Mac OS X 10.4.4 runs on generic Intels now; Apple brandishes DMCA to quash links to the hacker's website; plus a Gary Busey Turk

Thanks to pixeldusted for the post, it says more about the bureaucracy than I can even convey. Sweetness.

OS X is at 10.4.5 right now, but an intrepid hacker known as Maxxus has developed a hacked version of 10.4.4 that can be set up and operate on ordinary Intel-based PCs. I really wonder what Steve Jobs is really thinking right now. He must surely realize this is the most leet (1337) or stylish way to get people around the world interested in running OS X on PCs. Thus, he's prepped to fight Microsoft Windows on his own turf, and the first attack wave could be the hackers. This would be cool as hell.

On the other hand, the bread and butter that kept Apple solvent through the bad years was hardware sales, not OS sales. Nowadays, the iTunes Music Store has good volume but razor-thin margins, and OS sales are pretty much icing on the cake. (also Apple podcasting is starting to do pay subscriptions, via Slashdot) If Apple tried to license its operating system, they could essentially cannibalize their hardware market share.

Oh wait, that already happened in the days of the Mac Clones, a misstep that nearly killed Apple. So when they saw that Maxxus had posted the hacks to one site, the vaunted packs of carnivorous Apple lawyers sent out a DMCA warning to that site, osx86project.org, which is focused on the possibilities of OS X + x86. The proprietors of that site have no wish to offend Apple, and have removed the links to Maxxus' site and the patches he developed.

As I also have no real desire to receive a DMCA notice from Apple, I will leave it to you to google the matter if you really want the patch, or refer to BoingBoing's coverage, MacSlash on it, or Slashdot. As one internationalist hacker type I know remarked,

Dude, it is illegal to DISCUSS how to go around encryption in the US.

Yes, this is what happens nowadays. But it's nothing new. Consumer electronics like your DVD player are now Black Boxes of Mystery which you, as a mere Owner, are un-Privileged to mess around with. It is a horrifying infringement of freedom that will require a second Revolution to defeat. In the meantime, well damn, the OS X patches are still on the Internet (hosted in more rebellious countries) so you can get them.

Linux is booting on Intel Macs now, even via an external USB drive (via MacSlash). Better yet, it is on Gentoo Linux, the same flavor that powers this very website.

In its infinite loop wisdom, Apple decided to embed a secret message to hackers in the new Intel machines, via CNN, slashdot and OSX86project:

Your karma check for today:

There once was a user that whined

his existing OS was so blind

he'd do better to pirate

an OS that ran great

but found his hardware declined.

Please don't steal Mac OS!

Really, that's way uncool.

(C) Apple Computer, Inc.

There is also a hidden kernel extension, Don't Steal Mac OS X.kext . Apple has never made it very hard to pirate the OS — which I think is actually part of a long-term subversive strategy, rather than some kind of incomprehensibly huge oversight on Jobs' part. They have never required call-in serial activation or any of that shit, for example. Again, the OS was always icing on the cake. Bill Gates is perplexed.

Gary Busey nukes conventional cinema: In other news, Gary Busey plays a crazed American doctor stealing organs of Arabs for Israel in a wildly popular Turkish film, "Kurtlar Vadisi Irak" or "Valley of the Wolves: Iraq". Billy Zane is also in it. Apparently it was on Turkish television for a few seasons before getting turned into a movie.

Fortunately I have ascertained a way to download this film from the Internet, as (somehow) it has not yet found an American distributor. Get it off BitTorrent right here. There are warnings that the sound and video quality are terrible (1 or 2 out of 10), but such a spectacle cannot wait. I will post if i find a better version.