sue you. But strictly speaking, you’re not running that Mac OS X version on its intended Mac hardware. This is exactly the situation if someone was calling Apple for support of a Mac running XPostFacto (which I am on my PPC 9600 Internet server). You’re on your own.
Discuss…. Knowing how dopey these threads can get, I’m staying out of the fray.
Gil asks:
“So If I have 2 partitions on my iMac’s hard disk, I am only allowed to install one copy?”
You can install infinite copies. You can only “RUN” ONE copy at a time, which is all you could run anyway, so it’s kind of a DUH situation. Theoretically one could use a virtualization program to run the same copy of Mac OS X twice, but the point of that would be what? So who cares.
Geek point: Why would someone want the same copy of Mac OS X on two partitions? For me the reason is REPAIR. I can keep my main partition in excellent repair by booting over to the repair partition and running TechTool Pro, DiskWarrior, etc. Vice versa is also true. This saves having to always have the boot discs for these utilities as well as the snooze time it takes to boot them.
The EULA is just that – an “End User License Agreement”. EFI-X can not violate a EULA if it does not sell/resell a copy of OS X with its hardware dongle. It is not illegal for EFI-X to sell, but it is illegal for and end user to buy the dongle if they attempt to use it with OS X. Otherwise companies could make up arbitrary binding contracts. For example, Coke could have written a EULA on their cans that no other individual or company in the world can produce or market a “cola”.
No, your purchase of Leopard is an _upgrade_. It’s not a full license. Apple does not sell full licenses retail, they sell upgrades, since every Mac comes with OS X (or the old Mac OS) anyway, there is no _legal_ reason to buy a full license.
If Apple would release a headless, expandable, upgradable, complete with PCI Express slots and Firewire included machine at a reasonable price, there would be no market for this thing.
First, let me say I don’t support Mr. Rutigliano and have no intention of ever buying his device.
Second, I am not a lawyer, I don’t dispute what you are saying, however… I am under the impression that contracts (like a EULA, which is not exactly a “typical” contract) can only bind those who sign them… or in the particular case of an EULA, those who purchase and open software.
How can Mr. Rutigliano’s company violate the terms of Apple’s End User License Agreement, since the terms of Apple’s EULA (by its nature as an EULA) apply to the End User? His company is not the End User.
The terms “or to enable others to do so,” like all the terms of an EULA, are an agreement between Apple and an End User. Even then I don’t understand how those particular terms can apply to an end user, since the end user would be buying EFI-X for their own use. In which case they would clearly be violating other terms of the EULA, but not the “enable others” terms.
The only scenario I can imagine where an End User would violate those terms would be if an OS X purchaser also bought a PC and an EFI-X dongle for the purpose of reselling them as a package.
I could see Apple making a case against retailers (FRYs, BB, CC, etc.) who might sell such packaged deals. But even then there is probably not any EULA violation as retailers aren’t end users, although it’s possible they might be violating some sort of retail selling agreement with Apple.
If Apple is only selling “upgrades,” how did I manage to buy a retail copy of OS X and install it on a Mac that did not have a previous version of OS X on it? It ran OS 9.
Going from OS 9 to OS X (Jaguar) is not an upgrade.
What significant difference (between a full license and “whatever”) does it make anyway?
“No, your purchase of Leopard is an _upgrade_. It’s not a full license.”
Read the license. It makes no mention of the word Upgrade anywhere, nor does the website, the marketing material or the product itself. It’s a full version.
Where did you get the idea it might be an upgrade from?
.
It is a key principle of contract law that you cannot be bound by a contract that you’re not a party to.
Otherwise a friend and I could sign a contract between ourselves that I give him Derek Currie’s house or car or favorite Mac.
Then he’d just have to take that “contract” to Derek, show him the legally binding agreement between me and my friend and collect his Mac. Clearly that situation would make a nonsense of any property rights, so YOU CANNOT BE BOUND BY A CONTRACT YOU ARE NOT A PARTY TO.
The EULA is between the person who brought the software and Apple.
It’s not between the retailer and Apple, it’s not between a distributor and Apple. Apple will need to sue each end user they think may be violating their license.
