(iii) to install, use and run up to two (2) additional copies or instances of the Apple Software, or
any prior macOS or OS X operating system software or subsequent release of the Apple
Software, within virtual operating system environments on each Apple-branded computer you
own or control that is already running the Apple Software, for purposes of: (a) software
development; (b) testing during software development; (c) using macOS Server; or (d) personal,
non-commercial use
So basically you can run macOS however you want as long as you're already running macOS on Apple hardware.
The question I've always had is how enforceable is that really? Obviously the whole point of Apple making macOS freely available is to run it on Apple hardware. They don't give it out for free to run on other hardware but can they really do anything about that other than require you to enter a serial number to download an image? If they really cared, they would just do something like hashing the serial number and current date and time against a secret key (maybe inside a read-only portion of the TPM) and only Apple would be able to verify that the hardware is legit. You would need to somehow expose the TPM to the hypervisor to be able to generate hashes for macOS to verify it's license. Clearly this is not a huge problem for Apple because they would already be doing this if it was an issue.
It’s sort of enforceable - Apple’s own virtualisation framework that lots of VM providers use (on Apple Silicon) actually enforces a hard cap of two guests, and won’t allow you to spawn more.
With other hosts, it’s kind of an Adobe approach - you either weren’t gonna buy a Mac anyways, or you might be tempted to buy a Mac after using macOS in a VM. Realistically, it’s not worth Apple coming after you unless you’re an enterprise making your money by breaking the EULA.
Apple branded machine. I got some of those nifty apple stickers to brand machines. MacBooks and Macpros as well as iMacs have serial numbers. They already have their whole arm ... I will just remind them again. Do not anger Linux wizards. They put Linux on an iPod.
Probably as enforceable as any other EULA. Windows surely has similar language. I'd guess that somewhere buried deep in the agreements, or somewhere, it says they can audit your usage somehow. Does it ever happen? I'd be curious to know.
Windows doesn’t have similar language. Not directly, anyway. Depending on the edition of Windows you purchase and how your overall license agreement works, you get anywhere from zero to ten VM licenses per paid Windows license.
I’m omitting a few details for brevity (MS licensing is nuts when you get into the weeds).
Oh thank God! Now I have use for my macplus badge. Just cut and glue, and vola apple branded. It was running system 6, so Snow leopard. I did install QuickTime and it basically destroyed my windows, but it's a port of the MacOS. This elua has more holes in it than a windows 95 login screen. I am in control.
Indeed. That would cover a conventionally installed VM, like VirtualBox.
But this is packaged as a Docker image, and Docker is Linux-specific. Linux is not officially supported by Apple on their hardware, and is certainly not prevalent on it. I doubt that the intended target audience of this project is limited to Asahi Linux.
Docker actually ships their easy-to-use and commercially supported Docker Desktop product for macOS, which uses Apple's standard virtualization framework under the hood. I think it then runs the Docker containers within a Linux VM that it manages.
For people who want an open-source CLI solution rather than a commercial product which for larger businesses requires payment, there's also colima which does roughly the same thing.
So, lots of people very successfully use Docker on macOS, including on Apple hardware.
This particular software would need nested virtualization to be highly performant, but at least on M3 or newer Macs running macOS 15 or newer, this is now supported by Apple's virtualization framework:
So, if that's not easy to do in a useful and performant way now, it will absolutely be possible in the foreseeable future. I'm sure that the longtime macOS virtualization product Parallels Desktop will add support for nested virtualization quite soon if they haven't already, in addition to whatever Docker Desktop and colima do.
(Tangent: Asahi Linux apparently supports nested virtualization on M2 chips even though macOS doesn't.)
Running Linux in a VM (for Docker) to run an emulator (QEMU) in it to run macOS in that looks to me like a senseless waste of resources. Linux and Docker add no value into the mix here.
The same result can be achieved by running macOS right in the VM. This can be extra efficient since both the host OS and the guest OS are macOS, and the VM could use this fact.
It may make sense to run macOS in an emulator like QEMU under macOS, if the host version us ARM and the guest version is x64 (or vice versa). But I don't see where Linux and Docker would be useful in this case.
I agree the particular combo I was discussing is likely not very useful when compared to just directly virtualizing macOS directly, except in niche cases.
One such case, however, is when the user is already managing Linux Docker containers for other parts of their development or testing workflow and wants to manage macOS containers with the same tooling. That’s legitimate enough, especially when it ends up supporting nested virtualization of the same architecture and not true emulation, to keep the performance penalty modest enough.
Docker can run on macOS (albeit in a VM), but its still running on a Mac "that is already running the Apple Software". So its a perfectly valid option for Mac owners, even if its a VM + container + VM deep.
"""
"Corporate Headquarters has commanded," continued the magician, "that everyone use this workstation as a platform for new programs. Do you agree to this?"
"Certainly," replied the master, "I will have it transported to the data center immediately!" And the magician returned to his tower, well pleased.
Several days later, a novice wandered into the office of the master programmer and said, "I cannot find the listing for my new program. Do you know where it might be?"
"Yes," replied the master, "the listings are stacked on the platform in the data center."
"""
Back in 'ye olden days, people used to print out programs... nay, they even used to _hand-write!_ programs before they began typing, because keyboard-time was valuable (nevermind compilation/computation/debugging time).
Serial ports were slow, grep wasn't really a thing, so having a printout (or "listing") of your program was a more efficient way (or only way!)to debug your program after the fact. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tJGrie7k97c
Back in the 90's, I had some programming classes in high school where there were 30 chairs, but 15 computers (around the edge)... bring your own 360kb floppy disk! So you had a real incentive (and a strict teacher) who insisted that you wrote out your program ahead of time, show it to her for a first-pass/feedback, and _then_ you'd get to go type it on the computer and see if it worked. Submissions were via printouts (of the program, aka "listing", along with the output) which she then took home and graded.
Stick tongue firmly in cheek, empty your cup, and enjoy the ride!
Edit: ...and the relationship to the cantankerous original comment who "couldn't figure why they'd want to run OSX?", this is the zen-koan sarcastic response of: "use it as a platform for development" (ie: stack your papers on top if it)
> I doubt that the intended target audience of this project is limited to Asahi Linux.
I guess that part of the license is meant to automatically disqualify an apple branded computer running a linux distro as host OS from running MacOS in a VM:
"on each Apple-branded computer you own or control that is already running the Apple Software"
Some smart ass might argue that "already running the Apple software" doesn't mean at the exact same time but more like "I am still running it sometimes as dual boot" but I am not sure this would pass the court test.
And since I believe docker on MacOS runs on linux VM, so this would be running qemu on top of a linux vm on top of MacOS.
I can't see any legit use of this. Anyone who would need automatized and disposable environments for CI/CD would simply use UTM on mac minis:
https://docs.getutm.app/scripting/scripting/
