- Tuesday, 10 November 2009
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There's one thing I can promise you about the space program. Your tax dollars will go further. - Wernher Von Braun
EFI-X boots US partner
ART STUDIOS ENTERTAINMENT MEDIA (ASEM), the company behind the EFI-X UEFI dongle, has severed its relationship with EFI-X USA LLC, its North American distributor.
The whole situation was triggered when EFI-X USA LLC (unrelated to ASEM as a company) started peddling generic PCs with pre-installed OS X and the EFI-X dongle.
This upset ASEM which sought to block the American shop from selling machines. A falling out of sorts ensued and, as of the 12th of January, ASEM has come forward and denounced the EFIX USA business model as breaching its NDA and terms & conditions.
ASEM has appointed a new EFI-X partner in the US. It's named Express HD, a newly-founded hardware etailer that'll take over selling ASEM's EFI-X UEFI dongle.
Speaking to Davide Rutigliano, CEO of ASEM, the company, The Inq got some input on the "Why's" and "How's" these things happen, and uncovered some interesting factoids about what's to follow.
First of all, according to Rutigliano, there's a very thin line between selling Apple clones and selling something a small percentage of enthusiasts will want to install on their PCs - something that will allow them to boot OS X, bought off the shelf from a shop - the latter being totally legitimate, while the former is in violation of Apple's terms & conditions.
So where is the line drawn? At marketing clones that are labeled as competitors to Apple's own Mac Pros, with a general disregard for the Apple business that is - as we know - rather unique. That's what EFIX USA LLC did, according to Rutigliano, while wildly fluctuating the retail price of the dongle and providing poor customer support.
Not peddling hardware pre-installed with OS X and not pitching itself as a competitor to Apple is what sets the EFI-X apart from the likes of Psystar and other clone makers, says Rutigliano.
In fact EFI-X, the wundergadget, will get Mac OS X running on your PC, but only if you have the right hardware. There is a compatibility list available on the EFI-X website, which is updated on a regular basis as the company's R&D people work out what they need to get the whole thing working with different chipsets and other hardware.
Discussing this subject brought about Rutigliano's accidental carpet-bombing of the conversation with a preview of upcoming features, something we found far more interesting than the partner announcement (sorry Davide). The words "Core i7" and "OS X" were involved.
In short, EFI-X will support Intel's X58 and Core i7 marchitectures, starting this month. That will be followed by support for DAAMIT's Radeon HD 48x0 and Nvidia's GTX 285 graphics parts, which will bring some serious performance to OS X.
If you're thinking "Core i7, triple channel DDR3 and a GTX 285 running OS X", then you're absolutely correct. µ
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AMD 48XX + i7 + triple channel running OSX?!
That makes me jizz in my pants.
(it may not be a Mac Pro, but it's a metric F&!#ton better than an iMac)
Dear Inquirer: It is a violation of Apple's End-User License Agreement (EULA) and, therefore, presumptively illegal for anyone to boot OS X on anything other than Apple-Labeled hardware. So those, who boot OS X on other than Apple-Labeled hardware, are violating Apple's EULA and, if that EULA is valid and enforceable--and I believe that it is--are infringing, inter alia, on Apple's copyright in OS X.
As for ASEM and its new U. S. distributors, by installing OS X on a dongle that others can use to boot OS X on non-Apple Labeled hardware, they are potentially liable for copyright infringement, contributory copyright infringement, and/or inducing copyright infringement. Since the dongle at issue has no other legitimate purpose than to facilitate others in infringing on Apple's IP rights in OS X, I think that it is quite likely ASEM and its distributor would liable for either direct infringement or abetting infringement.
Orlando Smith, Esq.
"installing OS X on a dongle"
Do you actually have a clue what you are on about or are you just trying to boost your online ego?
(research is the key)
Let's face it and accept that Apple's PC's are lagging behind on the hardware chase.
If Apple would get it's head out of it's own #s! and release OSX then Apple would make a ton of $$$$. But low and behold, the Apple blinded all say together as one confused sheep," We've tried that before and it nearly killed us." thus living in a skewed past never looking at today's market and demands. Why are companies making dongles for OSX and why are people hacking it? Humm.... could it be a huge demand for OSX without Apple's over priced restrictive PC's?
Third party hardware vendors would take care of the drivers for OSX.
The sad truth is most Apple sheep are some of the most ignorant, arrogant, and helpless people on the net!
So go ahead and fire away blinded fan bots....
Windows is so screwed: I know people who run XP and are sick and tired of the inconvenience of having to put up with slug-ware from Norton, et. al.
Apple fans will always buy cool Apple gear.
If Apple encouraged PC builders like Dell and hp to flog their machines with OS X and encouraged the rest of us to use OS X in our custom quad socket, quad core, RAID SSD, BluRay, 64 GB RAM riggs then we would see the end of Windows and Apple would make even bigger piles of dosh.
Dont you just love this type of rhetoric? Yes please lets all move to an operating system with just as many (if not more) security holes than windows! The only reason there aren't as many attacks on OSX by virus writers etc is theres not enough macs out there to bother.. seriously. I'm a malware writer who wants to get my bot net as large as possble say. Who do I target? Windows. Why? Because theres 100 users of it for every 1 of OSX's shiny toys. Now what happens if OSX gets bigger say a 40/60 split? OSX with its lack of anti-malware tools becomes a very very attractive target and an easier one to attack at that. So please take your bible according to Jobs and hammer it somewhere else
then they wouldnt be exclusive and provide the smug factor. Can you imagine seeing them for sale in Walmart next to other el cheapo pc's? Would you still feel smug?
Monty, you sound like a Microsoft marketeer "lets sell it to everyone and make lots of money". You also want Dell and HP to make Apple pc's, with OS X. Isn't an apple pc just a regular pc running and different operating system?
As a non-appler on the outside looking in, it would seem to me that apple pc's are the same as windows pc's, except apple charge more, run very few games, have approval lists for software, etc.
I would like to try the apple OS, but since it will come attached to overpriced hardware I won't.
I do agree with your leaning of making apple OS's more widely available, but then that wouldnt serve the "smugness" factor.
1) Apple retail OS X install kits (US$129) come with white Apple labels. So, before installing from DVD, affix one of them to your case, and viola, you have an "Apple-labeled computer".
2) I would like an EFI-X dongle (mounted internally on a USB header), but I would triple-dog like that dongle with 4-8GB of integrated flash memory, so I could install an OS or two of my choice directly on it. It would make benchmarking much easier!
"The whole situation was triggered when EFI-X USA LLC (unrelated to ASEM as a company) started peddling generic PCs with pre-installed OS X and the EFI-X dongle."
Absolutely incorrect information. EFI-X USA was NOT pre-installing OSX on the prebuilt pc's, they were not selling OS X they were only selling a generic PC with the included EFI-X adapter. In my opinion there were violating no laws, the piece of hardware could be used to enable an EFI-X interface for ANY operating system. Big Brother just got all scared that Apple would come down on them.
people say that os x only has security by obscurity where as windows is much more widely used therefore it's a bigger target. people who make this dubious claim are ignoring many underlying technical details which reveal that unix security is a paradigm which permeates it's design, unlike windows were security is a afterthought implemented with dozens of bolted on patches and kludgy "hotfixes".
it's like saying the local liquor store in your nearest slum is just as secure as an army base, the only difference is the liquor storefront is exposed to more foot traffic so it gets robbed more frequently.
get real.