No OS X Virtualization Until Apple Gives the Green Light

Parallels and VMWare have decided: they will not enable virtualization for OS X unless Apple specifically allows them to do so. The two companies said this would be in violation of Mac OS X's EULA and they will not, in any way, encourage their customers to engage in illegal activities.

The system's license agreement clearly states the Mac OS X is to be run only on Apple hardware: "This License allows you to install and use one copy of the Apple Software on a single Apple-labeled computer at a time."

For those who don't exactly understand what virtualization is about: it means the ability to run two or more operating systems on the same machine (Windows, Mac, Linux or others). It's called virtualization because the operating systems behave as if each was installed on a different machine, a virtual one. Users, developers more so, would greatly benefit from being able to install their OS X on a PC or to run two or more Mac operating systems on the same machine.

Ars Technica analyzed the position of both Parallels and VMWare and concluded their attitude towards the matter is the same: they don't want to jeopardize the great relationship they both have with Apple and they will not act against the specifications of Mac OS X's license agreement.

Parallels clearly states for ARS regarding the future virtualization of Mac OS X: "We won't enable this kind of functionality until Apple gives their blessing". On the other hand, VMWare admits they would very much like for this to happen, "but until Apple changes its licensing policy, we prefer to not speculate about running Mac OS X in a virtualized environment".

So, this seems to be all for now concerning virtualization. 'Can it be done?', one might ask. Some say 'definitely', others think there are issues to overcome when virtualizing OS X, but since it's clearly not legal, please don't try this at home.