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Are you going to buy the Open Computer?

Phil A. said:
Not a chance in hell I'd ever buy anything from these guys. Not because of some intense love of Apple but because they're taking advantage of the Hackintosh community to make money without giving anything back, which for me is morally wrong.

For example, they refer people to the insanelymac forums for tech support, and, even worse, appear to are using the EFI emulator without permission and in direct contravention of the license terms for that product (they don't seem to care much about licenses do they?): http://netkas.org/?p=62

Now, people may or may not care about them ignoring license terms from a big corporation (i.e. Apple), but breaking the license terms for the EFI emulator is a whole different ballgame: netkas produced this for the good of the hackintosh community, and psysys are simply exploiting that community and riding roughshod over his rights...
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The sword cuts both ways. You can't get angry at a company that is going to bypass Apple's EULA and rights to sell OS-X on Apple hardware because they ignore the license of the software that was created to circumvent Apple. Well you can, I suppose, but is incredible hypocritical. Live by the sword die by the sword.
 
Dsr1205 said:
Pre-Sorry to any moderators who find this discussion now allowed, just in case.....anyway...

Are you gonna buy one? i think its a good deal:
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It is completely unreasonable. If you want to run MacOS X and not buy a Macintosh, there are dozens of companies with a track record for selling computers that you can buy from, with a good chance of getting quality according to the price you paid, service and warranty, and that are not trying to rip off anyone. And you can easily find a website that will help you pick the right computer and run MacOS X on it. It's not a big problem.

Here, on the other hand, you have a completely unproven company, which bases its whole existence on ripping off Apple. That says something about their ethics, and if they rip off Apple, what makes you believe for one second they won't rip off you if they can? Their marketing plan has "sue Apple" first on its list; if you want to do business with a company that needs to use the courts to do business, go ahead. Good luck.

And notice that they give no guarantee at all that Leopard will actually work. So you are on your own if you buy their machines. If you want a Hackintosh, then there is no reason at all to give your money to this lot. Do a bit of searching on the Internet, find a quality machine that is recommended for Leopard compatibility, and do it yourself.
 
Will I buy one ... Simple answer , No.

It's to much hassle. The money I save would be easily eaten up by support issues. If the company stops making patches, you could be stuck at 10.5.2 or whatever. The upgrade path is "fragile". My 4 year old Power Mac G5 still is supported by 10.5 and into the foreseeable future.

If you like to tinker, the machine could be fine.
 
MagnusVonMagnum said:
I always think the consumer should have the choice to decide what hardware and what software they want to use together. I believe the same thing for the iPhone platform and even for the XBox. If you offer a computer type platform (and that includes gaming boxes which are computers inside) to the general public, you should have to let the general public run whatever they want on it. In fact, I think that should be a general law. People should write their government representatives and demand a FAIR USE computer law.
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I'm not sure I get your point. I agree with your position here since you OWN the hardware, but Apple does not provide any roadblocks to this. You can run any OS you want a Mac in a supportable fashion. In fact the simple single CD driver installation Apple provides for Windows exceeds most PC vendors.

However this is the opposite. The clam here is that Apple has no right to dictate use terms on an IP license it sells.

If you extend this to the rest of the market, you are proposing that MS can not legally enforce an upgrade version of Windows from being used w/o a prior license. (keep in mind that pricing for OS X is for an upgrade. By nature of the business model it is impossible to use an OS X install disk on a machine that does not have a prior Apple OS) Maybe that's true but frankly I believe that these type of licensing terms are reasonable and beneficial to users.

How do you think Apple would respond to this? I'd hate for my next OS X upgrade to cost $399 or worse yet, Apple stops selling upgrade OS's all together.
 
gnasher729 said:
Here, on the other hand, you have a completely unproven company, which bases its whole existence on ripping off Apple. That says something about their ethics, and if they rip off Apple, what makes you believe for one second they won't rip off you if they can? Their marketing plan has "sue Apple" first on its list; if you want to do business with a company that needs to use the courts to do business, go ahead. Good luck.
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From the looks of it they are paying full retail for each copy of Leopard they install, so I'm not sure how they are ripping of Apple any more than a hackentosh builder. If this leads to Apple selling upgrade versions and "new" versions in a two tier price structure I'm all for it. Especially if the "new" version will install on supported whitebox hardware. Also, where do you get the idea that they want to sue Apple? If Apple leaves them alone I seriously doubt they'll go looking for a fight.

