Psystar Activation Servers Down? 245
An anonymous reader writes "I purchased Rebel EFI in support of Psystar's crusade back in October. Just 3 short months later, I have no support. I found this out when I upgraded my hard drive and installed Snow Leopard using Rebel EFI. The program can no longer 'phone home' to activate or download/install drivers. This is a direct contradiction to Psystar's promise posted on their website: 'Psystar will continue to support all of its existing customers of hardware and software through this transitional period. Warranties on hardware will continue to be honored as long the customer has a valid warranty. Rebel EFI support for existing customers, as always, will remain exclusively available through email and the built-in ticket interface.' Has anyone else run into this issue? It has been 9 days with no response from Psystar by e-mail or phone."
One moment please. (Score:3, Funny)
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Our Apple Certified Genius Ninjas have your IP address and are on their way over to assist.
Ignoring the fact that "apple certified genius" is an oxymoron, I don't see how sending ninjas to my door is going to help them any: Many computer enthusiasts also have a healthy collection of guns. But then, that's Apple for you -- never doing the market research...
Geek Guns (Score:4, Funny)
Yes I know, I'll get modded offtopic. Don't care.
Windows Geek Gun - Looks sharp and advertises all sorts of 'new' features. However, one in ten times when one pulls the trigger the gun fails to fire and instead jams.
Linux Geek Gun - Good looking but also utilitarian. Very reliable but unfortunately the typical user of this gun is in the habit of taking it apart and rebuilding it often. In those cases it is unusuable until it's done being re(compiled)built.
Mac Geek Gun - Sleek, stylish, and very easy to use, but one has to buy bullets from only one manufacturer. It also only allows itself to be fired in certain directions because the manufacturer knows best.
DOS Geek Gun - A single action revolver.
CPM Geek Gun - A musket.
Give me a break. It's 4:00 AM EST here right now and I couldn't sleep so I'm not as sharp as I should be :p
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Name one film where the guy with the gun came out on top of a bunch of ninjas.
Christ, pirates have *cannons* and we still argue about which one would win >.>
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Guns 0, Ninja 1.
Any Pirate knows that guns are useless against a Ninja, you need a proper cutlass in order to deal with those black hooded landlubbers. However due to Apple's love affair with shiny white plastic their ninjas are as easy to spot as imperial storm troopers, which means any Pirate sufficiently skilled with their blunderbuss may send one or two of the scurvy dogs to Davy Jones before they arrive.
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Apple Certified Genius Ninjas
One of those words does not fit in there.... Tip: It starts with G. ^^
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Ninjas don't scare me because I am a pirate.
Never pay money... (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Never pay money to join a crusade (Score:2)
I learned that after paying money to 321 Studios for their DVD X Copy software (via Best Buy). Registered but didn't get around to using it before they lost in court, and since it required activation and the server was gone, I never got to use it.
Not that I needed to. There's very nice free software out there for that purpose that will continue to function long after their development ceases. I was just contributing monetarily to their fight.
But then they sold their e-mail list to spammers....
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Or do what the Islamists do: get your enemies to pay for your crusade.
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Because Pystar shut down their activation servers?
Live and learn (Score:5, Funny)
Lots of people thought that the German National Socialist party was going to be able to turn the German economy around, restore Germany's relevance in the world, and ultimately defeat the countries that put them in that situation at the Treaty of Versailles.
Look, not every horse can place.
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Hey, they placed.
Last is a place :P
Re:Live and learn (Score:4, Funny)
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The country that defeated them[1] was not a signatory to the Versailles treaty, so technically they achieved that aim.
[1] Hint: aims achieve YOU!
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They never defeated the UK. They bombed the ever loving shit out of England, but they never invaded, let alone conquered it.
Re:Live and learn (Score:4, Insightful)
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If your movements are rouge, you'd better get that checked. It's probably just hemorrhoids, but it could be a sign of colon cancer....
Ba-dump bump.
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Oh, and with regards to Nazi Germany, I think a closer parallel to the rethinking of the Versailles strategy would be Apple looking at the rise of Psystar and reconsidering policies, e.g. taking the stats about who installed Rebel EFI and on what hardware, then using that to figure out if there are ways to improve their product line to better attract those customers.
