Psystar is the only company offering machines running Mac OS X other than Apple. They made headline news with their $399 entry-level offering, as the first non-Apple PC to run Apple’s proprietary Operating System. Psystar claims that they will challenge Apple’s Mac OS X End User License Agreement (EULA) which specifically prohibits the installation of Mac OS X on non Apple-branded machines. They believe Apple’s prohibition against third-party installations might not hold up in court: “What if Honda said that, after you buy their car, you could only drive it on the roads they said you could?” an employee named Robert claimed in April. Psystar will continue to sell the OpenMac system, despite the fact that it appears to violate Apple’s EULA. “We’re not breaking any laws,” he insisted.
By offering a cheap machine running Apple’s much awarded software, many people were drawn to the possibilities of “freedom of choice” with their hardware. However, you had to buy your copy of Leopard from Psystar, which apparently left a lot of customers rather peeved. It definitely makes sense that a second rate serving of something as proprietary to Apple as Leopard, would lack polish.
Now Psystar is offering “updates” to their version of Leopard, or rather access to Apple’s updates in an unconventional, hackishly conceived way.
So far there’s a Time Machine fix available, together with patches sorting DHCP issues some users are experiencing. It may seem like an easy solution for Psystar to offer updates to the software they are selling, but it’s not. Because Apple has made no official comment about anything Psystar is doing being illegal, Psystar is able to hack together fixes and workarounds that I imagine would be no fun to take part in, both for the end user and the support team writing the updates.
If you already own an Open Computer from Psystar, you can download an update client. If you are planning on purchasing an Open Computer in the near future, the update client will come pre-installed.
via Gear Diary
