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Comment by exikyut | Hacker News Reader

Wow.

Of the 26 items in the Milestone section, three (near the bottom) are currently not done. All the rest are. (The last one should read "swim". And I hope that last one definitely happens!)

The first substantial commit (https://github.com/lundman/ZFSin/commit/6ea8093d48da0a0abc3b...) includes a large pile of code. It's clear this was (wisely) built out privately to begin with. I wonder how long it took to get to the above commit point.

While unrelated, thanks very much to the author for the TIL on how to do Windows kernel development! TIL about the free Windows VMs too.

I've opened https://github.com/lundman/ZFSin/issues/6 to hopefully prompt a license file to turn up.

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> TIL about the free Windows VMs too.

Not quite free, just an evaluation version that expires after a while.

Ah. I'd middle-clicked that link but not actually looked at it before hitting Submit. :)

That page says the images expire 12/1/17. So that's... two months from now? Huh. That's... 341.33MB per day in bandwidth (20GB over 60 days). Weird way to measure it (the cost of continually reconfiguring would theoretically be higher), but I had a really tiny Internet cap for a few years some time ago.

Windows licenses aren't that expensive. If you need a copy of Windows more often than the trial image makes feasible, you should probably buy a copy.

Fair point.

Glances at nonexistant bank account - and computer from 2006

A Windows 10 Home edition costs 145 euros, pro is 260 euros, it's not exactly impulse purchase territory for me.

I never use Windows because I want to, I use it because I have to. So paying hundreds of euros to have the privilege to use an OS I don't care for just because some developer decided not to make their application portable is very hard for me to swallow.

Especially now with the built-in ads, telemetry, OneDrive and whatnot. You're not going to guilt me into purchasing a copy of that garbage fire of an OS just so that I can boot up the odd windows-only application every other month.

The cheapest version of macOS for anyone that needs to use it, costs 570 € in Germany (Mac mini) for the very first version, excluding the free upgrades.

Any other commercial OS at enterprise level is way beyond that in developer licenses.

And it comes with a very elegant and compact computer totally for free.

Still not worth it.

That's debatable. I kind of like mine. Not as fast as its big brother, but that was never the intention.

And the OS is a beautiful successor for NeXTSTEP.

That's not a very fair comparison. And while I'm sure MacOS isn't exactly cheap I never encountered a situation where I had to use some piece of software that required me to run MacOS.

For what it's worth I was mainly thinking of the Linux/BSDs that I actually want to use when given the choice

It's free forever, easily customizable to fit my various needs, from embedded barebones application to media server to workstation. I actually own and control the OS (my debian doesn't upgrade to a new version behind my back) and I can even dig into the code if I want to.

I'd sooner give 100 euros to the FreeBSD fountation than 10 euros to MS frankly. I gave them enough money indirectly already with all these prebuilt computers I've bought in the past decades which came with Windows preinstalled, only for me to immediately wipe them with something else.

That's just your particular case and not indicative of the situation as a whole. I regularly encounter software that requires me to run macOS. I build virtual and augmented reality software. macOS is garbage for VR, all the major VR systems work better on Windows. But, if you want to build AR apps for iPhones (or any sort of game app, doesn't have to be AR), you need Xcode, and Xcode only runs on macOS.

Well you've convinced me, if I need to buy an OS to run Windows programs, it sure won't be MacOS.

> Any other commercial OS at enterprise level is way beyond that in developer licenses.

Huh? If you need one license, Windows pro is much cheaper? Along with visual studio community edition etc.

It really annoys me that Apple refuses to license OS X for non-appearance hw though. Might even eventually have bought some Apple hw, if I could start developing for ios/OSX without having to start with buying a computer I don't need. (I might have bought an iphone, for example).

For other commercial OSes I mean commercial UNIX flavors, mainframes and support contracts for Linux variants.

That's just wrong. You could (or still can?) buy mac os installation dvds in an apple shop for 30 bucks (iirc my sister bought one a few years ago) also the "upgrade" to sierra is free without any limitation on how many machines you can legally install it on so you can create an installation medium (you can install it in qemu or probably even use coreboot with a modified tianocore to actually install it). Oh and you can download the source for the kernel (I'm not sure which versiin this really mirrors and I'm not a mac guy so I don't care) here https://opensource.apple.com/ Just because you can't easily buy a copy of it at best buy and install it without some hacking on any random computer doesn't mean that you can take the price of the cheapest mac _hardware_ say that's the price of the os and call it a day.