Of course, odds are, such info would be blindingly obvious in a completely useless way (e.g. "people are slapping it on cheap $200 beige boxes
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The Nazis did a pretty good job of building up Germany's economy when they were in power, too. Gearing up for war is a quick way to build up your economy quickly. Of course, when the war is over the bubble usually bursts and a recession or depression hits, but that's the way it goes sometimes.
How could the outcome be good? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:How could the outcome be good? (Score:5, Informative)
PC-EFI (an EFI emulation layer), FakeSMC, and other stuff based around boot-132; a lot of work from a guy named netkas but many people contributed to other drivers, etc. Rebel EFI included *at least* PC-EFI and boot-132-derived works; that also put them in direct violation of APSL, so they were screwed one way or another.
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There's rumors that Psystar was funded by the major PC makers (Dell, HP, Gateway, or the like) because here's what the situation was.
A: Very likely was the chance EULAs would be proven legal by a court, creating some case law that didn't exist before in the process.
B: In a longshot, Apple's EULA would be overturned, creating case law that could be used to kill off many clauses in other ELUAs. Bad news everyone, all ELUAs would fall, and that would break up Microsoft among the other damage.
Now why would they
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In response to your sig, what if you were coding some sort of personal finance system and you had several PINs to keep track of? Wouldn't the index of those PINs be a PIN Number? Or a device that manfactured ATMs be an ATM machine?
Good for you (Score:3, Interesting)
It seems you needed a lesson in respect of other's hard work. Now you've learned the hard way that it doesn't pay to try and rip off someone.
Speaking seriously though, after the injunction that included RebelEFI, what did you think was going to happen ? Why even purchase a product that requires activation when all it is, is a rip off of an open source product ? I'm betting there's going to be a lot of flames in this discussion.
Re:Good for you (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Good for you (Score:5, Insightful)
Err, what?! Apple "fanbois" pay money to Apple, abide by the EULA - why would Apple want to screw them over?! You're not thinking.
I adore the way people on your side are so "self righteous", let's look at the facts:
Psystar sold PCs, with some software derived from Open Source, with Apple's upgrade version of their OS, thumbing their nose at the EULA, and argued because you COULD do it, then it SHOULD be legal. How the heck they ever thought that was going to fly I'll never understand. And no it wasn't a "full version" of the OS - you obtain the right to run Mac OS X when you buy a Mac, and at no other time, so unless there was a Mac in the box too (wiped) I don't see how they ever thought it was going to be "OK".
You're right companies exist to make money, Apple "cares" about it's customers because it knows that doing this will mean they'll return to buy more product. Yes, they'll even be happy to pay a little more for it. This is a recipe for success that the rest of the industry seems to have forgotten, in their "race to the bottom" they've cut everything. You want a decent PC? You probably need to build it yourself, because you buy one prebuilt it'll have horrible build quality and more bloatware than any sane person can stand. You build it yourself, you get to choose the quality (maybe a keyboard that isn't totally horrible). I mean think about a new PC, what's the first thing you need to do? Burn a set of recovery disks - what the hell?! How much does not supplying a restore DVD actually save? You pay more for the blank media!
So let's not talk nonsense, if you know nothing about computers, don't want to build one, but actually want something nice - a Mac is probably your best bet. That horrible Psystar? No so much.
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Which is perfectly legal. Even the GPL allows selling the software. Got to release the source of course, but you can sell it.
Re:Good for you (Score:4, Insightful)
But you never lose the right to say "stuff that" and not buy the product - just because you don't like the deal offered doesn't mean you have the right to ignore the terms! If I create something, and say "you must x to have my product" you've got a choice: "Do x" or walk away... You don't get the right to have the product just because you want it!
And if you do, I want a Ferrari (I just happen to think the price is unreasonable).
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Deals should be made upfront before money changes hands, with a contract. EULAs shouldn't exist.
When you buy a car, the price is discussed before the sale. Also, it doesn't come with a note in the glovebox saying "And BTW, we forbid you from using third par
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The section of the EULA you're complaining about is printed on the outside of the box... The typeface is reasonably large.
The car analogy is broken (they pretty much always are) and yes, I take full responsibility as I did it first (I was actually making a joke - but clearly I failed).
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Actually, during discovery, Psystar failed to produce any proof that they did purchase the copies of OS X they sold. Not to mention everyone of the about 700 PCs they sold was imaged from an imaging server and thus used a single copy (which was unlawful).
