Parallels backwards?

jacks_email wrote:

>Hi. I read this in Fortune magazine, and it's got me kind of freaked
>out. Can anyone comment on running Mac OS on a Dell, HP, etc? Is
>this a hack, or is it an unintended byproduct of Mac OS running on
>Intel? Is it even possible, or only therotical at this point? Yipes!

I hate to say it, but it's a very confused story. It seems to be
suggesting that the existance of VMWare and Parallels for Mac somehow
means that Mac on PC hardware is right around the corner. Frankly I
still don't see it -- Apple's got the legal werewithal to make this
impossible for anyone but dedicated darknet hacker types.

-jason
--
Jason Snell / VP and Editorial Director, Macworld / jsnellmacworld.com
415-243-3565 / AIM/iChat: MW jsnell

[It seems to me that, if VMWare/Parallels can one day run Mac OS X virtualized on top of Mac OS X, there's very little reason why that image couldn't run inside VMWare/Parallels on their corresponding OtherOS/baremetal products. -Andrew]

On 25/1/2007 10:27 AM, "jacks_email" <jacks_emailearthlink.net> spake thus:

> Can anyone comment on running Mac OS on a Dell, HP, etc?

One of my work colleagues has successfully got Mac OS X running on his
home-built Intel machine. He did it more for fun than anything else, and
needed a hacked installer to do so. By all accounts it *works* but more as a
curiosity than as a useful system. I can't remember the exact issues that he
encountered, but driver support (i.e., lack thereof) would have been one of
them. I think this more than anything will stop the practice becoming
widespread.

The virtualisation vendors are probably in the best situation to take
advantage of this, as they can control the "hardware" that the OS sees.
Parallels already does this when running non-Mac OSes (e.g., the video
hardware is effectively reported to the guest OS as "generic VGA").

--
Nigel Stanger, Dunedin, NEW ZEALAND.
http://xri.net/=nigel.stanger

Before the Intel Macs were released, there were several reports of
running the developer release of Mac OS X for Intel under VMWare.

For developers, this would be a very useful feature, since it would
make it much easier to test software in different OS versions.

The whole topic of virtual machines is interesting, especially in
light of how Apple has maintained much of its unique identity due to
the tight integration of OS and hardware. A virtual machine does this
also, to varying degrees, and I think it is a key element to the
future surge of appliance computing vs the traditional PC style of
computing. Much of the future of personal computing will be tied to
chip level virtual machines. As the Internet Cloud thickens and
spreads into more of our waking (and sleeping) hours, the
opportunities and uses for virtual machines will increase. This isn't
really about Mac OS X running on Intel as much as it will be about a
flavor of OS running from a kind of closet vending machine. If anyone
could come up with a radically useful and friendly means of
virtualizing an OS without it simply being a geek toy, as many such
VMs are today, I think Apple would be the one to do it. This is
another reason why it's not a 'bad' thing that Apple is making more
money from things other than a physical Macintosh computer.

Jeffrey

On Jan 24, 2007, at 3:27 PM, jacks_email wrote:

> Hi. I read this in Fortune magazine, and it's got me kind of
> freaked out. Can anyone comment on running Mac OS on a Dell, HP,
> etc? Is this a hack, or is it an unintended byproduct of Mac OS
> running on Intel? Is it even possible, or only therotical at this
> point? Yipes!

Notice that Intel based Macs are built around a motherboard designed by Intel to be Windows compatible. Intel designs most of the motherboards used in PCs today. The question is whether an Intel designed motherboard sold by Dell or others could run Mac OS X with the right combination of drivers or virtualization software.

Although hacked solutions will likely exist, a reliable commercial product will almost certainly require Apple's blessing for both technical and IP (Intellectual Property) reasons. Apple currently encrypts portions of Mac OS X and could readily add more copy protection if needed.

The question to me is whether Apple will be convinced that running Mac OS X on other vendors hardware is in Apple's best interest. I don't see any evidence of that yet.

On Jan 31, 2007, at 9:31 AM, Peter Sichel wrote:

> Although hacked solutions will likely exist, a reliable commercial
> product will almost certainly require Apple's blessing for both
> technical and IP (Intellectual Property) reasons. Apple currently
> encrypts portions of Mac OS X and could readily add more copy
> protection if needed.

Current vmware companies don't need a 'license' from an OS vendor in
order to market their vmware. All they need is a market for the
product. Currently, it's fairly well known that the market for
Windows as a virtual machine is strong enough to sustain a number of
vendors. There currently exists a market for Windows on Windows,
Windows on Linux, and Windows on Mac OS hosted machines. There
probably exists a market for Mac OS X on Windows and Linux hosted
machines, but that market is untried and untested to the same extent
that its been done with Windows on other OS hosts. Apple can't do
much about this, really, in the sense that if someone can create a
software installer for 32bit or 64bit Windows Vista, for example,
that creates the virtual iMac or Mac Mini inside the host system,
that can fully communicate with the physical ports on the host
machine, then all the customer needs is a licensed copy of Mac OS X.
Now Microsoft is exploring ways to adjust their licensing structure
to restrict how Windows is used in a virtual environment. I expect
Apple would also do this.


