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VMWare Announces Version for OS X In Development
pdscomp writes "VMware has just announced at today's Apple WWDC 2006 Conference that they are developing a port of VMware to Mac OS X. People interested in beta testing the product later this year can visit this link to sign up for the public test. It will be interesting to see how things play out between VMware and Parallels. Will Microsoft bother porting Virtual PC now that there will be two other Intel OS X virtualization solutions available? Now all we need is to get Mac OS X running under Xen."
I find it interesting that nobody is making a move in the other direction. OS X virtualized in Windows, anyone?
Then again, the market would mostly be curious PC users who end up switching, and I don't know how much money there is to be made there.
Now all of our textbooks will get to look like this:
- Adam L. Beberg - The Cosm Project - http://www.mithral.com/
It can be done. If you know where to look, you can find premade OSX VMWare images.
...I've been using Parallels for now, and while it works, I've had some problems with it I haven't been able to figure out. I've submitted several support tickets to Parallels, with zero response (Yes, I paid for the software.)
Competition like this is good for the market - now I can try out VMWare, and if it works better than Parallels, I can use it. Choice is good.
So, VMWare's gonna host on OS X, and Microsoft likes Xen? And the Xen guys are getting dinged for their proprietary attitude?
Ok. We've arrived. All ashore that's going ashore!
As always, all IMO. Insert "I think" everywhere grammatically possible.
A week or so after the Intel switch announcement I went to VMWare's forums. The most requested feature was an OS X version of the workstation product. It is pretty foolish to ignore that kind of demand in that particular market. Parallels beat them to market, but with a lot of missing functionality that may or may not be important to the customer base. So we have VMWare and Parallels with VMs using the Intel processor's emulation hardware. We have two WINE Windows API re-implementations, and we have Xen and MS with potential solutions as well. The only real unknown quantity is Apple themselves. If they release VMs built into OS X the market segment will adopt that standard. If they do it using a cross-platform standard, it will boost that standard considerably. If they don't release a built-in VM, the market segment will fragment with some companies using the re-implementation technologies to make quick ports and some users using each of the VM solutions and dual booting to cater to their own needs for running other OS's
All the Macs I have are PowerPC, so the announcement doesn't really help me any. But does anyone know if VMWare has considered a fat-binary OSX version of the VMWare Console program? So I can run VMWare Server on my Linux server, and use my older iMac and Minis as consoles with it?
The last time I tried anything like this, having no Console program, I logged directly into a GSX server and tried to run the console there, sending it back to the Mac over X-Windows, but could never get it to work (and it was a couple years ago so I forget the problem, but I seem to recall that I thought it was something endian-related.)
If I remember correctly, the standard Microsoft Office for Mac OS X is about $399 and the "professional" version is $499. Only difference? It includes Virtual PC with a copy of Windows XP Home. Now, how much is Virtual PC by itself, and how much do they charge for off-the-shelf copies?
Never hit your grandmother with a shovel, for it leaves a bad impression on her mind...
VMWare is a virtualization system, not an emulator. What VMWare in Basic terms does is Emulate Sections of the hardware, like the BIOS, Translate other sections Like Interupt calls and Memory Location Calls, and Passes threw other information like CPU Calls. This mixture of designes allows it to run at nearer native speed. But the tradeoff is that the Host OS's will need to run on the same platform that the software is on, otherwise they will not talk the same language.
VMWare was out in the late 90's I used it first in 1999, and it already supported Linux and Windows. OS X was still in development and the Processor that Apples ran on was PowerPC, which is a different archecture. So making VMWare for Apple at the time would be more of an Emulator Design (like Virtual PC for Mac) and take a lot more effort for little benefit.
Now that Macs run on Intel Processors, VMWare can now start poring to OS X. And a lot of it can't be 1 for 1 of the Windows port or the Linux port, Different OS Level Graphic Calls, OS X Development is like combining Unix Programming and Windows Programming. So it takes time to get it to work nativly in OS X Being about 1 year when Apple Annonced the Intel Transition, Then having actuall system a half a year later, in which after they were released they noticed a strong demmand for virtualization on that platform, then needs meeting and analysis to determin if it is profitable so I say it took about 4 months of coding to get where it is today. Paralles beat them to it because they started working when OS X for intel was in Development stages, VMWare took a wait and see and our brand name will allow us to win aditude. So they offset some of the risk by waiting a little while longer.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Just so you know, since even before OSX Intel was publically released, you've been able to run OSX on most standard PCs supporting SSE2 (SSE3 is much better as Rosetta apps will actually run).
e _how_to
You can run it natively, or inside VMWare either under Windows, or Linux. This should get you started: http://wiki.osx86project.org/wiki/index.php/Vmwar
In my opinion, moving to intel hardware is the smartest move Apple has made since... well... the Apple IIe. Yes even smarter than the iPod IMO.
I think a lot of what keeps people stuck using Windows, is not an inherent love for Windows itself, but rather a reliance on the software base, and ease of use / maintenance. I also believe that a lot of Windows success is directly related to software piracy. I can see piracy really helping Apple.
