Apple branded hardware & PC's

I have realized now for some time that you are able to get Apples OSX for around $20 for some time, but I was also looking at if it can be installed on a conventional computer. But not only if it can be installed, but can it be legally installed because it doesn't sound right that I could just dump a piece of art onto a supermarket.

Well, you can put it onto a PC and it's called a hackentosh. It's essentially hardware that is OSX compatible and is able to give you the joy of a real apple system, but it's not as straight forward as that.

Even though you can install it, should you? There's some debate over the EULA (End User License Agreement) to which it states that you can't install OSX onto a PC but has to be on apple branded hardware. Now, I've for some time tried to find the definition for "apple branded hardware", but i found this in clause H.


H. Other Use Restrictions. The grants set forth in this License do not permit you to, and you agree not to, install, use or run the Apple Software on any non-Apple-branded computer, or to enable others to do so.

But is this anti-competitive in Australia? To offer a product that can be purchased for the intent of using it as an operating system should it be restricted to the hardware as a condition of sale of purchase?

Possibly this is a left of field thought, but, what if you purchased apple ram, would this meet the condition of "apple branded hardware" as it is Apple product. But the arguement that Apple has taken is that of the case of that the external machine is not a apple product and that it is being sold as one, diluting the purity of Apples branding.

I wonder how IBM felt as IBM clones poped up in the 1980's. IBM did try to sue businesses that copied their OS also made IBM loose their market share.

Maybe it's time Apple jumped into the Microsoft model, would that really be a bad thing? Could offering OSX to everybody be such an impossible thing to do, I wonder how many future coders and users would benifit rather than looking at the bottom dollar figure. Since SJ is no longer around, this type of philanthropy will not be coming from Apple, I don't think there's anybody their who has the backbone to shake up the system, to question the corporate board decisions as well as to take risks.

References:
Apple EULA:http://images.apple.com/legal/sla/docs/OSX108.pdf

Apple cites EULA: http://www.afterdawn.com/news/article.cfm/2008/07/19/_b_apple_b_tries_to_put_mac_clone_maker_out_of_business_citing_eula_terms

Hackintosh: http://lifehacker.com/5841604/the-always-up+to+date-guide-to-building-a-hackintosh

Send in the clones: http://www.computerhistory.org/revolution/personal-computers/17/302