A superquick recap: Psystar releases the OpenMac, a $400 desktop Mac clone; people debate if this is possible, technically or legally, and if Psystar is a scam; the hackintoshes turn out to be real; they ship; Apple gets upset; Psystar grandstands; Apple continues to be upset; Psystar gets murdered. To death.

That was the story a few weeks ago, at least. Now Psystar is basically acting like nothing happened, releasing a fresh bootloader, a new computer—the $1500, i7-based Open(7) desktop—and revisiting their old, defiant tone in an email newsletter:

As you all may already be aware in late May, Psystar filed for bankruptcy protection. Although this was critical to our continued daily operations, we are now ready to emerge and again battle Goliath.

The whole thing is reproduced below, and definitely worth reading.

Psystar's been subject to all manner or canonization, criticism, popular support and backlash, but now I don't know what to think. On the one hand, all their talk about monopolies, freedom and victimization always stuck me as a little hollow. (David and Goliath? So you're going to kill Apple?) On the other, it now appears as though the guys who run Psystar are either clinically insane, extremely persistent, unusually ballsy or just poorly advised to an extreme. Or all of the above. As Mark said on the story, "they wont stop unless Apple cuts off their hands. And even then, who knows." That spirit alone has got to be worth something, right? [TUAW via Neowin via Slashgear]

PearC is essentially offering exactly what Psystar is here in the states—build to order Intel hardware in three performance grades, from a €500 Pentium Dual Core machine analagous to the Mac Mini on up to a Core i7 Extreme screamer with every BTO option you would want—all with OS X 10.5 pre-installed.

As for the legality, PearC doesn't elaborate too much on any loophole they may have found in Germany to help them avoid getting brought to court for violating OS X's license agreement. This, from their FAQ via Google Translate:

7. Is it legal to Mac OS X on a PC to install?
We would not offer our PearCs if we would not think that it is legal.

Also related to the legality of the situation is that you can presently only place in order if you're also in Europe (Germany, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Greece, Ireland, Luxembourg, Italy, Netherlands, Austria, Poland, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, and the UK, to be exact). And you can only make an order via wire transfer or COD, which doesn't bode well, unless that's the way things go in krautville and I just don't know about it.

Either way, the hackintosh war now has two fronts. [PearC via SevenMac]

Davide Rutigliano, CEO of Art Studios Entertainment, issued a personal statement, mentioning that he was shutting down the project immediately and promising the company will never sell a clone that directly competes with another product.

The EFiX dongle allows users to easily load a copy of OS X onto a PC with minimal fuss. Apparently EFiX USA misinterpreted the launch of ASE's certification program, intended more to help custom builders with compatibility, as a green light to start building their own Millenium 4 machines. They were wrong. [Tom's Hardware]

Psystar has agreed to drop their antitrust claim against Apple, but they still have no intention of surrendering. Instead, they have shifted their focus on to copyright issues. From the filing:

Psystar alleges that by virtue of Apple's leveraging of copyrights in the context of Apple's EULA, spurious litigation via the DMCA, and various other anti- and unfair competitive conduct, there is no viable alternative to the purchase and use of Apple-Labeled Computer Hardware Systems for users who wish to use the Mac OS, for a prospective buyer of the Mac OS, or for a user of an older version of the Mac OS.

They are also arguing that Apple's inclusion of code in OSX that results in "kernel panic" does not constitute a legitimate copy protection system.

In Psystar's view, Apple's abuse of their copyright is monopolistic and is in direct violation of the "misuse doctrine," which prevents copyright from being used to block competition. Naturally, this is a major longshot and only prolonging the inevitable at a considerable and unnecessary expense. [Appleinsider and CNET]

Still, if you are the kind of person willing to drop serious cash on a shady overseas knockoff, then you will be interested to know that OpeniMac is offering two models: A $990 base version (2GB of memory, a 320GB HDD and a 256MB ATI Radeon HD Pro) and a $1,710 "Pro" version (3.0GHz processor, 4GB of RAM and a 20-inch widescreen LCD). Better hurry though, nobody escapes Apple's wrath for long. [OpeniMac via Crunchgear]

Besides, how long will it be before Blu-ray is dumped for digital downloads? Personally, I don't care about Blu-ray on a Mac, but I'm sure plenty of people out there feel differently. And that is what Psystar does—they fill a need that cannot be satisfied by current Apple offerings. [Ars Technica]

"Ignoring fundamental principles of antitrust law, and the realities of the marketplace, Psystar contends that Apple has unlawfully monopolized an alleged market that consists of only one product, the Macintosh® computer."

It's doubtful that Psystar has the grounds to win or even the money to fight this case, but the stated principle here is kind of weird. The whole line of Macintosh computers is one product? Hardware that could run Mac OS comprises an "alleged market?" It's hard to quite make sense of what they mean other than "PLEASE DIE." We'll see what happens in court on November 3rd, when Apple passes that sentiment on to Psystar's face(s). [The Register, with full filing at ZDNet]

When we asked them whether they could install a plan retail copy of Leopard you purchase at the store onto their hardware without modification, they said "no." The only legit way of actually being "open" is to modify hardware to fool Leopard into thinking that you're putting it on a Mac. In this sense, Open Tech is the exact same as Psystar, and both will most likely be smacked down by Apple. $500 is too much to pay for this company. [Wired]

The first official clone experiment in 1995-97 was going so well, and then Steve Jobs swooped in and killed it by raising the licensing price of the operating system and ROMs to impossible levels. And that de facto ban is seemingly here to stay. As late as last year, Apple VP Phil Schiller declared, "We will not allow running Mac OS X on anything other than an Apple Mac."

Now, Apple can do whatever it wants. The company can carelessly delay the introduction of new Core 2 Duo processors by a couple of months, and there's a captive audience that will sit there and wait. Mac notebooks, no longer worthy of being called laptops, can fry users' laps, and Mac users have no recourse. Apple can charge whatever price it desires; everyone will pay. And where are the Octo-Macs? We've been testing and playing with the 8-core PCs for six weeks now.

Let's toss out a few ideas, and get some comments.

Let Apple make its hardware money with iPods, and let the clones return, bringing forth more innovation and letting people modify their Macs the way it's commonly done in the PC world. Suddenly, the nearly-infinite variety of PC hardware would be open to the Mac OS.

Sure, Apple can continue to sell workstation and laptop hardware, and if it's so great, it will continue to dominate. But let the free market decide how good the Mac hardware really is. Apple has undoubtedly excelled with iPods; and it would probably survive in a competitive market for its workstation and notebook hardware as well.

On the other hand, maybe Apple is in the catbird seat right now, with its hardware able to run Windows XP, but not reciprocating by letting the Mac OS run on PC hardware—at least not in any official sense that would let diverse hardware manufacturers in on the fun. This is a good situation for Apple, but not necessarily for OS X users.

Hackers and do-it-yourselfers are already unofficially running Mac OS X on Wintel hardware. But let's see an officially-sanctioned Mac clone marketplace where OS X and Microsoft Windows Vista can compete head-to-head, and let the competition between hardware vendors sort itself out. That would be a sure-fire way to finally get out of the quagmire of a sub-5% market share for OS X. – Charlie White