[extra88]

"VMware" is the company, not the product. You can run many versions of OS X as a guest on VMware Fusion and VMware ESXi when the "physical system is an Apple-labeled computer." [1] Installation does not require a hacked ISO or other modified installer however the current ESXi instructions do say to install Mountain Lion first in the VM then install Yosemite on top of it.

[1] http://partnerweb.vmware.com/GOSIG/MacOSX_10_10.html

[josteink]

So basically VMware plays fiddle to apple's artificially restrictive licencing, and virtualbox does not then?

If that's so, I'll clearly prefer virtualbox in the future. I like software that respects the user as opposed to software restricting my options.

[extra88]

I don't know what VMware's software does or doesn't do but its documentation just reiterates what OS X's EULA says. VirtualBox's documentation does the same thing [1] and goes further to caution "These license restrictions are also enforced on a technical level. Mac OS X verifies whether it is running on Apple hardware, and most DVDs that that come with Apple hardware even check for an exact model. These restrictions are not circumvented by VirtualBox and continue to apply."

BTW, if you're going to count on Oracle (who owns VirtualBox) for supporting software freedom, you're going to have a bad time.

[1] https://www.virtualbox.org/manual/ch03.html#intro-macosxgues...

[gmac]

In the past, at least, that installation-time check for an exact model was not-very-well hidden in a Perl script on the DVD.

[mahouse]

Any info on that script? Can't find anything on Google

[lloeki]

> VMware plays fiddle to apple's artificially restrictive licencing

VMware merely passes relevant host information to the guest.

For OS X this is something (can't remember) that satisfies the "Dont Steal Mac OS X" kext. For Windows and PCs with embedded license signature keys (again, can't remember the name, SLIC or something like that) then they're passing that (making virtualized Windows+Office OEM licenses activate against the original hardware†). VirtualBox does not (or did not last time I had to patch it), and it's a pain, putting you in all sorts of legal grey areas for something the license allows.

† also works on a hackintosh

[LnxPrgr3]

There's a good explanation here, including a tool to read the key from a running Mac: http://osxbook.com/book/bonus/chapter7/tpmdrmmyth/

Summary: important system binaries (such as Finder.app) are encrypted with a key held in the SMC. The OS transparently decrypts them, but needs access to that key to do so.

It is possible to convince QEMU to run OS X: http://www.contrib.andrew.cmu.edu/~somlo/OSXKVM/ (though I've not tried this myself). They do require you to provide the relevant key yourself, I imagine for legal reasons.

[mahouse]

You can also use FakeSMC, which is a kext that emulates a real SMC and therefore allows you to bypass that limitation. It's a mandatory requirement for Hackintosh installations.