Also your comment did completly miss the point of the parent comment.

> also the "upgrade" to sierra is free without any limitation on how many machines you can legally install it so you can create an installation medium (you can install it in qemu or probably even use coreboot with a modified tianocore to actually install it)

There may not be a limit to how many machines you can legally install it on (I'm actually not sure), but the license is very clear as to what machines you can install it on (i.e. only Apple hardware). Though in reality it's been quite some time since Apple tried to enforce that provision very hard, and never on individual users installing it themselves on usual PC hardware.

> Oh and you can download the source for the kernel (I'm not sure which versiin this really mirrors and I'm not a mac guy so I don't care) here https://opensource.apple.com/

The kernels are usually pretty up to date, but the public code is an even smaller portion of the OS than the Linux kernel is (many key drivers are not open source, and forget anything approaching the level of the UI).

I just went into my study and got my original snow leopard dvd (the one my sister bought) and I can't find the part that states this.

> but the license is very clear as to what machines you can install it on (i.e. only Apple hardware)

Would be nice to get a reference on that. But ignoring this my point still stands that pjmlps comment was more a misplaced snarky remark against apple that missed the point. But hey I neither use Mac OS nor Windows (only in the circumstanced when I'm forced to offer support) so I don't really care :)

But a PS: Most hardware you buy comes with a Windows license so people who don't want to buy Windows can probably still use this.

It's in the EULA:

> 2. Permitted License Uses and Restrictions.

> A. Preinstalled and Single-Copy Apple Software License. Subject to the terms and conditions of this License, unless you obtained the Apple Software from the Mac App Store, through an automatic download or under a volume license, maintenance or other written agreement from Apple, 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 any one time. For example, these single-copy license terms apply to you if you obtained the Apple Software preinstalled on Apple-branded hardware.

There's also section 2B(iii), that is for copies obtained via Apple Store, that allows you to run virtual machines:

> 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, for purposes of: (a) software development; (b) testing during software development; (c) using macOS Server; or (d) personal, non-commercial use.

Emphasis mine.

I bought an install disc for Snow Leopard (OS X 10.6) back when that was the current version.

Seems they have it in the offical online store still actually: https://www.apple.com/shop/product/MC573Z/A/mac-os-x-106-sno...

However when I inquired at an authorized store about a later version after it came out they said that it was not available on disc and you had to buy it via the Mac App Store which means you need to have OS X in the first place but I'm not sure if they were talking about their own store or in general.

I'm on mobile right now so not going to bother finding out what other versions can be bought on disc media from the official online store but if someone else would like to chime in with more links that'd be welcome.

Legally I can only use Apple hardware to run macOS.

So anyone that cares about following the law needs to buy an Apple computer to run those DVDs you mention.

Hackintoshes have no place in compliant businesses.

Depending on jurisdiction you may be able to buy a "used" license. In that case, you're looking at maybe 20-30 Euros for Windows 7 Pro.

OEM variants without the media and box are £25 on Amazon. Worked fine for us. Came as a license key from a VAT registered reseller and activated just fine.

be careful, those discounted keys are likely coming from bizspark/msdn accounts. they will work fine, but if you're a business and get audited you will fail the audit. in that sense you might as well use a KMS activator.

The trial images are not for you to use other people's software, they are for you to test your own software, especially for testing website compatibility with Internet Explorer. If your job requires testing more often than the trial image makes convenient, you should make your client pay for the Windows license. And if you're just using the OS, I really think you have a responsibility to pay for it.

And all that other stuff can be turned off.

If you don't need the support and don't need a physical boxed product, you can likely bring this cost down to about £40. Look for OEM.

The VMs for IE/Edge testing purposes seem to be periodically updated, once the current images stop working. I also remember seeing instructions on how to extend the trial period somewhere within the VM, similar to what dexterdog describes in the sibling comment.

https://developer.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-edge/tools/v...

If done right, the cost can be close to zero. See :

- https://github.com/GoSecure/malboxes - https://github.com/joefitzgerald/packer-windows - https://www.packer.io/intro/why.html

You can usually extend the evaluations a few times. The Win2k16 server trial is 180 days and can be extended 6 times with a simple script call. If you cron it right you get 3 years.

Oooooh. That's very nice! And legal too. Awesome to know, thanks very much.

Looks like I started 2017/02/08

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