The fellas over at Ars spoke to Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak about this whole Leopard emulating fiasco with Psystar, as well as the history of hackintoshes. Lo and behold, it appears the Woz agrees with our legal assessment of the situation: That if Apple does decide to do anything, it will likely issue a simple Leopard update that breaks system compatibility.
Woz says that when Apple switched to Intel, the company probably included copyright code somewhere in the Intel-based Mac's EFI boot ROM. And while Psystar's machines are purported to emulate the Mac's EFI, he thinks it won't work in the long-term.
"You have a right to run Mac Software on any non-Apple computer," he told Ars, "but you don't have the right to copy codes that are built into Apple's hardware, so you are stuck." (See Apple v. Franklin for more on copyright and how it applies to software). As such, Wozniak believes Apple will simply add a tweak to a future Leopard update that will break compatibility with the OpenPro. After all, Apple is under no obligation to ensure compatibility with non-Apple hardware, he said.
Apparently, the man still can't resist the siren call of a cheap Mac clone, however, and said he might even give the desktop a chance...if it ever ships. "I need another tower and I like the price, so I may get one."
