Who’s really behind Psystar?

The latest (and most interesting) salvo in the Apple vs. Psystar lawsuit was that Apple wants to identify several “John Does” who were behind the hacking which allows Mac OS X to be installed on generic Intel boxes. Since there’s nothing the internet loves more than a conspiracy (well, maybe one thing) there’s been a lot of speculation about who is the shadowy cadre behind the plan to break Apple’s hold on their own operating system.

John Gruber (of Daring Fireball fame) gives a rundown of the thinking behind that, then offers a counter theory: there’s nobody “bigger” behind Psystar at all:

I don’t think there’s anything puzzling about Psystar at all. All it takes to do what they’ve done is a pair of brass balls. The idea that they would ever get away with it is stupid, so it doesn’t make much sense to think that there are any well-established companies backing Psystar’s endeavor. If it looks like a cockamamie scheme from a fly-by-night operation, it probably is. Hiring good lawyers indicates nothing more than that Psystar had the good sense to hire good lawyers.

It’s not any larger group (or corporation) testing to see if Apple can be legally forced to license OS X, says Gruber: Apple’s hunting for contributors to the OSx86 Project.

Via [Daring Fireball]