Snow Leopard as Guest on Lion

Guys - please, do not break the Apple license agreement. This is a serious violation

 

BTW: It is a common urban myth that Apple's Snow Leopard EULA prohibits its use in virtualization. Perhaps you are confusing this with the written agreement(s) between Apple and Parallels, of which we are not a party and hence are not bound.

 

Does Snow Leopard Client EULA Permit Virtualization?

Last update/edit: 9th November, 2012

I'm not a lawyer, and of course this does not constitute legal advice, but I have personally analyzed the issue and the EULAs, and I'm of the opinion this is NOT a myth, urban or otherwise.
And I'll demonstrate that below.

The most probable reason as to why Apple doesn't want SL to be virtualized it's because that would allow mac app devs with stagnant apps to just say to their users to use SL in a VM instead of updating their apps to work on L and ML. Personally, I would love to be able to virtualize SL.


Does Snow Leopard Client EULA Permit Virtualization?
(Caveat: This is not legal advice and I'm not a lawyer, these are my thoughts based on bona fide analysis of facts and documents, draw your own conclusions. If you want to know my motivations for writing such a long post, let's just say it is the result of lengthily discussions, either way that has no effect on the merit of the arguments)

Taking as example Snow Leopard that has a similar license to Leopard:

Server version:
http://images.apple.com/legal/sla/docs/macosx_snowleopard.pdf
"2. Permitted License Uses and Restrictions.
A. Mac OS X Server Software.
Subject to the terms and conditions of this License, you are granted a limited non-exclusive license to install and use one copy of the Mac OS X Server software (the “Mac OS X Server Softwareâ€) on a single Apple-branded computer. You may also install and use other copies of Mac OS X Server Software on the same Apple-branded computer, provided that you acquire an individual and valid license from Apple for each of these other copies of Mac OS X Server Software""

Client version:
http://images.apple.com/legal/sla/docs/macosx106.pdf
"2. Permitted License Uses and Restrictions.
A. Single Use License. Subject to the terms and conditions of this License, unless you have purchased a Family Pack or Upgrade license for the Apple Software, you are granted a limited non-exclusive license to install, use and run one (1) copy of the Apple Software on a single Apple-branded computer at a time."

"B. Family Pack License. If you have purchased a Family Pack license, then subject to the terms and conditions of this License, you are granted a limited non- exclusive license to install, use and run one (1) copy of the Apple Software on up to a maximum of five (5) Apple-branded computers at a time as long as those computers are located in the same household and used by persons who occupy that same household."

Note: If you run 2 copies on one Apple brand computer this violates the family pack license, as it explicitly says one copy per machine (apple branded computer). When it says 5 Apple branded computers, these are 5 physical machines, not virtual machines, one copy per each.

Here's an article about virtualization being allowed on Lion's EULA:
http://www.macrumors.com/2011/07/01...le-copies-on-the-same-machine-virtualization/

Vitualization in Lion is allowed by this:

"(iii) to install, use and run up to two (2) additional copies or instances of the Apple Software within virtual operating system environments on each Mac Computer you own or control that is already running the Apple Software."


The REAL question is this:
If it's not specifically disallowed in a clear non-interpretative way does that mean it is allowed?
Because these are License Agreements (you don't own the software, you own a license, in fact, you are licensed) it works the other way around, where the usage has to be specifically allowed, as usually these licenses state what is granted/permitted and some cases of what is not allowed, the fact that some usage scenario is omitted SHOULD NOT be consider as granted or permitted. What makes it work like this is the following text:

"1. General.
The Apple software (including Boot ROM code), any third party software, documentation, interfaces, content, fonts and any data accompanying this License whether preinstalled on Apple-branded hardware, on disk, in read only memory, on any other media or in any other form (collectively the “Apple Softwareâ€) are licensed, not sold, to you by Apple Inc. (“Appleâ€) for use only under the terms of this License. Apple and/or Apple’s licensors retain ownership of the Apple Software itself and reserve all rights not expressly granted to you."

http://images.apple.com/legal/sla/docs/macosx106.pdf

Any provision of a license interacts with all other provisions of said license, there are other parts of the EULA that can be relevant to the matter, specifically the 'transfer' and 'updates' part.
The updates part is important because Lion and Mountain Lion are sold uniquely as updates or on a new machine.

"If an Apple Software update completely replaces (full install) a previously licensed version of the Apple Software, you may not use both versions of the Apple Software at the same time nor may you transfer them separately."

