I tried EFiX earlier this year, a boot loader by Art Studios Entertainment that allows the install of Mac OS X on generic PC hardware, and it worked largely as advertised. Many users have reported serious problems with the company’s practices and now there are allegations over the illegal use of open-source software in their boot loader. Tom’s Hardware has posted a follow-up on their experiences with EFiX:
When we tested our module, everything did work as claimed. However, not all users were able to get a 100-percent working system. Eventually, ASEM released a new firmware, but then things started breaking. For example, our onboard LAN no longer worked with Apple’s Bonjour protocol. This meant that it couldn’t see other Macs on the network (unless you directly connect), and iTunes couldn’t share music. This problem, existed for a considerably long time. While there were solutions around it (like obtaining another standalone network card), it was frustrating.
As time went on, more problems were introduced while others were fixed. ASEM customers grew increasingly frustrated and voiced their concerns onto the forums. Unfortunately, many forums posts ended up being removed by the ASEM moderator team. Many users, also complained that their EFI-X 1.0 modules were dying after some time of use. Some customers were experiencing intermittent booting problems. Sometimes the module would be detected by the system BIOS, other times it wouldn’t. After a while, the modules themselves would no longer be detected at all. Unfortunately, this also happened to three of our modules.
On the other side of the net, members of the OSX86 community suspected that the EFI-X module was nothing more than a repackaged Chameleon/Boot-132 bootloader placed onto a USB stick with DRM to prevent reverse engineering. Telltale signs included problems that also existed with the software bootloaders, as well as the same compatibility charts. Coincidentally, issues that were patched up in the OSX86 community became available on the EFI-X modules shortly after. Throughout all this, ASEM still denied any connection to Chameleon or Boot-132.
There is now hard coded evidence that even the firmware updating utility used by the EFI-X module steals code under the GNU Public License without proper attribution, and in fact, replaces all refrences to the original libary with its own name.
For more information head to the EFiX Users Forum, Aserebln’s blog and MacLifer.
