4 ms·

Is Guest OS X, on VMs legal? I thought that was the against Apples terms of service. I never really found out what happened to the whole PsyStar thing.

yan 16y ago
IANAL, but as far as I understand, their EULA is sympathetic to running OS X on Apple hardware. So if you're running VirtualBox on OS X already, it might be alright with apple.
patrickgzill 16y ago
Depends on the country, as I understand it. Some countries like Germany allow it (prohibit Apple from certain terms in the license) , while other places (USA) it would be against license terms (I won't say illegal as that implies criminality; it would be a civil violation).
zppx 16y ago
It is illegal to run OS X on a hardware not made by Apple, I guess it's fine to run it as a guest in a VM (the old Mac-on-Linux did that), although I can be wrong as well.
- kls 16y ago
  It is not illegal, to my knowledge no court has ruled on the matter and the only judgment (PYSTAR) that even remotely relates to OSX on no apple hardware and it had to do with copyright violations. Copyright protects distribution and public display of the media not the use of the private use of media. Companies have tried to blur this line by expanding what copyright encompass. If they want it to be illegal they need to provide a crypto key at the hardware layer that the software communicates with, as breaking cryptography does violate several laws.
  - zppx 16y ago
    Okay, thanks for the clarification, I wrote my original commentary without much caution, the user just not followed the EULA, that what I wanted to say, which to my knowledge is illegal in my country.
    - rbanffy 16y ago
      There are countries where the EULA clause that restricts what you can do with the software is void. Brazil (where I live) is one example.
      - zppx 16y ago
        Thanks for the information, I'm Brazilian as well, I will study more about the legal situation, someone that worked in a large software industry here in Brazil (he is trustworthy), told me that it is illegal, I have to look further and not take for granted what people say to me.
rufo 16y ago
You're legally only allowed to run OS X Server virtualized on Apple hardware. VMware and Parallels have both implemented checks in their products to help Apple enforce this (although I believe they're somewhat trivial to work around).
- tlrobinson 16y ago
  AFAICT VirtualBox does nothing to enforce it.

yan 16y ago

IANAL, but as far as I understand, their EULA is sympathetic to running OS X on Apple hardware. So if you're running VirtualBox on OS X already, it might be alright with apple.

patrickgzill 16y ago

Depends on the country, as I understand it. Some countries like Germany allow it (prohibit Apple from certain terms in the license) , while other places (USA) it would be against license terms (I won't say illegal as that implies criminality; it would be a civil violation).

zppx 16y ago

It is illegal to run OS X on a hardware not made by Apple, I guess it's fine to run it as a guest in a VM (the old Mac-on-Linux did that), although I can be wrong as well.

kls 16y ago
It is not illegal, to my knowledge no court has ruled on the matter and the only judgment (PYSTAR) that even remotely relates to OSX on no apple hardware and it had to do with copyright violations. Copyright protects distribution and public display of the media not the use of the private use of media. Companies have tried to blur this line by expanding what copyright encompass. If they want it to be illegal they need to provide a crypto key at the hardware layer that the software communicates with, as breaking cryptography does violate several laws.
- zppx 16y ago
  Okay, thanks for the clarification, I wrote my original commentary without much caution, the user just not followed the EULA, that what I wanted to say, which to my knowledge is illegal in my country.
  - rbanffy 16y ago
    There are countries where the EULA clause that restricts what you can do with the software is void. Brazil (where I live) is one example.
    - zppx 16y ago
      Thanks for the information, I'm Brazilian as well, I will study more about the legal situation, someone that worked in a large software industry here in Brazil (he is trustworthy), told me that it is illegal, I have to look further and not take for granted what people say to me.

rufo 16y ago

You're legally only allowed to run OS X Server virtualized on Apple hardware. VMware and Parallels have both implemented checks in their products to help Apple enforce this (although I believe they're somewhat trivial to work around).

tlrobinson 16y ago
AFAICT VirtualBox does nothing to enforce it.