Finally, they were found guilty of copyright infrigment because they made a derivative work (changed Apple's copy protection kext, "Dont Steal MacOS X") which they put on this imaging server, thus engaging in unlawful distribution of an unauthorised deriva
Re:Good for you (Score:4, Interesting)
That doesn't change my argument though. I believe that the essence of what they were trying to do should be legal.
Now, the imaging server I think was a screwup, and they should have just paid some minimum age kid to install the CD by hand. Though I think that's a technicality anyway, as I fail to see much difference between paying for 700 CDs and installing from each CD, and paying for 700 CDs, and installing from one.
If they didn't actually pay, their bad.
If you think about this too much, pretty much every install of Windows is copyright infringement as well. If the shop say, changes the background, that changes something in the registry. That data was created by a MS employee, and MS probably automatically holds copyright on that. So change a Windows setting, sell to customer, copyright infringement.
I don't see them as a good guy. I think the DRM is shameful, and their plan was flawed, but I still think that creating a hackintosh and selling it should be legal.
Re:Good for you (Score:4, Informative)
Your background example is laughable. Microsoft authorises such modifications to OEMs. If an OEM were to remove activation from their product though without it being a VLC, you'd see their lawyers all over it and the OEM would get what is coming. Apple does not authorise people to remove their copy protection kext.
And if Psystar had to install every copy from a fresh DVD they bought, they wouldn't be in the business in the first place. The costs associated would be prohibitive.
And seriously, if Psystar wanted to compete with Apple, why didn't they invest in a a few programmers and wrote their own OS from open source components ? The burger stand down the road doesn't compete with McDonald's by selling Big Macs.
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I disagree with the entire idea that authorization should be needed for such a thing.
Ok, then, if not being an OEM I sell my laptop with the contents as they are and the CDs of what's installed on
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Precisely, the burger stand isn't doing any harm to McDonalds because it's still paying for their product at their retail price. So any claim that they hurt McDonalds' business should be held as laughable.
Actually, way to misread the quote. Read it again, the burger stand doesn't sell Bigmacs, it sells its own burgers. If it sold bigmacs, it would get sued out of existance, even if it bought all those bigmacs at McDonald's. McDonald's has certain quality standards that are associated with its brand and any unauthorised reseller that isn't subject to the same standards will only tarnish its image.
As for your customization example, it's the same as your earlier background example. Psystar rewrote parts of
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That's stupid. Acer has quality standards as well, yet I'm perfectly free to buy their laptops and resell them. Fi
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Really ? First thread on Psystar you post in ?
http://apple.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1419357&cid=29882459 [slashdot.org]
Search wikipedia for a description of derivative work vs changing settings. I'm done arguing with an obvious troll.
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He's a great example of the numerous Apple haters who are way more fanatic and cultishly zealous than any "Apple fanbois" I've ever seen.
You are not really getting it, are you? (Score:5, Insightful)
There is no legal trick, no dirty tactic. Yes, EULAs are horrible, blah, blah, blah, I agree with all of that. But that is totally beside the point.
The point is that the software is Apple's. Period. They can do whatever they want with it. If they want to sell it, they can. If they want to open-source it, they can. If they want to attach a EULA, they can. If they want to _refuse_ to sell it to you, they can. If they want to bundle it with hardware, they can. If they want to add DRM, they can. Get it? It's theirs. They can do whatever they want.
Now, what can you do? You can: (1) Play by Apple's rules and do whatever their license allows you to do or (2) Feel free to create your own OS. When you create it, it's yours, and you can do whatever you want with it -- sell, refuse to sell, add DRM, not add DRM, etc.
Apple can do whatever they want. You (and psystar, and everyone else) can't do jack besides whatever is allowed by Apple's license. It's that simple. Tough luck.
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This commonly stated point of view is plain wrong. Apple, like all other suppliers of any product, does business in accordance with the law of the applicable jurisdiction. The law relating to the installation of OSX on white boxes is copyright, specifically Title 17, first sale, contract law, and the various sale of goods and consumer protection legislation. The question is whether Apple can simultaneously sell OSX at retail in the form of fully functioning retail copies, and also then tell the buyer on
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No no no NO! Just because they add a license doesn't mean normal local laws doesn't apply any longer. In the EU for instance consumers are rather well protected by consumer laws and most EULA's wouldn't stand a chance in court.
