[OT] EULA and legality

[Richard Gaskin]

Kay C Lan wrote:

> On Wed, Sep 12, 2012 at 9:24 PM, Richard Gaskin wrote:
>
>> That's one question, and it may be interesting to see how it plays out if
>> Apple ever enforces the "Apple branded hardware" clause in their EULA.
>>
> Why is it assumed that Apple must be the one to go to court to enforce
> it's rule.

I used Apple as an example only because it was the subject of Richmond's 
original post.  If there's another OS vendor who also makes their own 
hardware and prohibits use of the OS on other hardware the same 
principle would apply.

There may be other cases less specifically relevant, like the Nintendo 
game cartridge suit being waged throughout the world.  But as I noted 
earlier, aside from one anomalous victory for a cloner in France most 
jurisdictions have sided with Nintendo.

Personally I don't see a lot of productive value in attempting to force 
people to take my money.  It's just and OS and in the 21st century OSes 
are commodities, certainly enough to choose from that we needn't spend 
much time complaining about not having an OS to use.


> If the EULA is so horribly unethical then why isn't there are groundswell
> of anti-EULA sentiment. It certainly worked for the Focebook ToCs that
> caused a public outcry last year, and they were subsequently changed. Apple
> had a similar episode with it's iBooks EULA and it was subsequently changed.

Yes, that was my point.  The EULA may stand at least in part because 
it's untested, and it's untested because almost no one cares.

The only people affected are those with the skills to be able to install 
OS X on non-Apple-branded hardware, and most of those have already 
chosen a different OS whose EULA doesn't attempt to prevent them from 
running it so we're really only talking about a very small subset of a 
subset of the computer market.

For myself, when I build a custom machine I'd rather use an OS from a 
vendor who actually wants me to install it on that machine, and in 
return I'll support that vendor and those who make apps for that OS.

I can get an immediately useful result that way, allowing me to get to 
work far more easily than kvetching about a vendor who doesn't want me 
to use their software.

--
  Richard Gaskin
  Fourth World
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