So when you update to Lion or ML you lose the ability to run you previous copy. So you don't in fact own two separate licenses, but one.
Now, say you bought a separate license of Snow Leopard besides the one used for upgrade. That's an interesting question but Apple always refers to its OS by 'Apple Software' and not the specific version so, when it says 'install and use one copy' of Apple Software it can refer to any version and all versions have the same provision.
Again the way a license works, by expressly granting rights (as it's stated in the number 1 of the license) an omission always favours the copyright owner (Apple).


We have never had problems virtualizing Windows, and that's really because Windows EULAs have explicitly permitted it:

Here is the relevant part of the Windows 8 EULA ( http://download.microsoft.com/Docum...lish_ca383862-45cf-467e-97d3-386e0e0260a6.pdf ):

"e. Use in a virtualized environment. If you use virtualization software to create one or more virtual computers on a single computer hardware system, each virtual computer, and the physical computer, is considered a separate computer for purposes of this agreement. This license allows you to install only one copy of the software for use on one computer, whether that computer is physical or virtual. If you want to use the software on more than one virtual computer, you must obtain separate copies of the software and a separate license for each copy. Content protected by digital rights management technology or other full-volume disk drive encryption technology may be less secure in a virtualized environment."

The Windows XP EULA ( http://download.microsoft.com/docum...lish_9e8a2f82-c320-4301-869f-839a853868a1.pdf ) :
"Installation and use. You may install, use, access, display and run one copy of the Product on a single computer, such as a workstation, terminal or other device"

Was this (non permission) ever 'enforced' in anyway by Apple?
On November 2011, VMWare released an update to their software that made it easy to create Leopard Client and Snow Leopard client VMs, as you can see from this Macworld article of the time (there were many others like this in the most popular and credible Mac centric online publications such as Macworld):
http://www.macworld.com/article/116...ts_users_virtualize_leopard_snow_leopard.html

The article has an update at the end that states:

Note the use of the word 'permit', as we seen before the software can only be used in the cases the license permits.


Then VMWare quickly reacted, saying it was an error, as we can see in this Macrumors article:
http://www.macrumors.com/2011/11/22...of-snow-leopard-and-leopard-allowed-in-error/

Few days later VMWare released a new update that blocked the creation of Leopard Client and Snow Leopard client VMs.

 

A careful review of your post will show that once again, there is still no official written statement by Apple offered in support of the position that virtualizing Snow Leopard is a violation of the SL EULA.

I note for what it is worth, that I have many posts discussing using Snow Leopard in Parallels in Lion/Mt. Lion on the Apple Support Communities forum, which is well run and tightly moderated; and they have not deleted these posts, including the post which includes detailed instructions about how to install Snow Leopard into Parallels.

I will also note that Apple can easily post a clear statement on this issue on their support site, if they wanted to.

 

Well having read the post linked to, and the EULAs for both Snow Leopard and Mountain Lion, I still cannot find anything which forbids running a SN guest under ML. I have a valid licence for SL, and that licence specifically says I can install and run one copy on up to 5 Apple branded computers (it's a family pack). I have a SEPARATE licence for Mountain Lion, which allows me to run one copy on an Apple branded computer. So I have a licence which explicitly allows me to run ML on this computer, and I have a separate licence which explicitly allows me to run one copy os SL on this computer.

That is what the licences (note the plural) say. A key point here is that there isn't a single licence for "Mac OS X", there is a separate licence for Mac OS X Mountain Lion :
http://images.apple.com/legal/sla/docs/OSX108.pdf
It says at the top "SOFTWARE LICENSE AGREEMENT FOR OS X MOUNTAIN LION", clearly making it a different and distinct licence which is separate from that for earlier versions. The licence for Snow Leopard (http://images.apple.com/legal/sla/docs/macosx106.pdf) does not in any way apply to Mountain Lion - see the preamble where it says "accompanying this License ... (collectively the Apple Software) which implies that this licence applies to the software (Snow Leopard) that it accompanies. Mountain Lion does not accompany that licence, and is therefore not part of the "Apple Software" referred to by that licence.

However, if I chose to run (say) two instances of SL, or even an instance of SL alongside an instance of Leopard (the former being an upgrade version from the latter), then it would be correct to say that it would be in breach of the EULA.