If Apple wants to sell products in the EU they must respect local laws, Apple can't do whatever they want...
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Regardless of your viewpoint on this issue, your viewpoint on Apple products, etc, you have to agree that Apple was forced to defend their reputation.
It would be like someone slapping a Ferrari logo on a Ford because you had swapped the engine with the Ferrari version. It's not made the same, it won't do the
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I'm sure if you offered Apple $1000 for a legal copy of OS X, they'd probably be willing to do it. The difference is, you think the buyer gets to set the price and if the seller doesn't agree then the buyer gets to steal it.
Fortunately for the rest of the world, pretty much no one agrees with them or you.
Its nice that you think others shouldn't be told what they can do with their stuff. I think you shouldn't be able to do anything with your stuff that I don't approve of. I think you should leave your car
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I think Apple sucks, but aside from that, there's an old saying about a fool and his money. I'm sorry, as the first poster said, those that bought Psystar were retards, pure and simple, and are getting everything they so richly deserve.
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It seems you needed a lesson in respect of other's hard work. Now you've learned the hard way that it doesn't pay to try and rip off someone.
How do you feel about region free DVD players?
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Hardly (Score:2)
I'll take the ability to right click any file and say "send to F:" instead of running everything through shitty itunes.
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Drive letters? EWWW.
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I dunno about XP (I'm not running it any more), but Windows 7 lists the drive name first.
So... Send To -> Music Device Name (F:)
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They paid for the software, and they can use it on whatever hardware they own if it runs
And if all they did was use it on whatever hardware they own, Apple probably wouldn't have bothered them. I don't recall any reports of Apple going after people who build a Hackintosh for their own use. The problem came when they modified the software and resold it.
Why is this News??? #editorfail (Score:5, Informative)
I know it's a slow news day but why is this news? The fact that the company that created the software lost a major court case and the company filed for bankruptcy wasn't enough indication that things are not as peachy as the company claimed?
#editorfail
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Yep. So, what are you going to do? Sue them? Get in line and there won't be anything left for you anyway. Usually I feel sorry for customers abandoned by a bankrupcy but in the case of Psystar I'd say this is more #suckerfail than anything. Anyone with the sligbtest clue about IP law would know that Psystar, right or wrong, would be slapped to hell over this. And probably being in the wrong, too.
Re:Why is this News??? #editorfail (Score:5, Funny)
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We've seen the knockdown blow... but this is proof that they are not answering the bell anymore and that means they're out.
If there's any consumers left thinking their machines still work, get out. Next MacOS security hole to be announced will be unpatched on these Hackintoshes, and they'll be unsafe to put on the Internet as a result.
You're a bloody moron. (Score:3, Insightful)
2. This is why you don't buy anything that you can just do for free. It really isn't difficult to make a Hackintosh these days. You bought something that only simplified the process marginally, if even that.
3. This is why you don't be really, really stupid about buying things.
The irony is thick enough to choke you (Score:5, Insightful)
The whole idea that Psystar was using strong DRM to protect their code to strip the honor-system-level protections from OS X installs was mind-meltingly ironic in the first place. The fact that they're so quickly demonstrating why buying anything protected by strong DRM is a bad idea just adds salt to the dish.
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You fail irony forever.
Great idea but shouldn't have bought from them (Score:2)
Apple is pretty controlling, in my opinion, there's no way you can believe that they would have let Psystar do anything with Apple's software that they don't like.
Consider it a lesson learned and search for hackintosh and learn how to sort out Mac OS on the PC yourself or take the loss and buy a proper Mac or put Linux/Windows on the machine you have.
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I like what Psystar was doing but it was always a bad idea to buy from them.
If you really felt Psystar was doing the right thing, you would have bought from them. It's called voting with your wallet.
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While I agree with what they were doing I don't care enough about OSX to go through that.
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Switch to EmpireEFI (Score:3, Insightful)
RebelEFI was just copyright infringing code. They pissed off Apple and they also pissed off the development community behind EmpireEFI. This can't end well for them. It would seem that Psystar is just a scheister organization.
