Supply Snag Slows Down Mac Cloner

from the getting-around-the-hurdles dept

Back in April there was a story making the rounds about a guy in Minnesota looking to get around Apple's anti-cloning policies by building Mac clones out of used and repair shop parts, while letting customers buy and load their own MacOS. So far, the Apple lawyers haven't come up with a valid reason to shut him down, but they are going after his suppliers. He's stopped production after Apple threatened the company that sold him motherboards, saying it violated their contract. The guy says he's negotiating with a new supplier, but Apple will probably stop them as well. Who knew there were licensing issues for hardware as well? Whatever happened to the rights of ownership? If you bought a product you could then turn around and sell it to whoever you wanted?
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  1. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 17 Jun 2003 @ 11:24am

    No Subject Given

    You still have that right, at least if you own an Apple Computer. However, the manufacturer of the motherboards does not have the right to build a product from a copyrighted design. Intel motherboards are not 'owned' by anyone, just the components.

    On the other hand, if you try to give away or sell your Microsoft software, read the fine print. hahahahah

    link to this | view in thread ]

  2. identicon
    data64, 17 Jun 2003 @ 3:13pm

    Isn't this similar to what M$ was accused of doing

    One of against M$ was that they tried to control the PC industry by threatening to not sell windows to the OEM who did not comply with M$'s whims.
    Why does Apple get away with doing this ?
    just curious.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  3. identicon
    Mike, 17 Jun 2003 @ 8:39pm

    Mac-in-the-box

    Years ago, back in the mid to late 80's, Atari released their 68000 processor based ST computer line. I remember some enterprising fools trying to hawk a cartrige-based adaptor of sorts for that machine that would let you run Mac software on your Atari ST. The only catch was that you had to have _real_ MacOS chips, which they didn't sell, and could only be purchased thru gray-market Mac repair shops. Of course, everyone just burned pirated versions and you could download and burn to EPROMS and voila! Your crappy Atari ST would now run crappy Mac software, but in black-and-white! You want a Mac, buy a Mac....you don't like a company's rules or ways of doing business, buy from the competition. You'd think starving kids in Africa were at risk or something......

    link to this | view in thread ]


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