Now when I took this up with Parallels, the response I got back was "perplexing". How anyone can suggest that a Parallels guest is not running on the "Apple Branded Computer" that the host runs on is a puzzle to me. Unless they magic up some spare processor etc running elsewhere and communicate with it through the ether, then the guest is using the resources (CPU, RAM, etc) of the very same physical box as the host. If they were running a (very slow) software emulation of a virtual processor (as used to be the case with Virtual PC on a PPC Mac) then I could see there being an argument that it isn't running directly on the same processor - but as it is, the guest is actually executing almost all it's CPU instructions natively on the same processor core(s) as the host.


I'll also point out that (AFAIK - would be happy to see examples), not once has any large vendor ever let a case disputing terms of an EULA get to court. They know very well that in most legal jurisdictions (I'm not in the US), there would be a lot of it which would be declared unlawful and unenforceable. For that reason, they cannot afford to allow the EULA to be subjected to proper legal scrutiny as that would allow people to know just how little of it actually applies to them. The bulk being "make up" legal mumbo-jumbo designed to frighten the natives into compliance.

Finally, should Apple (or any other vendor) decide to fight this, they would struggle to demonstrate that they'd suffered any sort of loss due to the alleged breach of the licence. Since I have a licence to run SL on this machine (which I've paid for), and I have a licence to run ML on this machine (which I've paid for), it's hard to see how Apple could claim that they've suffered any sort of loss if I exercise my rights to use both those licences concurrently rather than (for example) rebooting into the different OSs at different times. Apple should be a bit careful - they've just taken a pasting in the English courts : http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/11/02/apple_uk_samsung_apology/
On Apple's UK website they now have :

 

To SimonHobson:

Yes, it would be more convenient if they would allow Snow Leopard client to easily be installed; but the fact of the matter is that it can be installed, so no point beating your head against the wall trying to get them to admit that fact. The important point is that it exists and hence there is a way for those of us who have a continuing need to run some PowerPC software concurrently with Lion and Mountain Lion have that way to do so!

I will say this, Simon, about your "perplexed" reaction to their response about using Snow Leopard on an "Apple Branded Computer." You are considering it from the point of view of the end-user and not Apple's point of view.

Apple DOES NOT want their Operating Systems operating on a Hackintosh; that is they do NOT want them running on non-Apple Intel PCs.

Virtualization companies such as Parallels, profit on their ability to offer multiple operating systems on multiple hardware configurations; that is what they sell! If I can easily install Snow Leopard client into a Parallels partition on an Apple-branded computer, then I can move that Snow Leopard Parallels partition over to Parallels on a non-Apple branded, Intel computer -- something that Apple clearly does not want to happen!

If I am a venture capital firm looking to invest in a software company who will sell multi-operating systems that work with Apple computers, in order to maximize my investment return, I want Apple to CO-OPERATE with the company in every way possible and I will demand, BEFORE I INVEST, that this new software company enter into an agreement with Apple for Apple's cooperation.

If as part of this agreement, Apple tells my software company that it should ONLY allow Server versions (selling for $399 and up) of their Operating System and NOT ALLOW the client versions ($39 and less) to be easily installed, you better believe that this software company will do EVERYTHING in its power to keep Apple as happy as possible. Especially since the base of users who want to install Snow Leopard client is a very small percentage of the main product audience: the bulk of income from this software venture on Apple-branded computers will come from those who will install Windows into the virtualization software.

Understand now?

 

It is a common Urban Myth that the Snow Leopard EULA prohibits its use in virtualization in Lion or Mt. Lion on a Mac.

Apple sat back quietly since it resulted in larger sales of Snow Leopard Server for $499+.

That myth has been largely debunked over the last 18 months; especially by those who have documented workarounds that allowed Parallels and VMWare Fusion to install Snow Leopard client; which Apple was powerless to stop.

Apple finally threw in the towel recently and now offers Snow Leopard Server for $19.99 + sales tax & shipping (call 1.800.MYAPPLE (1.800.692.7753)).

 

As to SimonHobson's perplextion, it may make more sense if you consider the "VM" virtual machine or Virtual Computer a non apple branded computer. Weather or not that is valid is another discussion (which i would like), as MichaelLAX
said it still physical running on the Host's hardware so could or could not be a valid argument of the VM being an on apple branded computer.

The question I ask is, will the SL server version run my PPC apps games such as starcraft and will it do so in fullscreen?

Oh, BTW, I've seen one case where some one extracted Rosetta from the SL install disc and packaged it for installation on the Lion. It was broken by an OS update shortly afterwards.

 

The only thing Apple did was just changing the price on SL Server, apparently to make virtualization of SL generally affordable, I welcome this, as it's still the only SL version their EULAs seem to allow.

cdoublejj:

If SL can do it so can SL Server, the only limitation is the lack of hardware acceleration, in fact, hardware accel. is not even presented in ML VMs, this is due to Apple not giving Parallels access to their API.