>
> The question to me is whether Apple will be convinced that running
> Mac OS X on other vendors hardware is in Apple's best interest. I
> don't see any evidence of that yet.

I don't think its a question of if, but only of when and how. If
anyone were to create a superior environment for running multiple
instances of Mac OS X on Intel hardware, it would be Apple, creating
their own vmware system for the servers they sell, which would also
run on other Mac (compatible) hardware, possibly, such as a MacPro or
MacMini. As long a Apple controls the licensing and sale of the OS
itself, there is fairly good reason for an overwhelming majority of
customers to stick with official channels of obtaining a supported
Mac OS X system. The geeks who buy Mac OS X off the shelf (don't be
surprised if the retail price is much higher than it is currently) to
install on a dual-booting hacked Dell will be a small number of
customers and not likely to effectively result in missed sales of
hardware by Apple. Even though the OSes continue to grow in size and
complexity, the advances in core capacity along with memory densities
is increasing exponentially faster, and the main memory load for a
growing number of users is not the OS any longer, but the media
manager and database manager tools they use along with that data.
With the growing availability of high bandwidth Internet access, the
OS vendors will be moving to 'outsource' more and more of the
traditional OS services to the Cloud over the coming decade.

Jeffrey

Jeffrey McPheeters wrote:
> On Jan 31, 2007, at 9:31 AM, Peter Sichel wrote:
>
>> Although hacked solutions will likely exist, a reliable commercial
>> product will almost certainly require Apple's blessing for both
>> technical and IP (Intellectual Property) reasons. Apple currently
>> encrypts portions of Mac OS X and could readily add more copy
>> protection if needed.
>
> Current vmware companies don't need a 'license' from an OS vendor in
> order to market their vmware. All they need is a market for the
> product. Currently, it's fairly well known that the market for
> Windows as a virtual machine is strong enough to sustain a number of
> vendors. There currently exists a market for Windows on Windows,
> Windows on Linux, and Windows on Mac OS hosted machines. There
> probably exists a market for Mac OS X on Windows and Linux hosted
> machines, but that market is untried and untested to the same extent
> that its been done with Windows on other OS hosts. Apple can't do
> much about this, really, in the sense that if someone can create a
> software installer for 32bit or 64bit Windows Vista, for example,
> that creates the virtual iMac or Mac Mini inside the host system,
> that can fully communicate with the physical ports on the host
> machine, then all the customer needs is a licensed copy of Mac OS X.
> Now Microsoft is exploring ways to adjust their licensing structure
> to restrict how Windows is used in a virtual environment. I expect
> Apple would also do this.
>
>
>>
>> The question to me is whether Apple will be convinced that running
>> Mac OS X on other vendors hardware is in Apple's best interest. I
>> don't see any evidence of that yet.
>
> I don't think its a question of if, but only of when and how. If
> anyone were to create a superior environment for running multiple
> instances of Mac OS X on Intel hardware, it would be Apple, creating
> their own vmware system for the servers they sell,

Based on what folks in the "Enterprise" market have told me, VMWare
making their product support Mac OS on Mac OS/Hardware would be a really
big thing for them. Really BIG. One of the big stops to Mac in the "E"
just now is one instance of the OS on one box. "E" setups (and I'd like
to also do it for my "B" setups) want to be able to install as many
instances of the OS as a box will support. VMWare does this very very
well for the server marketplace. They give away the server client and
sell the admin. And "E" sites pay gladly for this admin software. They
love it. Adding Mac support would bring in a lot of OS licenses to the
"E". To some degree data centers will pay extra for a VM license just to
save on the power, cooling, and floor space costs.

To be honest, they'd trust VMWare a lot more than Apple to do this right.

On Feb 1, 2007, at 6:02 PM, Jeffrey McPheeters wrote:

> machine, then all the customer needs is a licensed copy of Mac OS X.
> Now Microsoft is exploring ways to adjust their licensing structure
> to restrict how Windows is used in a virtual environment. I expect
> Apple would also do this.

Consider it explored. The Home editions of Vista include language in
the EULA prohibiting its installation in virtual systems. Vista
Enterprise (and Ultimate), on the other hand, explicitly permits
running up to 4 instances of it on the same machine and for the same
user (that is, on your desktop not on a server with 4 different
people using it).

http://www.macworld.com/news/2007/02/01/virtualvista/index.php

Doesn't the Mac OS already include some language about it only being
for installation on an Apple computer?