And in any case, a court will likely rule that damages can’t possibly exceed the profit Apple would have made selling that one customer a Mac. That’s going to be less than the lawyer’s fees paid to collect those damages.
A final principle is that a court can reform a contract by striking clauses it thinks are unfair.
As Apple sues these thousands of people individually, they will sooner or later lose a case on those grounds. The Apple Labelled clause will be struck and at least in that jurisdiction Mac clones will be legal.
So Apple won’t even risk that if they’re smart.
Apple has two choices. First, like MicroSucks in the 80s and 90s, it could tolerate the OS going on to cheap PC hardware. This is against their EULA but it builds OS market share very very fast. Then at some future date, they could lock it up so that the OS could only work on Apple hardware – it’s easily doable through HW validations, in the same way that you cannot install OS X 10.5 on G3 machines and OS X 10.6 may not run on G4 machines. Some future OS X 10.9 may only run on Intel systems with qualifying code in proprietary ROM or some other qualifying Apple-unique criteria.
Secondly Apple could make OS X 10.6 make Apple-specific system calls to get authorisation to proceed with booting.
Thirdly, Apple could add proprietary chips whose presence is tested for by the OS as it boots.
Hell. I’m no HW or SW engineer but I am pretty sure all of the above are options open to Apple.
They are well within their rights. Whenever you develop something good, all the low-life encroachers start oozing from the woodwork to cash in. They should all be deep-fried and fed to crocodiles.
Here’s the issue.
Apple has shipped millions of standard WinTel machines with the one difference being they use EFI Bios.
So unless version 10.6 of the OS were to not work on all existing Macs, they can’t get around it by adding the equivalent of a dongle on the motherboard,or putting part of the OS in proprietary ROMS or checking hardware or anything.
If you think dropping FireWire caused protest, see what happens when you tell people they need a new Mac to run v10.6 of the OS.
So that leaves software methods, like calling in to activate, being required to give your Mac serial number etc. It could work, but it’s probably easily spoofed too.
I’m very much enjoying the discussion here because it has not degenerated into the usual fart and flame it stuff.
I’m only adding another post because I find the last thing ‘Horse has bolted’ to be intriguing. (THANK YOU!) Why can’t Apple use a Mac serial number to verify the proper use of Mac OS X? Mac OS X already reads machine serial numbers:
Go to ‘About This Mac’ under the Apple Menu. Hit the “More Info…” button. (I am in 10.4.11 at the moment). This opens System Profiler. The very top selection in the left hand list is for Hardware. The corresponding list of features on the right includes Serial Number as well as another set of useful items: The hardware configuration. These can all be used to identify whether you have an actual Mac or a Hackintosh. At boot Mac OS X could evaluate your hardware and dump the boot if you are not in compliance.
Conclusion: No lawsuits required.
“Mac OS X already reads machine serial numbers”
Not on all Macs, and there is apparently a utility to change a serial number. I don’t think any scheme based on that would last long unless it phoned home and only allowed one install per serial number.
Even then, There will be a hackintosh builders visiting Apple stores and otherwise stealing real serial numbers to use for “Upgrades”. Do you want to be the first Apple customer who can’t upgrade or reinstall because someone else grabbed your serial number off you discarded shipping box (Yes, it’s there).
The assumption above is of course that the EFI-X guys produce an update to let you spoof the serial number return and if a unique one is required, let you enter one.
Guys!!!!!
Read the dang license agreement. If you haven’t purchased Leopard 10.5.6, then please don’t speak out of ignorance. I have a hackintosh and am proud of it and it is 100% legal by the definition of the EULA. Page 72 refers to Apple-labeled and they give you two labels, as several informed people have commented. It never ceases to amaze me how a hackintosh user like myself can be more informed of what the license agreement details than a outraged Mac guy with his overpriced Mac machine. I certainly have contributed to Apple’s business by buying about $300-$400 worth of Mac Software, 10.4.5, iLife09, iWork09, 2 Apple TV’s, etc. Even though I haven’t shelled out the cash for a Mac Desktop or Laptop, I have purchased the software and have a machine that runs comparable to an iMac. I would ask for those that are not sure, please go back and read the latest EULA again (10.5.6). Oh… and my Hackintosh has a label on top, that was supplied by Apple, Inc.