No surprise here .. from Psystar's front page: (Score:4, Insightful)
December 22, 2009
Psystar has voluntarily suspended the sale of our Rebel EFI software product. Psystar feels it would be prudent to halt the sale of Rebel EFI while we explicitly ask the court for clarification on the legality of Rebel EFI. Our patience has been tested but our resolve is unwavering. Psystar's vision of bringing the Mac OS to generic PC hardware is and always will be unyielding. Although Rebel EFI may be temporarily unavailable for purchase on the Psystar online store, those who purchase a t-shirt or donate over twenty dollars will receive one free copy of Rebel EFI once the court has ruled in our favor on this issue. ... (more moaning and groaning) ...
Any and all information regarding Rebel EFI, future software products and all other things Psystar should be directed to press@psystar.com or legal@psystar.com.
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And when the court reiterates that Psystar is wrong, and that Rebel EFI can never again be distributed under any circumstances, what is Psystar going to give all those folks who donated money under the promise of a free copy of Rebel EFI? The judge was brutally clear in his decision, see Groklaw for all the gory details, that Psystar must stop ALL activities that infringe on Apple's products. If they don't, they can be charged with contempt. That kind of judgement doesn't lend itself to successful appeal
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That's why they're not selling the software for $20. They're giving it away free, if they can, with purchase of an overpriced T-Shirt. If they lose, you have an overpriced slightly modified "I'm with stupid." shirt.
Calls for truth in advertising ring in the hallway (Score:2, Insightful)
Would you like Psystar to find the money to continue by a) looking under rocks along the highway b) selling plasma with the bums downtown c) rooting around in their asses until something is found?
Or maybe you think the promises of people who predicated a business on breaking the law* are actually worth something? That's almost endearing.
(*save your spiel about the laws being unjust. They were fairly well understood and the court upheld them, so reality wins over idealism here.)
newsflash (Score:5, Funny)
This just in: Software that requires contacting a remote server doesn't work when the remote server suffers a total existance failure.
Up next: People die when they're killed.
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Bad news: What operating system or BIOS doesn't? You even have to register your Linux distro.
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You even have to register your Linux distro.
Yeah, or what? They'll sue me for pirating Linux? Make me pay triple damages? What's three times nothing?
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What's three times nothing?
About 4.5 billion dollars -- but only if you are the RIAA.
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Excuse me, you've just got a phone call from a Mr. McBride from some Santa Cruz Organization... I think you want to take it.
Furthermore... if you fail to register your Linux and/or BIOS... your computer will start emitting a distress signal (even though that's something only ships at sea should do) and then things will get really weird. It gets even weirder after you do that.Did you not watch TechTV's TechLive?
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Turns out that SCO eventually let McBride go. Something about "losing millions of dollars," "pump and dump," and "lawsuits we can't win."
Well, OK, they never said those things, but I thought it was pretty obvious that's why they let him go.
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You even have to register your Linux distro.
What the crap are you talking about? I don't have to register my Linux distro.
I can install my Ubuntu system completely offline without any registration, and it can stay that way, thankyou very much. Unless you somehow didn't get this joke [linuxgenui...antage.org] a few years back.
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If only they would stay dead.
Re:newsflash (Score:4, Funny)
Up next: People die when they're killed.
Too late, someone got in ahead of you. [crunchyroll.com]
Interest and Property (Score:3, Insightful)
Psystar had no respect for Apples intellectual property, why do you think they had hany interest in supporting you? After they were killed by the courts, who did you think would keep their systems operating? The magic IT fairies?
Psystar were just ripping off other open EFI emulators anyway. Search around, there are plenty of legit free ones, not stolen copies like Psystar were shipping.
Psystar's crusade was to make money! (Score:2, Insightful)
Silly monkey, did you actually think Psystar was fighting Apple on some idealogical grounds other than justifying making money by ripping Apple off? The irony is thick. Psystar's infrastructure, which was to protect their profits, takes you down with them on the ship when things go south. Nice.
But, who knows, maybe somebody will start a company reverse engineering Psystar's DRM so for a small fee you can get your computer working again? ;')
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But, who knows, maybe somebody will start a company reverse engineering Psystar's DRM so for a small fee you can get your computer working again
I think I'm going to make up a new phrase for that: recursive irony
Did you honestly expect anything else? (Score:3, Interesting)
Why did anyone support Pystar in the first place? (Score:5, Interesting)
When Pystar first brought a machine on the market, it became quickly clear that their hardware was junk and they didn't know what they were doing. IIRC, one early reviewer bought a machine and found that it was unstable because they had OVERCLOCKED IT.
