Apple and Psystar to settle things with alternative dispute resolution, not tridents and hatchets

As much as we were hoping to see Steve Jobs and... well, anyone from Psystar settle things in the squared circle, we suppose we'll have to live with a much more peaceful end to this madness. Rather than spending wads of cash on lawyers for no good reason, the two outfits have agreed to use alternative dispute resolution in order to wrap this scuffle up and move forward. As you may know, ADR is a private process where both parties meet outside of a trial in order to reach some sort of agreement, though we imagine the outcome will be pretty public depending on Psystar's ability / inability to continue fulfilling orders. We're told that the process will get going before February of 2009, and the full fling (PDF) with the US district court in the Northern District of California is linked below if you've suddenly found yourself with entirely too much free time.

[Via The Mac Observer]

[(Unverified) Posted Oct 20th 2008 1:42PM]

@ Zak

Seriously, do you know nothing about anti trust laws? You seem to have simply read a couple of news articles on it and believe you have a complete knowledge of it. I do not profess to be any more fluent in the law then you are, but I have done some research and I know that anti trust are not only applicable in cases of complete or near market monopolies. The bottom line is potentially Apple could be violating anti trust laws regardless of whether it has a monopoly or not, and this may very well be the reason they are attempting to settle this behind closed doors.

[aMp 732 Posted Oct 20th 2008 2:53AM]

Yeah but this is Apples Computer ( they make the computer ) and there own OS.

Whats the problem. I missed the part in life where when you make something you have
to sell it to others?

Its yours , You made it. Nobody should be able to punish / take away from you what you created.

If you like MAC buy a MAC if you want a Windows Machine buy a Windows machine.

I really don't see the problem. They made something good and its there's. Dont like it? Dont buy it.

[(Unverified) Posted Oct 20th 2008 11:04AM]

The problem is that it ties in two separate markets (software and hardware) and forces you to buy the other if you only want one. Which can constitute unreasonable restraint.

If you make 2 products A and B, and A is wanted by 1,000,000 people and B is wanted by 100 people. Tying those two products together, especcially when there is absolutely no reason that you *have* to buy A and B jointly can in some cases be unlawful.

If we take this further A costs $100 to produce and sells for $150, and B costs $100 to produce and sells for $1000, you are unfairly tying your products together to make money.

The problem I have with this is for some reason it's fine if Apple does it, but if all the singers/artists of the world suddenly produced music that ONLY worked on Creative music players there would be an uproar because they are unfairly tying software with hardware to make more money. However when Apple ties OSX in with Mac hardware, which is all they are doing and for some reason no one has ever questioned that.

[(Unverified) Posted Oct 21st 2008 3:55AM]

It's not "yours" after you SELL it. You can keep the buyer from making copies (called "copyright") but if you sell something and then tell the buyer how he is ALLOWED to use it, well, you didn't really SELL it in the first place, did you?

Which is why Apple tries this "license" bullshit. You don't really own the operating system, you just have a "license" to use it which Apple can revoke. Unfortunately there is no contract which you signed, no negotiations you entered, not even a note on the box which says "NOT ACTUALLY FOR SALE - LICENSE ONLY".

When I go to the cash register at the Apple Store, they say, "Thanks for your purchase" not "Thanks for your license fee".

The courts will rip Apple apart on this and they will just stop making computers. They will be the iPod / iPhone company. Jobs is like that.

[(Unverified) Posted Oct 20th 2008 7:34AM]

Psystar has the upper hand otherwise Apple would have dropped the legal hammer down on them and negotiating would not be an option.
It will be very interesting to hear the final out come. If a company made a Mac OS X compatible computer that required no hacks and they never used the words Mac OS X in their advertisement, what legal recourse would Apple have? Guess they'd have to go after every individual user that installed the disk.

[LT73 Posted Oct 20th 2008 8:46AM]

Congrats Psystar, on becoming yet another rich start-up.

I love it when clever techs find a way to snaggle money from the big shots. It's the classic David and Goliath.

[(Unverified) Posted Oct 31st 2008 11:53AM]

Psystar knows what they are doing... Either way is a win-win. They either settle outside the court of law, and profit off of the publicity and their other products, or they go to court, and get even more publicity, and the put Apple in a chokehold. Because the only people on hear that don't really seem to understand that what Apple is doing is wrong, are little Apple fanboys who are pretending they know the ins and outs of the legal system. Zak. Cough.