Ads by TechWords

See your link here
Receive the latest technology news and information.
Computerworld Daily News (First Look and Wrap-Up)
Computerworld Blogs Newsletter
The Weekly Top 10
Cloud Computing
View all newsletters




Privacy Policy
 

Mac clone maker sues Apple over Snow Leopard

August 31, 2009 01:00 PM ET

"Psystar believes that it is legally entitled to resell copies of Mac OS X Snow Leopard on Psystar computers, but is confident, based on the ongoing litigation with Apple over Mac OS X Leopard, that Apple will view Psystar's decision to sell computers running Mac OS X Snow Leopard as illegal," read the lawsuit. "Counsel for Apple has also so stated."

The Florida-based clone maker asked the judge to rule that the company can purchase copies of Snow Leopard from Apple, Amazon.com and Best Buy -- as it claims to have done with Mac OS X 10.5, aka Leopard -- and that its practice of installing Snow Leopard on clones does not violate Apple's copyright or break the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA).

"Psystar's position with respect to Mac OS X Snow Leopard is analogous to that of a person developing a software application to run on top of Mac OS X Leopard," argued Psystar. "Just as Microsoft writes Word to run with Mac OS X and Google writes its web browser Chrome to run with Mac OS X, Psystar writes its software to run with Mac OS X Snow Leopard."

The new lawsuit also revealed that Psystar's Snow Leopard bootloader -- the small program that starts up Mac OS X 10.6 on its clones -- "makes use of features of Mac OS X Snow Leopard designed to allow software developers to extend Mac OS X Snow Leopard to work with different hardware."

Psystar continued: "Admittedly, Apple hopes that this hardware be peripherals such as video camera or USB memory sticks, but nothing in the technology of Mac OS X Snow Leopard prevents use of the same facilities to extend Mac OS X Snow Leopard for use on non-Apple personal computers."

Apple and Psystar have been waging legal warfare in federal court since July 2008, when Apple sued Psystar over copyright infringement and software licensing charges. That case is slated to go to jury trial on Jan. 11, 2010.

Two weeks ago, Psystar accused Apple's senior marketing executive, Philip Schiller, of being "unprepared" and "unwilling to testify" during a deposition earlier in the month. Psystar demanded that U.S. District Court Judge William Alsup force Apple, and Schiller, to schedule another deposition.

Apple countered that with an Aug. 20 letter brief to Alsup. "Psystar's request for the continued deposition of Philip Schiller is nothing more than an effort to harass one of Apple's senior executives and prematurely seek expert testimony," Apple's California lawyers said.

Read more about operating systems in Computerworld's Operating Systems Knowledge Center.



Jump to comments

Apple

Additional Resources

EFD vs. HDD - What You Need to Know
WHITE PAPER
Enterprise flash drives provide a new Tier 0 storage layer capable of delivering high I/O performance at a very low latency. Proper use of EFDs in an Oracle environment can deliver increased performance compared to fibre channel drives. Read the recommendations for identification of the best DB components for EFDs.
Gartner Research Report: Magic Quadrant for Application Delivery Controllers, 2009
WHITE PAPER
The market for products to improve the delivery of application software over networks remains dynamic and innovative. Vendors focused on solving enterprises' most-pressing application problems have become the top players.
Eight Criteria for Server Load Balancing
WHITE PAPER
Server load balancers are a simple yet highly effective means to scale an application environment while ensuring its availability. Today's solutions should also address application performance and security. Read about the top eight criteria you should consider when choosing a server load balancer and how Citrix NetScaler meets those requirements.

What People Are Saying

White Papers & Webcasts

High Performance for Integrating Massive Data Volumes
Processing very large data sets provides unique constraints, especially when time windows available for this processing are shrinking. This Technical White Paper presents...  

Gartner Podcast: Driving SharePoint Adoption in Lotus Notes Shops
Learn how can you drive mainstream user adoption of Microsoft SharePoint when your users are committed to using email.

IDC Webcast: Linux Adoption in a Global Recession
Access this webcast, compliments of Novell and HP, for a limited time only!

Whitepaper: Drive SharePoint Adoption in Lotus Notes Shops
Learn how you can drive your users to Microsoft SharePoint when they rely on IBM Lotus Notes.  


IT Jobs