Psystar founders claim they cracked OS X, hackintosh scene is 'all wrong'
By Nilay Patel 
posted November 11th 2009 5:03PM
posted November 11th 2009 5:03PM
Really? Because we think there's a very large, very active hacking community out there that would disagree with you, Rudy.Rudy scoffs at the idea he borrowed from the Hackintosh scene. "The first thing you have to do is unlearn everything you've read online about how to make this work," Rudy says, "because it's all wrong."
P.S.- A full list of every other mistake in this piece after the break.
[Thanks, Chris]
- "Robert cracked the code behind Apple Computer's elegant operating system, OS X." Yeah.
- "Psystar legally buys the software..." That's not in question, really. The issue is what happens after Psystar buys OS X, when it modifies and redistributes it. You know, the specific thing Apple's suing about.
- "[Apple] filed a 35-page lawsuit in California claiming Psystar was selling "unauthorized" versions of OS X." Why is unauthorized in quotes? That's exactly what Apple claims.
- "As with Microsoft, which lost a multimillion-dollar antitrust decision in Europe in 2004, Apple is protecting an illegal monopoly, Psystar claims." Psystar has already lost this part of its case in California, and in the new Florida case Psystar only claims Apple has a monopoly on "premium personal computers," which pretty much invalidates the pricing argument and has driven the company to sell more expensive machines.
- "Robert says he found his own way around Apple's built-in security devices. The breakthrough meant that, among other things, the cheap machines were virtually immune to viruses and hackers." This is simply not true. OS X is vulnerable to hackers in its shipping form, and hacking EFI doesn't change that.
- "Psystar pays full price - $29 - for each copy of OS that it installs on its computers." $29 is the Snow Leopard upgrade price. The full price is $169 with iLife and iWork.
- "What's more, Apple holds that consumers who purchase an operating system don't actually own the software...It's a dubious-sounding arrangement that courts, at least so far, have upheld." It's not dubious to the courts, who've been upholding EULAs for over a decade across the country. (And striking some down, to be fair.)
- "Pretty much anyone with basic computer knowledge can make a cloned Mac for just the cost of a full tank of gas in an SUV." Actually, anyone can do this for free, without having to pay Psystar.
Now, don't get us wrong -- the personal story of Robert and Rudy Pedraza laid out in the article is moving stuff, but when the chips are down, we're picking the hacker and enthusiast community over a couple guys trying to make a buck selling unlicensed software, and that Hackintosh quote struck us as impossibly arrogant and extremely foolish. The OSx86 community is already wary of Psystar, and we're guessing no one's going to rush forward the next time these jokers need some help.
psystar steal code & fail to even credit the original creators or share their source..
http://netkas.org/?p=310
This guy here named prasys has taken a look at Psystar’s Rebel EFI and found that they stole code from the hackers that made Chameleon and PC_EFI "PC_EFI is made by Netkas" and after they stole the code they charged $50 USD for the CD
http://prasys.co.cc/2009/10/psystars-rebel-efi-is-evil/
So the same Guy made is own version called Empire EFI that does the same thing as Psystar’s Rebel EFI and gave it out for free..
i have bin using a Hacintosh ever since it was first hacked back in 2005 and all the hard work everyone has done so far for Psystar to steal and make money off it is wrong.
Psystar I Hope you go down in FLAMES
@derrick
along with most things the ancient Greeks actually discovered electricity. Also the the lightbulb wasn't invented by an American Edison just perfected the idea. The artifical heart was invented by a Dane, and just to be a pedant Charles Babbage is widely regarded as the inventor of the computer and he was certainly not an American, he was English. And to be a complete douche America was invented by a Spaniard.
Well seem's those guys from who he is stealling code are wrong he is the real deal(dumb ass) but don't tell netkas he migth disagree. All that this guy has done is chargin 50$ for something that he didn't developed and you can get for free.
For anyone interested, Google: "Empire EFI"
Almost the same thing as what RebelEFI does.
Nilay,
Looks like Tim has responded to your error list in their comment section (#20). Do you have a response?
