I've ran a hackintosh since 10.4 and I've never seen Apple do anything to actively prevent users from doing it or pursue anyone for a non-commercial EULA violation. They stop resellers like Psystar, and they've broken a few things which appeared to be ancillary to moving their own products forward (Atom CPUs), but they could be far more annoying about it every point release if they really felt like it. Early on, they also needlessly released a few fat binary hardware drivers for ethernet, sound, and wifi devices that have never been bundled in a real Intel Mac.

Apple certainly has the means to stop it, but I don't think they mind the fringe hackers running OSX. I've seen a few people converted by it, and I own a few real Macs plus the hackintosh as well, and I suspect most people who hackintosh are Apple customers of some degree. Getting stuffy about it could be pretty damaging to their perceived good will.

It seems strange to describe 'we'll give you something, if you agree not to use it for certain purposes' as depending on 'particular exploitation of given laws that allow market restriction.' To me that's more just about 'common courtesy' between consenting parties.

> Respect them for making good products, not for avoiding competition. Respect them for persuading you to buy their products, not for preventing you from having more choice.

Exactly.

It's interesting how there are also plenty of people that would respect them exactly for their smart use of what the law allows. That's a sad thing, really and it would be nice if apple would find less restrictive ways of dealing with the consequences of more user freedom. For instance, I can see that they seem to be sensitive to a possibly reduced user experience on non-certified hardware, but I can't believe that a tech savvy company like apple wouldn't be able to set up a certification program to mitigate such concerns.