I would never pay the extra money for an Apple... but if I am given a choice between using OS X and Windows without having to pay extra money for one over the other, I'll choose OS X any day.
"if this is VMWare's subtle riposte to Transgaming's 'Cider' engine [slashdot.org] for the world of Mac gaming? It's a bit of a stretch, I know, but the timing is a little too convenient."
A) VMWare doesn't care about Mac gamers, they mostly care about business and technical users.
B) They've been working on this for a while, and running job ads for Mac developers for a couple of months. If they were responding to the Cider announcement they would be just starting development, not announcing a public beta.
September 2011: Looking for Cocoa/iOS work in Boston area Cocoa Programmer Quincy, MA
2. Permitted License Uses and Restrictions.
... computer" Here Apple has written the license to tie you to the hardware. The physical hardware. It doens't even mention the existance of a VM. With a VM the physical hardwrae ultimatly executes the VM's code. So, anything running within the VM is also running "on" the physcal hardware. Now you still need 1 license for each VM as earliier in the senentce you were limited to "one copy". But, if you choose to install and run that one copy in a VM as opposed to directly on the physical hardware you still only have 1 copy.
A. This License allows you to install and use one copy of the Apple Software on a single Apple-labeled computer at a time.
OK let us do some legal parsing of the requirement "on a single Apple-labeled computer"
Let us assume you have an Apple purchased PC, running Windows. Can you run OSX in a VM under a Windows host.
1) Well, the license requires "on", not "under", not "within" and most damning not "as the operating system of" so as long as the underlying PC is running the software you are "on" the PC.
2) Next, "Apple-labeled" We'll just stipulate this is means an "Apple-branded" or "Apple-sold" computer. No one (especially a judge) is going to go along with the idea that you can just peel off a label and stick on something and voila "Apple-labeled". However, I set up the problem so that you are using a PC purchased from Apple. So, no big deal.
3) "on a
So, I see no reason why you can't run OSX within a VM if you follow the rules. This may not have been what Apple wanted, but they made the rules we are just playing within them.
Also, if VMWare uses this methodology to test running OSX within a Windows VM I see no legal reason why they can't have support for running OSX within VMWare. They are not selling OSX. You are either breaking the OSX license or not (depending on if you follow the rules). Vmware is not contributing as there are plenty of non-infringing uses for VmWare.
Now VmWare might run into an issue of virtualizing or passing through commands to the Trusted Computing infrastructure OSX needs, but that is a technical issue nto a legal one.
In a survey of 100 programmers, 111111 thought that duck-typing was a good idea.
I am not disputing that. If you purchase a license, then yes, you purchased a license and there are probably draconian restrictions. In the mid-1990s, I saw situations where my employer bought and resold little packages that contained MS Windows license -- it didn't even include the software. Presumably, the papers in the packages authorized the end-user to make non-fair-use copies of some existing MS Windows media, I guess.
But that's unusual outside of large businesses. Most users get their software by purchasing copies, not licenses.
No, this is incorrect and easy to see with careful observation. Go to a retail computer-stuff store and buy MacOS. Then buy a piece of hardware, such as a USB hub. You will observe that both transactions are handled identically. It's not like they sell you the hardware, but present you with a contract to sign when you try to buy software. In both cases, the store sells you goods.
Yes, I have heard of EULAs, and I have seen very few cases where users found a reason to bind themselves to the terms. I worked for a software company that did actually use sales contracts -- the customer would sign a license (in addition to forking over a lot of money) before they were given a copy of the software. The signed contract went into our file cabinet, to be used against the customer if we were to ever find out that they had done something with the software that they had agreed to never do (such as reverse-engineering). But in retail stores, that simply does not happen. EULAs take way too much transactional overhead for most vendors to bother to use.
If you have a few dozen sales per year, EULAs are viable for business. If you sell many thousands, as is the case with OS X, then selling EULAs is probably not profitable (unless you make the price high enough to cover the overhead and make the product desirable enough to overcome the loss of goodwill since many people are turned off by contracts). And that's why most software companies don't do it. They print a EULA and put it in the box, and maybe they even display a EULA when the user tries to install the software. But it's just a sample, or at most, a bluff. If you study the transaction, it is very clear that a copy of the software changes ownership long before the EULA is offered.
You don't to take my word for it; you can see this for yourself any time. Just go to a CompUSA cash register and watch what happens. Watch a software sale and a hardware sale, and see if you can detect any difference. See if you can spot something where the hardware changes ownership but the software copy doesn't. You won't find it.
If you want to see an example of a situation where a vendor and a user actually do establish a contract, sign up for cellphone service. Compare this transaction with a retail software purchase, and then you will see the drastic difference between contracts and sale of goods.
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
Unless I'm missing something, virtualization still is not sufficient for running a decent game, due to DX9. So if your big reason for keeping windows is MS Office or Outlook, then virtualization sounds wonderfull to me. But if you're a gamer looking to consolidate to one machine, you still need to dual-boot as far as I can see.
-Jeff
Please learn the difference between a dissenting opinion and a troll before you moderate.