Apple has chosen to tie the use of MacOS only to Apple branded
hardware: that's it's choice, and I for one would hate to see the rights of
copyright holders diminished in this respect. GPL depends on
copyright!
Apple's chosen restriction has nothing to do with
copyright, so your GPL reference is inappropriate.
Apple's restriction is
based on a EULA which tries to impose conditions that many deem unacceptable
because they are not helpful to users and only serve to give Apple a hardware
monopoly.
There is no copyright-related reason why an Apple user should not
be allowed put their legally purchased Apple software onto a different box,
because they acquired a set of permissions to copy for *reasonable* purposes
when they purchased the software. (This does not include copying for clearly
unreasonable purposes like selling it on, but it does include fair uses of many
types such as for backup, and potentially for relocation to different
hardware.)
Using the Apple software on different hardware is not
significantly different to copying a copyrighted song from a legally purchased
CD on to a different medium. The RIAA doesn't want you to do that either, but
it's widely deemed reasonable despite them claiming that it is illegal.
And
so it is with Apple. They are claiming the right to control where their
software is run, and surprise surprise, their conclusion is that the only
reasonable place is on hardware that nobody else can make. If you find that
reasonable then you have an overreaching notion of corporate rights, and a very
lackluster notion of user rights and reasonable expectations, as well as clearly
supporting monopolistic behavior and denying competition. [ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
| 
