If PearPC becomes really popular, and very reliable, than we can only hope for two things other than total stopping of development.
1. Apple will buy the whole project (is that possible?) and turn it into something like VirtualPC for Mac (nope. not possible).
2. Apple will keep it's hardware at the same relative price, but will instead raise the price of their stand-alone OS to something like $300. (is this a good thing?)

Well, knowing the internet, PearPC will probably never truly die, if only to live through more questionable sources, like P2P. All we can hope is that Apple has a good plan. I think that if they come out with a stable version of Mac emulation on a Windows, long before PearPC does, most (or atleast many) of us will switch to that. But you just got to love that homebrewn open-source feel.

BTW, the iMac G5 has come out and it looks not only awesome, but not very overpriced.

I know I'm a little late into this discusion but let's get a few things straight.

1.) PearPC as an Architecture Emulation is not illegal. In fact, if a user wanted to, they could decide to run YellowDog Linux on it.

2.) Apple's license for Mac OS is very cut and dry, limiting thier vision of the use of the product to hardware they created. So, within the legal laws of whatever country Apple has sold said software, if you install Mac OS on an emulator and not a true hardware Macintosh as manufactured by Apple Computer Inc., your license is void. However, whether they can truly enforce this is another question.

3.) Many users are outright pirating Mac OS X since the release of PearPC. After all, think of it. Who wants to pay $200.00 for software that will run 1/10 as fast as a real Mac? Tangible results are months, if not perhaps a good year away, hence users will do what's easiest and that is Pirate.

4.) Mac OS ToolBox routines (ROMS) are copyrighted the same as Mac OS and are designed for use with hardware devices, not software emulation. It is a violation of copyrights to copy the ToolBox routines for use with an emulator since it is copyrighted by Apple and Apple has never given a license for thier use anywhere else via software. The license that applies to Mac OS applies to the ToolBox as well, since the ToolBox is part of Mac OS. Again, as to whether Apple can enforce this is another option. You run a legal grey area if you own a machine and use it's ToolBox routines via software emulation. Apple in the past made great efforts to remove websites which distributed these ToolBox routines.

Putting the above aside, if you like PearPC then the best thing you can do is make sure you own a real PPC Macintosh before going and pirating ROMS. Also buy Mac OS X or find a used copy. These two factors will keep you in that grey area and out of trouble.

`BoJ

osx does not require roms to load or run. of course the hardware requires a boot load program that is in rom, but unlike older mac os's osx does not rely on the "apple rom" to load. it is based on open source darwin.

other than that most of what you say has been said before.

as far as people getting programs that are copied, well that happens no matter what is said and the persons that do it have no idea the damage they cause in the end. this forum discourages such things from happening.

I bought my version of osx 10.3 and my version of xp home, and I know that I wasted the money on xp and that osx 10.3 has been updated.

But that is completely irrelevant to your argument that using PearPC with the OS is illegal. We all know that software piracy is illegal, which is why we all should have bought the OS we are using with PPC.

So even if I own a real PowerPC G4 Macintosh, and I went out to buy another copy of OS X just for PearPC, I'm still doing something illegal. Is this right or wrong, because this is about as close to legality I think that I can get with Mac OS X. But with PPC Linux, there's nothing wrong, right?

Uhh, why is everyone arguing over such a stupid topic? Apple dosnt care what you do with your copy (bought) of OSX, weather its in a PC or a Mac, as long as its not pirated, or you are stealing source from it to build the next Windows (lol, longhorn). And, if it WERE illigal, Apple would have said somthing the day the FIRST Mac emulator came out. And those ones used ROMS, this one dosnt, so that kills the whole ROM illigalness idea.

Ok, say you just made a new OS, for a new computer with new processors and everything, then sombody makes an emulator for Windows and Mac, so people start buying the OS like crazy, but OH NO! 1 out of every 10 people who buy it pirate the copy! WHAT DO YOU DO!? Stop the emulator and the income, or ignore that 1 person?

Put simply, Apple does care. If more people decide to get an emulator instead of buying a complete machine, Apple loses money. But at the present moment, none of the emulators can challenge most Macs out there. Basilisk II took years to get this fast, and by the time it did, the 68K era was already dead commercially speaking. So by the time PearPC gets fast enought to use, the speed it offers will be dead commercially speaking.

As per the Apple License Agreement, Apple does care what you do with it. They haven't done much because OS X typically only runs on a Mac, so even if you pirate it, Apple still made money off the hardware you have, even if you didn't buy it. Also, since there are no more Clones of Apple, Apple knows that they aren't really losing business.

Apple not taking any action does not imply they can't, won't or have no decision or will to. It just isn't justifiable at the moment. The problems pirated Mac OS X copies creates is a drop in the bucket for Apple.