My reply is that it's pretty ballsy to take on a copyright lawyer who's been covering Psystar and its associated litigation since day one by bitching about a typo and trying to re-cast my criticisms of his piece as taking issue with his "characterizations" of the facts.
His entire piece is centered around a single, provably false "characterization": that Robert and Rudy Pedraza developed the EFI hack that enables Mac OS X to run on non-Apple hardware without any reliance on the hackintosh community. That's a joke, and he clearly didn't do the required research before writing his piece.
As for the rest, Psystar's antitrust claims *have* been thrown out, so a comparison to Microsoft is ridiculous and misleading, there's simply no way the EFI hack renders any machine "virtually immune to hackers and viruses," the Snow Leopard price is simply wrong, calling EULA law "dubious" is even more misleading as it's been so well-tested, and anyone *can* make a hackintosh for free.
Psystar tells a good story, and it's clear that Tim bought it without question. It's just too bad so much of it is based on lies and mistruths.
When lawyers attack!
Its kind of fun to watch Nilay open up a can of legal whoop ass every
now and then. Almost like a geekier Judge Judy.
I think Pystar is pretty awesome.
OS X for hundreds cheaper? Hell yeah!
Now if only anything they were doing was legal.. =D
Macs are gay. Their hardware is nice. Their software is nice. Combine them together you get anal retention nazi dictator computers. I'll happily buy a mac computer minus the software for the cost of the parts added up. Then I'll install Windows 7 and Ubuntu. Fancy looking computer without the dictator Jobs inside.
> "[Apple] filed a 35-page lawsuit in California claiming Psystar was selling "unauthorized" versions of OS X." Why is unauthorized in quotes? That's exactly what Apple claims.
I think it might be because they're quoting Apple.
To be clean: America itself has not invented anything since it is the people, who invent things, not countries. Second of all: Most of the inventions you are refering to are made by foreign scientists.
Take the telephone for instance. The basics for transmitting audio over the wire has been invented by Alexander Graham Bell, who was born in the UK.The main invention which enabled this technology to become the telephone as we know is the switching center. This has been invented by Tivadar Puskas, who happens to be hungarian.
Or take the electric network: Edison made a lot of discoveries, and yes: he was american. He made the first DC electric network, but it was unerliable and dangerous. The person, who has actually invented and developed the AC electric technology - which is still used today - was Nikola Tesla, a russian inventor.
America - as a country - has provided only one thing to these inventors: resources to make their inventions work, and an economic background, to let theese new inventions create their market. As of today: america still provides only the same thing, and the inventions are still made by foreign inventors.
This strategy happens to be very successfull, and everyone should respect this. Other countries seems to make their inventors die of starvation.
Chef Ramsey to Psystar -> "SHUT IT DOWN!!!"
there's a thing going on for a few years now.
how comes every one switching to Mac (mostly from Windows) says, without exception - "why have I been wasting my life before?"
granted - anything involving Mac AND Windows turns into a fanboy war after the first 10 comments. I've seen it before, thousands of times, and not only on Engadget.
however, judging by their names, those little pests at psystar are Italian. (my apologies go to the Italian honest, working people now.) and what the hell did Italians invent? yes, pizza, Il Duce and Mafia, you guessed it right. now the said Mafia has this awesome habit of kicking someone in the balls and stealing their legitimate business. ask any Italian - Perazzi is an Italian name.
now for the rest of the inventions - do your homework in advance, all of you. within minutes or days, it so happens that ALL of mankind's great inventions came up at pretty much the same time in several places. two examples: Popov, Tesla and Marconi for radio communications. then Wright bros., Bleriot and Vlaicu for the flying machines. stop arguing, that doesn't take us anywhere.
all in all - there's always gonna be someone willing to get stuff for free, regardless if that stuff has been researched and is the product of someone's work. whoever researched it deserves to be paid, and I haven't heard of Apple forcing any manufacturer to switch to Vista for fear of withdrawing support and driver creation, to this day.
I hope I made my case clear. I live North of 60, so throwing eggs at my windows _will_ require a lot of force.