5 ms·

While I realize its not 'apple approved' it is very easy and cheap to build an extremely powerful 'hackintosh' as long as you pick the correct hardware. See ht

by mbell 14y ago

While I realize its not 'apple approved' it is very easy and cheap to build an extremely powerful 'hackintosh' as long as you pick the correct hardware. See http://www.tonymacx86.com/ http://www.tonymacx86.com/

veidr 14y ago
I am glad that is possible (and tempted to do it at home every time I go to plug in a thunderbolt device into my Mac Pro, and then have to go oh yeah, god dammit...) it is not just not 'apple approved' it is not legal. In most normal business environments where obeying the law is a required practice and bootlegging software is not allowed, building a hackintosh isn't a solution.
- mwilcox 14y ago
  Not to mention, supporting any more than a few Hackintosh machines would be a nightmare for any serious organisation.
- mbell 14y ago
  There is no need to bootleg any software and no it is not 'Illegal'. You can and should buy a copy of OSX which you can do on the app store without much issue. It is however, against the 'terms of service' which is not a legal issue but one of support / danger of being 'cut off' by an update. That said, keep in mind that much of the work done to allow this is done by people disenfranchised by Apple's lack of a decent, upgradable, 'pro' model. In other words your often being supported by people in the same position as you.
  - blibble 14y ago
    I'm sure if we did that then our auditors and compliance officers would love the fact that we chose a system with full knowledge that we'd be breaking the contract we bought it under.
  - veidr 14y ago
    It is not a criminal issue, but it is certainly a legal issue. Even if you buy the install media at the Apple store, you don't legally have the right to install the copyrighted work on your hackintosh. I'm not saying there are likely to be real-world consequences, just that most normal businesses have policies in place to make sure they comply with legal and contractual obligations, which make hackintoshes a non-starter. I should not have said you have to "bootleg" the OS, though; as you point out, that is wrong. You can simply buy it and then install it in violation of the license terms -- which is not the same thing at all.
- mc32 14y ago
  Even if it were allowed, it would not be supported by the vendor in terms of warranty support. when you're a 27x7 org, you don't need excuses from vendors as to why your setup is not a supported configuration. LDAP issues. Apple will not support it. Driver issues, the HW mfg will not support the HW when weird things pop up.
  - niggler 14y ago
    "when you're a 27x7 org," I assume you mean 24x7 :P
    - shabble 14y ago
      I can imagine a not-too-distant future where we have cloud hosting available[1] from flocks of solar-powered UAVs[2] loitering around the International Date Line, thus finally paving the way for >100% uptime. [1] http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2005/06/10/1389516.htm http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2005/06/10/1389516.ht... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NASA_Pathfinder#Helios_Prototype https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NASA_Pathfinder#Helios_Prototy...
      - niggler 14y ago
        In general relativity and closed-timelike-curve-time-travel there is a concept of a universal clock, against which >100% uptime is impossible
  - mbell 14y ago
    Wasn't one of the points of the OP that Apple is doing a poor job of supporting the systems they do sell? I honestly don't understand how this issue is any different than the numerous companies whom purchase generic hardware to run linux on, there isn't much support from either end, yet they manage to create some impressive systems from this 'unsupported' hardware/software. How is running OSX on 'unsupported hardware' that much different than running a postgres server on EC2? Would the same company force their devs into using MySQL because RDS exists? If your reliant on computers beyond 'MS Office', and you don't have a dev team to deal with it, your going to lose. Granted there will be those companies who would never 'take this risk' but, frankly, that is an issue of company culture, not one of suppliers. There are a lot of companies out there doing amazing AV work using mac's as front end machines despite the lack of a mac pro update, how are all these folks pulling it off without Apple's hardware support?
- xmodem 14y ago
  I know of a 20-person animation shop which uses hackintoshes exclusively.
MaysonL 14y ago
I really wish that Apple would go back to licensing its OS for clones: say they charged $2-300 minimum or 10% on a $1500 minimum selling price. This would enable almost reasonably priced powerful hackintoshii, while not cannibalizing their current products too badly.

by mbell 14y ago

veidr 14y ago

I am glad that is possible (and tempted to do it at home every time I go to plug in a thunderbolt device into my Mac Pro, and then have to go oh yeah, god dammit...) it is not just not 'apple approved' it is not legal. In most normal business environments where obeying the law is a required practice and bootlegging software is not allowed, building a hackintosh isn't a solution.

mwilcox 14y ago
Not to mention, supporting any more than a few Hackintosh machines would be a nightmare for any serious organisation.
mbell 14y ago
There is no need to bootleg any software and no it is not 'Illegal'. You can and should buy a copy of OSX which you can do on the app store without much issue. It is however, against the 'terms of service' which is not a legal issue but one of support / danger of being 'cut off' by an update. That said, keep in mind that much of the work done to allow this is done by people disenfranchised by Apple's lack of a decent, upgradable, 'pro' model. In other words your often being supported by people in the same position as you.
- blibble 14y ago
  I'm sure if we did that then our auditors and compliance officers would love the fact that we chose a system with full knowledge that we'd be breaking the contract we bought it under.
- veidr 14y ago
  It is not a criminal issue, but it is certainly a legal issue. Even if you buy the install media at the Apple store, you don't legally have the right to install the copyrighted work on your hackintosh. I'm not saying there are likely to be real-world consequences, just that most normal businesses have policies in place to make sure they comply with legal and contractual obligations, which make hackintoshes a non-starter. I should not have said you have to "bootleg" the OS, though; as you point out, that is wrong. You can simply buy it and then install it in violation of the license terms -- which is not the same thing at all.
mc32 14y ago
Even if it were allowed, it would not be supported by the vendor in terms of warranty support. when you're a 27x7 org, you don't need excuses from vendors as to why your setup is not a supported configuration. LDAP issues. Apple will not support it. Driver issues, the HW mfg will not support the HW when weird things pop up.
- niggler 14y ago
  "when you're a 27x7 org," I assume you mean 24x7 :P
  - shabble 14y ago
    I can imagine a not-too-distant future where we have cloud hosting available[1] from flocks of solar-powered UAVs[2] loitering around the International Date Line, thus finally paving the way for >100% uptime. [1] http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2005/06/10/1389516.htm http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2005/06/10/1389516.ht... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NASA_Pathfinder#Helios_Prototype https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NASA_Pathfinder#Helios_Prototy...
    - niggler 14y ago
      In general relativity and closed-timelike-curve-time-travel there is a concept of a universal clock, against which >100% uptime is impossible
- mbell 14y ago
  Wasn't one of the points of the OP that Apple is doing a poor job of supporting the systems they do sell? I honestly don't understand how this issue is any different than the numerous companies whom purchase generic hardware to run linux on, there isn't much support from either end, yet they manage to create some impressive systems from this 'unsupported' hardware/software. How is running OSX on 'unsupported hardware' that much different than running a postgres server on EC2? Would the same company force their devs into using MySQL because RDS exists? If your reliant on computers beyond 'MS Office', and you don't have a dev team to deal with it, your going to lose. Granted there will be those companies who would never 'take this risk' but, frankly, that is an issue of company culture, not one of suppliers. There are a lot of companies out there doing amazing AV work using mac's as front end machines despite the lack of a mac pro update, how are all these folks pulling it off without Apple's hardware support?
xmodem 14y ago
I know of a 20-person animation shop which uses hackintoshes exclusively.

MaysonL 14y ago

I really wish that Apple would go back to licensing its OS for clones: say they charged $2-300 minimum or 10% on a $1500 minimum selling price. This would enable almost reasonably priced powerful hackintoshii, while not cannibalizing their current products too badly.