I expect many of you will have known about the OSx86 or ‘Hackintosh’ community. Some of you, even from when it originated. Apple supplied developers with PCs running Tiger, to get their applications running on the Intel architecture. If you don’t, then I’ll quickly explain. A “Hackintosh” is a computer running OSx86, a version of OS X specially modified to run on PC hardware. Sounds complicated right? The base parts are complicated, but making a “Hackintosh” is, actually, fairly easy. However, I wont get into that now. This community continued to grow, and I myself have actually gained a large amount of experience in the OSx86 game.

Until about a year ago now, when a company started up and called themselves Psystar, they built ‘open’ computers that you could order running windows (like every other PC, ever), Ubuntu (which greatly pleased me, seeing a company including linux), and OS X (wasn’t pleased at this point). While I have no problem with people running OS X on PC hardware, selling it is a different matter. Many different developers have put hundreds and thousands of hours of work into getting their copies of OSx86 running really well, ready for community consumption. What Psystar did, was acquire their software, renamed it, and said that they had made it, and then sold it. I strongly dislike anyone who ever tries to sell community work. Not only is it unfair on the people who put the work in, but also it’s screaming out for Apple to take action against “Hackintosh” builders, the people who put heart and soul into their machines. Eventually, however, Psystar did get sued by Apple.

The legal proceedings where cut short by Psystar going bankrupt, something I was very much pleased about. I thought people selling OSx86 community work was a tried and failed thing. My glee was short lived when a company called Quo came out with “Hackintoshes”. They had the pure cheek to insult the people who build “Hackintoshes”, something I took very much to heart. However, Quo isn’t what we’re talking about today.

Getting to the point, Psystar is alive again. They’re are like zombies, they’re not gonna die without some shotgun rounds. They’ve come out with some new products. The Nehalem, running Open (7) being the main machine, I believe. Their new slogan, “when life gives apples, make applesauce” is extremely similar, if not identical, to things i’ve heard on forums before.