 

I have continued (primarily on my MacRumors thread) to help those with this narrowly defined problem. It still amazes me, that after the demise of MobileMe and the subsequent release of Mountain Lion, that every week I see fresh posts on the Apple Communities Support Forum indicating that they just upgraded to Mountain Lion, or their PPC Mac died and now when they attempt to run their migrated applications to their new Mac, they get the dreaded "cannot run PowerPC applications" in these circumstances.

Apple was SO GOOD at making Rosetta as transparent as possible to those Mac users purchasing Intel Macs in 2006 and on, so that they could continue to utilize most of their software library, that when the day finally arrives that they upgrade to Mt. Lion, they are in shock that they can no longer use this software.

Fortunately for many their are good alternatives: "dual-boot" Snow Leopard on older Macs to run PowerPC apps; upgrade to Intel versions of their software; and purchase alternative software that will open their PowerPC data files, modify them and allow these modified files to be saved for future use and modification.

But for an ever increasing number of PowerPC users who are now purchasing new Macs instead of upgrading the OS X of their older Macs, they are discovering that in some cases these workarounds offer them no solution. An example of this situation would be a Mac user with a substantial investment of time, money and effort into database(s) developed in Appleworks: no upgrade to an Intel version is available and no 3rd party application will open these data files. These users MUST have access to Appleworks in a Lion or Mt. Lion world; if for no other reason, but to extract the data from them in an attempt to import this data into Filemaker or other database applications.

And since I posted my solution to installing Snow Leopard client into Parallels, back in the "ancient" days of Fall, 2011, many people did adopt my solution in one form or another and have posted their gratitude for the work I have done in this area.

Now, much of this "debate" became moot earlier this year when Apple decided to release Snow Leopard Server at a 95% discount (the same price as Snow Leopard client - $20). In my mind, this was a solution in the grand old "Steve Jobs" tradition: solve everyone's problem, but never admit any fault on Apple's part!

To a small extent the need to virtualize Snow Leopard clients exists for those outside of the USA & Canada who cannot directly purchase Snow Leopard Client from Apple. I personally have offered my help in this regard by purchasing SLS from Apple and then trans-shipping it to the United Kingdom, Italy and now Australia. I find that using SLS is the much preferred solution and quite honestly am tired of the time consuming "technical support" that I continued to offer to the "Snow Leopard client in Parallels" people over at MacRumors.

So at this point, my work here is done and my contributions have been reduced to a "footnote in the history of Rosetta" which is as it should be.

Lastly, I DO NOT RECOMMEND any attempts to install Rosetta into Lion or Mt. Lion. You are referring to a small subset of Final Cut users (Final Cut Studio 2 or Final Cut Express 3.5; and to a limited extent, users of Logic Pro 8) who in their desire to install these Universal applications (that is, they can run on either PowerPC or Intel) have followed "poor advice" to attempt to install Rosetta on their Mac. The preferred solution is to use Pacifist or follow the instructions of Jeremy Johnstone on using Terminal posted on his blog about Final Cut. I have read subsequent reports of some of these users experiencing system crashes and other unexplained problems after they have upgraded their systems to later versions of Lion or Mt. Lion.

 

I thought the idea was to persuad the Parallels team to remove the SL client locks out that require hacks/work around to get it working or at least make the lock out easier to get around.

Can any one answer my questions about HW acceleration in Lion vs MtLion? IS there any rumors or speculation about Parallels 9 having HW Acceleration in Mt Lion?

As the Rosetta on Lion thing that fact it is possible and no one researching how to make it more stable and practice is be bewildering. In fact people are just stupid period, once you create something in the tech world it always be there even long long after it is considered legacy, there will always still dependencies. look at dos and floppy disks. they are far far far from dead. I use floppy disks all the time still and dos is quite common in commercial environments as well as games, all for example's sake.

they did do a good job with Rosetta which makes it even harder for the end user when the removed it and it's not cost effective for developers to revamps their old programs. apple or developers alike don't think about supporting their product in the future.

now if could be rude my request about the HW acceleration on Mt Lion and Lion I could really use help knowing what that means and why.

 

I cannot help you with Hardware Acceleration: I am the "Rosetta" guy.

Some observations on the remainder of your post:

• There is no "dissauading the Parallels team" to remove the SL client locks -- they exist for reasons that I cannot disclose on this forum (although I did "hint" at them earlier). But you CAN get around them...