Having experimented (and failed) with overclocking myself, spending lots of time reading and dicussing on forums issues like Vdroop, Vgtl, Vdd, multiplier ratios, etc., etc., I can tell you that running a processor out of spec is challenging because you don't know where in that processor's performance bin you are, and your results are almost guaranteed to be different from someone else's, and Intel Quad cores are notoriously hard to overclock, and well it boils down to more of an art form of experimentation and testing than science because you can't get Intel to tell you the actual characteristics of the chip you bought. And moreover, you can run all the artificial tests you want and still end up with an unreliable system because memtest86 and prime95 don't test all the corner cases and enough combinations of scenarios. (I had run memory and processor tests for a week straight, and everything seemed fine, yet I would get kernel panics while parallel compiling Gentoo packages. I could just never manage to figure out the right combination of Vdd and Vgtl, and I could never for sure rule out the memory system being the source of the errors. So I just decided that I'd rather have a reliable system and longer life than 20% more throughput.)
It's irresponsible for vendors to sell you an overclocked system, because they can't guarantee that it's reliable. Rather, they are fooling you into thinking you're getting a better system than you are, ripping you off in the process. This is just one example of the many incompetent and/or highly questionable things that Pystar was doing that made me want to stay as far away from them as possible.
It would be one thing if this company tried to produce BETTER hardware than Apple. Trouble is, that would require intelligence and discerment, and people with that kind of smarts would also have been smart enough not to screw with Apple directly.
If I wanted to sell knock-off Apple hardware here's how I might go about it:
- Find a way to become an Apple reseller with minimal contractual obligations. This way, you can sell MacOS X discs without raising any major suspicions.
- Sell and support genuine Apple hardware.
- Also sell and support high quality Linux and Windows white-box PCs that just happen to have peripherals compatible with MacOS X.
- Add development support to an open source EFI project
- Let word of mouth get around that your systems are good for running MacOS
- But publically state that you do not provide OS support in this configuration because it may violate Apple's EULA.
- Get your lawyers to make sure you have plausible deniability every way you turn.
All of this requires forethought (or hindsight in my case). Pystar clearly did not have this. (I might not either. I might have just suggested a really bad plan.)
But like I say, the main thing that bothered me about them is that their hardware was crap. It's one thing to ride on Apple's shoulders. Directly supporting OSX but on GOOD hardware is arguably questionable, from a legal standpoint. It's entirely another matter to do incompetent things that could make them look bad. That'll REALLY get them chasing after you.
I've never really understood the whole hacking culture in the first place. People don't want to buy iPhones because they're not hackable enough. Ok, I support Free Software, so I can totally get on board with avoiding something that's proprietary and has DRM and all that. But even if the iPhone were 100% open source, it still would not interest me to hack it. I'm a professional chip designer. I like designing NEW hardware. I like being given an engineering challenge that requires that I create new functionality to serve a market need. I have no desire to confine myself to the spe
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Something that mystifies me is the large amount of people who evidently jailbreak their iPhones and customise it in numerous bizarre ways. To me, that defeats the whole point of having an iPhone or owning an Apple product. I can't see why they won't just buy an Android device and be done with it. I buy Apple gear because it works well for me out of the box, and I don't want to mess around with the internals much.
You don't need Rebel EFI (Score:4, Informative)
Step 1. Go to InsanelyMac and find the links for the Chamelion (sp?) boot loader. This will do practically the same thing, from what I've been told, and it worked extremely well for me when I used OS X on my Dell (took it off b/c I wanted real Office and some other Windows-preferred applications, but didn't want it in a VM).
Step 2 While you're at InsanelyMac, look for a tutorial on how to install OS X on your hardware. If there are none (which shouldn't be the case if the computer's popular somewhat), there are default methods to follow, which can help you give back by making one!
Step 3. Install OS X, hope that nothing breaks and enjoy!
Amazing. (Score:5, Insightful)
People really are amazing.