All they appear to be doing is attempting to sell a computer that every time someone pipes up here asking Apple to build, the fan boys pile on claiming no one wants one and/or it's not profitable.

As to the OP: The Pro version is exactly the kind of computer I'm looking for, but I want Apple to build it. So no I won't buy one. If my P4 box dies and Apple's sub $2000 hardware still leaves me unimpressed, I may very well go the hackentosh route. If I do I'll build my own, although with 3 young kids I can totally get how someone with the skill to build their own box might still pay a premium for someone else to do it for them.
 
iFizz said:
Either you are very young or very foolish (or both). No offense... ;)
All you have to do is take a walk down memory lane and reminisce the personal computer OS wars of the last 25 years to see that is a foolish statement to make.
But hey, to each their own. :)
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Young, no. Foolish, ya probably, and a few other things according to my wife.
I was with Windows for years and OSX is 10000000000x better. OSX was my first experience with a Mac, but even so, based on that I say Ill never go back to Windows.
 
It's all a big conspiracy!

I've got it! Psystar is just a ghost name for a company secretly owned by Apple. They're not selling hackintoshes. They're actually selling Macs disguised to look like PCs to get more PC users running OSX in a devious plot to eventually get them to buy a real Mac! Oh Steve, you got us good, you w#nk#r!

Brilliant! :D
 
PNW said:
If this leads to Apple selling upgrade versions and "new" versions in a two tier price structure I'm all for it. Especially if the "new" version will install on supported whitebox hardware.
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I don't see how this would lead to Apple selling a "new" version. Apple doesn't sell Macs w/o and OS, so selling a "full" version of OS X would be explicitly endorsing clone hardware. Today you can consider any boxed copies of OS X to be an upgrade version.

Why would they add this new version (thereby endorse clones), when they could just make updating a painful process for hackintosh?

I like the hackintosh project, but Open Mac hits Apple a bit too close to home by trying to make it mainstream. It is forcing Apple to make a move to stop them (and hackintosh by extension). If Apple doesn't stop them, they enter an official clone era that the OS isn't ready for.
 
The Key Word: Attempting

PNW said:
From the looks of it they are paying full retail for each copy of Leopard they install, so I'm not sure how they are ripping of Apple any more than a hackentosh builder. If this leads to Apple selling upgrade versions and "new" versions in a two tier price structure I'm all for it. Especially if the "new" version will install on supported whitebox hardware. Also, where do you get the idea that they want to sue Apple? If Apple leaves them alone I seriously doubt they'll go looking for a fight.

All they appear to be doing is attempting to sell a computer that every time someone pipes up here asking Apple to build, the fan boys pile on claiming no one wants one and/or it's not profitable.

As to the OP: The Pro version is exactly the kind of computer I'm looking for, but I want Apple to build it. So no I won't buy one. If my P4 box dies and Apple's sub $2000 hardware still leaves me unimpressed, I may very well go the hackentosh route. If I do I'll build my own, although with 3 young kids I can totally get how someone with the skill to build their own box might still pay a premium for someone else to do it for them.
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Attempting, but not succeeding. You're buying a computer with no support, no guarantee you'll ever be able to upgrade the OS, one that breaks the license of both OSX and the EFI emulator, and one that you could've built yourself and supported, and you're going to have to support it yourself anyway. You have to really really want to run OSX (MS Office maybe, and you hate MS Windows?) because supporting Linux would be far easier (and configuring Linux can be no picnic once in a while) and comes with more software.

The great thing about OSX is "it just works" and it's a great OS. So that's actually a bit of hype, but you don't have to spend godawful amounts of time getting it to work. If it did just work (which it won't, ever), lots of people would ignore the dubious legality, but in reality: not going to happen.

