RSSCherryOS Mac Emulator Resurfaces
By Nate Mook | Published March 8, 2005, 8:14 PM
Following its initial announcement and subsequent controversy last October, Mac emulator CherryOS has finally been released.
The $49.95 CherryOS was developed by Maui-X-Stream -- a small Hawaiian company that makes streaming media technologies -- and enables users to run Apple's Mac OS X operating system atop Windows PCs. The software mimics the Mac G4 processor and touts complete access to a system's hardware resources and networking capabilities.
Its creator, Arben Kryeziu, found himself in hot water last year amid claims the software was simply stolen from the open source PearPC project. With the code now under public scrutiny, it appears that such allegations are true.
CherryOS boots up in the exact same manner as PearPC, and its error messages and source files are nearly identical. The emulator also includes MacOnLinuxVideo, which is the same driver used by PearPC to speed up graphics. The CherryOS configuration file also closely mirrors that used by PearPC.
According to tests by BetaNews, CherryOS launches a second process and covers the window within its own display. Thus, when CherryOS is running, a second taskbar entry appears without icon.
For its part, Maui-X-Stream has staunchly defended CherryOS as original, although Kryeziu previously acknowledged October's preview contained PearPC code that would be removed. Nonetheless, Kryeziu's reputation was quickly attacked by many who labeled CherryOS a scam intended to profit off the work of open source developers.
Although PearPC source code is freely available, its usage is governed by the GNU General Public License (GPL), which states that the code and any modifications must be offered by anyone that distributes it. Alleged GPL violations have forced companies such as Linksys to release their code, but the license has never been fully tested in a U.S. court of law.
A CherryOS trial, which will boot 14 times, is available for download.
I finally got it working. I had to re-enable virtual memory on my 2 gb WinXP computer to have it run. Even with just 128 MB defined in the emulator.
What a crappy front-end for the emulator... Pause option does nothing, can't get the cdrom or network working, shared drives limited to 1 GB, starting the emulation twice without closing the front-end gave me a 1/2 display...
What a rush job. And strangely, CherryOS doesn't support sound, just like PearPC, even if they put "sound capabilities" in their features.
I would love a working Mac emulator, but I'm not shelling out $50 USD for CherryOS, when PearPC is available.
--Eric
Update: The "MainCherryOS.exe" file is made in VisualBasic. 'Nuff said.
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There is already a patch out now for CherryOS 1.01 that gets rid of the 14 day trial.
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Could you please direct me to this patch...
Thanks:
Scott
AIM: Scott6020
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Sorry I can't. I'm not allowed to.
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This looks like a clear violation of the GPL. Try doing strings ppc, and comparing to output of strings PearPC.exe. I will be comparing the actual object code soon. Might need to build pearpc with the same compiler that was used for PearPC.exe to do a decent comparison though. Many of the strings are however the same internally.
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I hope the open-source community chews this guy up and spits him out.
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So anyone get it to run yet? Stolen or not, does it deliver the speeds claimed back in October?
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It doesn't matter, it doesn't work!
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no it doesn't deliver.
it only appear to be faster becuase config file has a setting to refresh screen every 10ms(which can be done in PearPC as well).
making so many screen refreshes means it will spend less time emulating actual code. it's either fast screen updates or fast cpu. this POS PearPC ripoff decided to go the illusionary way making it LOOK fast but work just as slow
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Get it here
http://movies.mxsinc.com/CherryOS_Software.zip
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It's gone :-(
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http://files.9down.com/CherryOS_v1.0.1.rar
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*sees Steve Jobs in the far distance screaming*
"They stole from you!"
Funny thing is, half the software around today was stolen from someone at some point in time, as if this is really news? Most Open Source software is taken and used to develop other applications that companies sell for profit, the problem is the GPL does not hold as people think it does and anyone can pretty much copy and sell code as they please because it simply does not completely protect any rights to the origional code. I can't wait to see the revision that is being worked on that is due sometime in the next few years that will reinstate the GPL, alot of peeps will be SOL if they play their cards right.
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According the the GPL, it's perfectly legal to base commercial software on Open Source... of course, there are restrictions, related to changes made to the code, and supplying the source code... which CherryOS doesn't seem to do.
Of course... admitting they're using open source code from PearPC would also be required, which they also don't do.
Seems to me there's a case here for testing the GPL in court...
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The problem isn't that he used GPLed software; it's that he LIED and claimed he wrote it himself because he needed to run OS X programs on a Windows machine. (Like a PPC emulator is something you just do in your spare time and have it done so soon.) It was clearly a rip-off of PearPC, but he still insisted it wasn't, even after they discovered that one crazy variable name they shared--one that just *couldn't* have been coincidence (imagine something like WARM_FUZZY_BEAR123 or something, but that's not actually what it was, just an example of the impossibility of his also picking that variable).
So, I guess it probably did involve GPL complications, as well, but that's besides (or because of) all the lying and whatnot.
I don't know why anyone would still trust this person/company. It doesn't make sense to me.
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not only did he stole from PearPC project, but also from OpenVPN project which he uses for network support(which is the only way for PearPC to have network support too)
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You're wrong.
Beauty of the GPL is how it utilizes the copyright law so that it doesn't need to hold to prevent theft. GPL doesn't take your rights away, it gives you rights you wouldn't otherwise have, take away the GPL and those rights are gone too, so if GPL fails, the code falls back to what is covered by the law, and that means that _nobody_ except the author has _any_ right to it.
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