Psystar Violates Open Source APSL Licensing Agreement

To defend its position against Apple, Psystar claims that terms of use in Mac OS X licensing are restrictive and block competitors by preventing anyone to install Mac OS X on a non-Apple hardware. So, as a consequence, Psystar is not violating any law by selling PC running pre-installed and legally purchased Mac OS X. The company received support from many users who would be interested in running the famous Mac OS X on their own hardware without requiring to by a Apple-branded model. In other words, Psystar was playing the white knight fighting against the giant to help poor customers. Well, this picture might dramatically changed and could even be fully reversed by a recent discovery.

On its website, Netkas, one of the most active members of the Hackintosh community accuses Psystar of violating the APSL (open Source) licensing agreement. He discovered that Psystar DUBL/RebelEFI is based on Open Source boot-132. RebelEFI is sold by Psystar and allow users to install Mac OS X on many PC hardware. Netkas contacted Psystar as according to the APSL licensing agreement, Psystar should have uploaded its code. No official answer yet.

In summary, Psystar is selling for 50 USD a code they did not even developed, without respecting the licensing agreement linked to its usage. So, as if the current legal action against Apple would not be enough, Psystar has now opened a second front against the Open Source community (maybe their worst decision), and for sure they will sue Psystar as they are currently suing the company who claimed to have developed the EFI-X USB key.

This could well be a perfect proof for Apple and it could help its lawyers to demonstrate that Psystar is not the white knight that they pretend to be, and might even be the black sheep that no one would like to see...