And no, Apple is not going to sell a 2-tiered version of OSX. They already tried licensing clones and (for good or bad) it's not going happen again in Steve Jobs' lifetime.
 
qtx43 said:
Attempting, but not succeeding. You're buying a computer with no support, no guarantee you'll ever be able to upgrade the OS, one that breaks the license of both OSX and the EFI emulator, and one that you could've built yourself and supported, and you're going to have to support it yourself anyway.
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I'd rather do my own support than sit on hold or stand in cue at the 'genius' bar, and that includes our mini as well at the linux boxes at home. They are also open and upfront about the possibility of update issues, and I certainly wouldn't recommend a novice user picking one up. I don't see an ethical difference between me violating the licenses and paying them to do it for me, and there are plenty of things I could do myself but pay others to do for me (changing the oil in the car comes to mind).

qtx43 said:
You have to really really want to run OSX (MS Office maybe, and you hate MS Windows?) because supporting Linux would be far easier (and configuring Linux can be no picnic once in a while) and comes with more software.
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In my case it's Photoshop and more importantly Espon's drivers and icc profiles for my photo-printer. I'm OK with XP though it's a PIA to run from a limited account, and dual booting/virtualization with linux is getting old. Plus it's yesterday's Windows OS, and I really hate Vista

qtx43 said:
The great thing about OSX is "it just works" and it's a great OS. So that's actually a bit of hype, but you don't have to spend godawful amounts of time getting it to work. If it did just work (which it won't, ever), lots of people would ignore the dubious legality, but in reality: not going to happen.
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If "it just works" why is there applecare? Seriously I really do like OS X but it's not without it's problems. I haven't had to touch either of the linux boxes in months, and I spent several hours screwing around with the mini the other night trying to get PDF's to load in a tab in Firefox only to come up empty.

qtx43 said:
And no, Apple is not going to sell a 2-tiered version of OSX. They already tried licensing clones and (for good or bad) it's not going happen again in Steve Jobs' lifetime.
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Just like Apple will never use Intel chips and a whole host of other "never going to happen" ideas that came to pass. It might, we really don't know.

My $0.02 is that this is a couple of guys operating out of their garage and Apple should just ignore them. If Apple were to release a desktop built from a range of consumer desktop parts (not laptop parts or server grade parts) all interest in the "Open Computer" would dry up.
 
***Update***

http://computerworld.com/action/art...legal_issues&articleId=9078198&taxonomyId=146

Note the paragraph:
A man who answered the phone at CottonImages said there were two other businesses at the 10481 NW 28th St. address, but PsyStar, or any other computer company, is not among them. "I don't know how they got this address," said the spokesman, who declined to give his name.

After a brief hold, he returned and said he had been told to refer all questions about PsyStar to the same e-mail address the Mac clone maker has been handing out. The spokesman flatly denied any link between CottonImages and PsyStar.
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Q-Dog said:
Just bought a Mini and am VERY happy with it. I would only have considered something like this if it was GUARANTEED to work with OSX with no extra updates, downloads or hacks ... in other words, if it had Apple support.

Apple provides the whole package, which is a strong enticement for me, and the Mac just works. Seriously, if I wanted to constantly futz with a computer just to make it work I would build a PC and load it with windows or Linux.
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I agree completely. My first Mac was a mini, and it was so refreshing after years and years of building my own boxes and supporting Windows. I would never want to go back to that. And say what you will, supporting a hacked OS X is not the same as supporting Windows, which is at least supposed to run on other hardware; you have no one (except maybe hackers) to fall back on if it breaks. No thanks. I'm well past that stage (I'm 55 now) and don't want to go back.
 
Really, that surprised you?

The brains behind the BlueBox and the first Apple Computer. If it was Steve Jobs saying that, I would be very surprised, but in this instance no I'm far from surprised.

I wouldn't buy one either though. If anything, I would buy an empty Powermac G4 Quicksilver case and find compatible components to make a better spec than mac mini, but lesser spec than Mac Pro.

To be honest, the prospect of this is making the geek in me excited!
 
hotshotharry said:
lol its about 1/10 the price as well !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :eek:
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haha yeah!

I may buy an Open Computer if it is good and is legal, and so far, I think not.
----
It is crazy cheap (compared to Apple)
You get all of this (OpenPro Computer):
Memory: 4GB DDR2 RAM (+ $75.00)
Processor: Core2Quad/2.6GHz Q9450 (+ $400.00)
Hard Drive: 1 TB 7200RPM SATA (+ $150.00)
Video Card: GeForce 8800GT 512MB (+ $200.00)

for just $1,979.99
 
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