• I find it frustrating that you would continue to discuss "Rosetta in Lion" after I have given you good reason not to; but that is your decision. The fact of the matter is that NO POWER PC APPLICATION ever ran in Lion after an attempt was made to install Rosetta.

There is a "bug" in the installer apps of FCS2 and Logic Pro 8 that would trigger the "no powerpc" dialog box in Lion. An attempt to install Rosetta merely worked around this bug long enough to let the programs install and then operate Universally (but at what cost?). But in no event did Rosetta ever actually operate in Lion!

Think about it: if it worked for the FCS2 installer, why didn't it work for ANY OTHER OF THE HUNDREDS of PowerPC apps that fail in Lion?

• Apple merely licensed the underlying technology that they used for Rosetta from a 3rd party back in 2005/2006. This license expired with the introduction of Lion (and now Mt. Lion). The 3rd party was acquired by IBM, who actively continues to promote the PowerPC architecture platform. It is unlikely that IBM would have relicensed this technology, even if Apple had desired to do so, at a reasonable price.

All good things come to an end: Apple implementation of The Classic Environment in OS X lasted for about the same 6 years that Apple supported Rosetta.

 

I was only discussion it form the side of what could be or from the development side, think of it as like Wine but, for PPC. would be awesome if people researched more about what makes it work and why that kind of stuff. You clearly know whats up with the claims of Rosetta working in Lion which answers some of the my questions i had.

I was under the assumption classic environment and Rosetta were separate since i read some where classic environment was dumped after Leopard, leaving rosetta.

 

They are separate; I was only using them for the analogy of each being supported by Apple for about 6 years in their transition stages.

The Classic Environment was eliminated in Tiger when Tiger was ported to Intel (which then included Rosetta to run PPC apps); it continued in Tiger-PPC throughout its upgrade to 10.4.11. As you note, there was no Classic Environment for Leopard.

Rosetta continued in Leopard and optionally in Snow Leopard client (although it is installed by default in Snow Leopard Server).

When I must, I run my Classic software in SheepShaver which requires the extraction of old Mac ROMs and installation of OS 9 (or its cousin, Chubby Bunny, which comes bundled with all of that together).

 

well now that only raises more questions. I feel i'd pushing my luck asking them in this thread. It does seem you do have some the answers to questions i've had. though I think some of them may be Specimens expertise because part of it relies on this new bit of info about missing HW acceleration Mt Lion, the others on sheep shaver as well some of the other info you just mentioned, such as Rosetta, classic environment and Tiger.

 

Questions cheerfully answered (when I can)!

Here is a post I assembled for a question on Apple's Community Support forum:

I seem to have lost the ability to post images on this forum, otherwise I would show you a screenshot; it is here.

 

well i was gonna ask about what applied to tiger PPC and Tiger Intel as far as your post. Then the second half is if the HW acceleration and or it's APIs are being hidden by apple do i need to down grade to Lion as the host for ANY VMing?

I didn't even think sheep shaver was a viable option even after hearing about it recently so i will read up. though idk if it can support more recent apps like Rosetta but, that in of maybe contained in said links. so i'll read up on that if all else fails i'll hit up Specimen with a PM if possible. I'm still interest parallels either way or at least learning about it.

 

Before I wind up composing a treatise here, let's try to narrow the focus: You want to run Blizzard Entertainment's StarCraft (I not II) on a Lion or Mt. Lion Mac?

What version StarCraft, what Mac did it run on, etc.

The more specifics you provide, the better the chance that I can develop a solution (although games presents a unique challenge that I do not have extensive experience with).

 

cdoublejj: Like I said the official word from Parallels on the state of graphics acceleration, is that they would like to implement it but Apple does not give them access to the API, the result is that, unlike Windows and Linux guests, OS X Guests don't get that. Personally, I wouldn't hold my breath to see graphics accel. on Lion and ML, let alone SL Server guests, this has been discussed in many other threads where Parallels representatives state just that, even in a previous post on this thread I talk about flash and hardware accel.

Lacking hardware/graphics accel. means all graphics operations are done at the software level, by the CPU, that means things like Dock animations become noticeable slower, and programs like Pages don't work at all as they depend on it to display the content of documents, it's an appalling situation as OS X relies heavily on graphics.

I believe Starcraft relies on OpenGL, that means it can be rather slow or not show content at all, the slowness depends on the CPU power solely, if you have a beefy rig, it might be tolerable as these are older apps.

 

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