An obligation to include vicious anti-liability clauses and avoid any admission of wrong-doing?

Sorry, don't get the parallel.

My point is that since Microsoft is a major beneficiary of other government policies, they should be the last ones exempted from the few laws that interfere with the business.

When governments are not a huge customer of Microsoft, there might be some ground to complain about them being subject to anti-trust laws.

For the moment, "Microsoft tax" is far too literal. And your comment far too close to the usual silliness of reducing regulations on government-supported monopolies...

Because the folks using BSD- and MIT-style licenses don't care if the license terms are ignored?

No, wait, they do care. Funny that.

"I mean, traveling scam artists were well known to people at the time"

Little did they know that electricity, and the ensuing advances in technology, would remove the need for scam artists to travel :)

Reality defines math. Math defines computer programs. It is a rather important difference.

This seems a good place to point out one of the chronic errors of people talking about software development...

Abstract does not mean slow, bloated, inefficient, or incomprehensible.

Having the wrong abstraction for the task at hand, however, often does. And blindly questing after "managed" "portable" and "high-level" is a good way to get abstractions which work poorly for *any* task. At best, you get Java/.Net/Javascript... tolerable for many tasks, and completely useless for others.

No. Read the case.

From my understanding, Psystar installed one copy on Apple-branded hardware. They then modified that image, and replicated it repeatedly, eventually onto the systems which were sold (accompanied by unused Apple software).

Those additional copies are pretty clearly not authorized by either Apple nor Copyright law. Those additional copies are why the judge smacked down their first-sale claim. And those additional copies are why arguments about the EULA do not matter one whit.

Yes, special exceptions are made for software. One of the notable ones is that a legally owned copy may be duplicated into memory for the purpose of running the program. Notice the three words near the beginning which Psystar failed to satisfy.

(not a lawyer, and all that)

And Apple would then get to assert Copyright infringement, contributory infringement, Trademark violations, etc. against the agent. With basically the same legal theory they're advancing in this case.

The first-sale cases I've read where software comes up seem simpler: The software, any materials, and intact EULA+license are being transferred lock, stock, and barrel. Psystar seems a unique mess, since they do a lot to violate the terms before reselling.

That argument doesn't hold water. Purchasing a copy of the Copyrighted material gives you exactly the rights outlined in Copyright law. Whereas, purchasing a license gives you exactly the rights you negotiated with the seller. Copyright law will be too loose in places, too tight in others, and too likely to change next time the politicians get excited. The license you can get just right.

What we *can* say is: Calculate the risk of licenses over the long term. Especially those hilarious examples which allow unilateral changes by the seller.

Speaking of fictions: has Psystar ever operated, offered, or considered "customer buys a copy and sends it to Psystar to install on a computer the customer is purchasing from them"?

Books are sold. CDs of software are sold. The software on them is licensed.

The latter makes it possible for all sorts of licenses -- BSD, GPL, CC-* -- to exist with the full force of Copyright law behind them. So don't screw with it.