In other words, you did so for reasons that were, at least in part, ideological. Unwilling to pay the price Apple sets for the hardware/software combinations it sells, and seemingly unable to use any of the available open source solutions for installing a retail OS X disc onto commodity hardware, you chose to patronize a company whose business model was widely known to be legally questionable at best, and which was engaged in an ongoing legal battle with a company with the intent and resources to defend their assertion that Psystar's business practice was illegal.
Now, having ignored those who posted that they felt Psystar was doing something wrong by selling their so-called "Open Computers" as well as those who suggested that the core of the Rebel EFI product itself was code copied without license or attribution from existing open source projects designed to accomplish the same aim, you wish to take Psystar to task for failing to meet the promises on its website.
What made you think this was a company that intended to keep its promises?
What made you think this was a company that would be able to stay in business long enough to keep any promises it actually did intend to?
You didn't spend your money on a product, and you didn't pay it to a going concern. You made your purchase to make a statement-- that you believed Psystar was doing something good, or at least something right. Your voice was heard; unfortunately, things did not turn out that well.
What more can you possibly ask? This is like picking a lame horse to win because of the great payoff odds, and then beating it into glue when it fails to place.
Sorry, I don't have a car analogy for this. Give me a minute.
wtf? (sorry, can't think of a better title) (Score:2)
you expect a company that has no regard for an EULA to keep it's own word and support their own users? good luck with that. I hope that they return...
Re:Hard to tell (Score:4, Funny)
I think she was one of the new X-men.
Re: (Score:2)
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I think she was one of the new X-men.
Ahh, the ex-men, the Brooklyn-based support group for post-op transsexuals.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
http://slashdot.org/index2.pl?fhfilter=Psystar [slashdot.org]
Who needs google?
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Obviously you've never really owned one. Or you are a verrrry slow learner.
Re:first post (Score:4, Insightful)
"Also, seriously? What kind of retard would send those ass clowns money?"
That should be modded Insightful, not Flamebait.
Some things are so monumentally stupid the only appropriate response is scorn and contempt.
Also relevant:
Slashdot doesn't feature ways to crack Windows activation, but it does feature workarounds to Apple restrictions. Why?
Those not wanting to be a corporate bitch should not buy corporate software, water is wet, and the sun rose in the East.
Re: (Score:2, Troll)
"Also relevant:
Slashdot doesn't feature ways to crack Windows activation, but it does feature workarounds to Apple restrictions. Why?"
If you don't have the brains to figure this one out, you don't belong here. Any moron can crack windows. Apple is bit more difficult, and also Apple is becomign Microsoft - usually more helpful to bite the company in the ass first rather than letting it bite you in the ass.
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"It seems like I'm the only person who has a problem with this new trend of the customer's product becoming a doorstop when it's vendor closes up shop."
Support products that don't have an inherent tendency to become "doorstops". Free, Open, user serviceable, etc are what to look for.
Don't buy things that need vendor support or prolonged vendor support that don't also have non-vendor alternatives for support. Research your choices or be an example to others.
Re:Should really pay attention to the news... (Score:4, Insightful)
Err, who really wants their computer to last forever? (Hell I won't last FOREVER) What's really wanted is a reasonable life expectancy, AND the ability to take my junk off the computer and onto my next computer (where it must make some sense).
Mac OS X does that (even if my next computer isn't a Mac). Now you could argue that Linux does that (and I'll concede the point). What you probably don't do is buy from a company that is sure to get sued into oblivion (that's just not smart).
Since when did the creator of something have no right to say how their product can be used?! Microsoft sell academic versions of some of their stuff... How is this different? All Apple have done is say: Macs come with Mac OS X, and Mac OS X can only (legally) be used on Macs. Apple don't sell Mac OS X on it's own (they sell upgrades... but that's a different thing). Microsoft sell OEM versions of Windows - is that different?! Even the GPL (maybe I should say "Especially the GPL"?) makes stipulations as to what you can and can't do - ignore those at your peril! If I create something, I should be allowed any license I feel appropriate. I don't see how Windows users or Linux users can argue (I should know - I use all three). I wouldn't want to be told that Linux couldn't enforce the GPL, or that Microsoft couldn't distribute with a PC (no OEM pricing).
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So a "sale" can have no strings attached? Really?!
Consider:
Only to be operated by trained operators
Must not be used to make an explosive device
Not to be administered to humans
Or even: for non-commercial purposes only