Re: [Fed-Talk] Parallels a Russia based company
Re: [Fed-Talk] Parallels a Russia based company
- Subject: Re: [Fed-Talk] Parallels a Russia based company
- From: Dave Schroeder <email@hidden>
- Date: Tue, 23 Jan 2007 10:45:25 -0600
On Jan 23, 2007, at 10:28 AM, Bojanower P Chris Civ 75 CS/SCXH wrote:
Dave,
Two more things to consider that may prevent a Mac on Windows install
1) OSX is only licensed for upgrade to the version you buy with your
Macintosh, I guess you can show you have a copy from a dead
machine, but you
can't buy a new machine and a legal full copy of OSX.
Actually, that's not precisely the way it's licensed...for an
"upgrade" version of Mac OS X, it is true that a previous version of
Mac OS X is required. This is the case with But the retail box
version of Mac OS X doesn't require a previous version of Mac OS X.
What it specifies is:
"This License allows you to install and use one copy of the Apple
Software on a single Apple-labeled computer at a time."
<http://store.apple.com/Catalog/US/Images/MacOSX.htm>
The fact that most any modern machine would also have a previous copy
of Mac OS X is incidental, and not required. (In fact, think about
earlier machines that never shipped with Mac OS X at all, for which
the owner may want to purchase Mac OS X.)
So while I agree that Mac OS X is clearly restricted to Apple
hardware, and fully support Apple's right to do this, it's actually
an arbitrary restriction.[1] And if not for that restriction, it
would be perfectly acceptable to buy a retail copy of Mac OS X, and
install it in a hypothetical VM on non-Apple hardware, just as one
would buy a a retail copy of Windows for Parallels Desktop or VMWare
Fusion.
(I want to make it clear that I am fully cognizant of the numerous
valid reasons for Apple wanting to keep Mac OS X exclusively on Apple
hardware. It's their product, and frankly, it's their right. When an
entity invests billions of dollars and hundreds of thousands of
manhours in a product, I do believe that legal frameworks (such as
copyright and software licenses) can be reasonably used to stipulate
the conditions under which it is used. I'm also aware of the numerous
arguments, some of which are also valid, for Apple to start to go
down the road of untying Mac OS X from Apple hardware only.
Ultimately, it's Apple's decision.)
2) I thought OSX looked for a embedded chip on the Apple Mainboard
that
allows it to be installed. I know there have been some hacks to get
around
this, but no company is going to sell the hack.
That's also another common misconception. The mechanism via which
Apple does this is binary protection:
<http://osxbook.com/book/bonus/chapter7/binaryprotection/>
While some Intel-based Macs have TPM hardware present, tying Mac OS X
to Apple hardware is *not* accomplished with "trusted
computing" (e.g., making a call to a TPM chip):
<http://osxbook.com/book/bonus/chapter10/tpm/#EXECUTIVE_SUMMARY>
I think it will be interesting to see this landscape develop over the
next five years.
- Dave
[1] I don't mean that it's arbitrary in that it would be "easy" for
Apple to just open up Mac OS X to any hardware overnight.
Technically, maybe. But that would be an unbridled support nightmare
of unprecedented proportions, to say the least. However, the
possibility of running Mac OS X in a virtualized environment does
raise the interesting technical point that, regardless of anyone's
particular position on this, a VM can present a consistent hardware
profile to the OSes running within it, regardless of the physical
hardware it's on. So running Mac OS X in a VM, as opposed to on real
hardware, becomes interesting from a technical perspective for that
reason. There are of course a range of arguments for Apple allowing
(or not allowing) this in the server space with Mac OS X Server, as
opposed to in the general purpose desktop space.Attachment:
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