I don't think it's a gentleman's agreement. I'm sure whole teams of lawyers were involved in writing it.
Well, no. I was being a bit facetious. I'm sure there's legality behind it somewhere.
The virtual machine companies have to license the Mac Boot ROM code from Apple. Apple can place any sorts of conditions it wants on the VM companies in such a license agreement, such as prohibiting them from using that code to support Snow Leopard Client in VMs. It's pretty clear to me that that's what Apple did. Apple didn't seem to want end users to run 10.6 client in virtual machines, but since Apple did not include any restrictions in the EULA against it, writing the restriction into the Boot ROM code license that the VM companies were bound by, effectively achieved the same result.
Okay, let's say that's all true, and probably is. But…
we the end users are bound only by the the EULA, not by agreements between Apple and the VM companies.
So then we are all being illegally prevented from using Snow Leopard client in a VM since the EULA in no way whatsoever prohibits it:
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 Software”) are licensed, not sold, to you by Apple Inc. (“Apple”) 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. The terms of this License will govern any software upgrades provided by Apple that replace and/or supplement the original Apple Software product, unless such upgrade is accompanied by a separate license in which case the terms of that license will govern. Title and intellectual property rights in and to any content displayed by or accessed through the Apple Software belongs to the respective content owner. Such content may be protected by copyright or other intellectual property laws and treaties, and may be subject to terms of use of the third party providing such content. This License does not grant you any rights to use such content nor does it guarantee that such content will continue to be available to you.
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. You agree not to install, use or run the Apple Software on any non-Apple-branded computer, or to enable others to do so. This License does not allow the Apple Software to exist on more than one computer at a time, and you may not make the Apple Software available over a network where it could be used by multiple computers at the same 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. By "household" we mean a person or persons who share the same housing unit such as a home, apartment, mobile home or condominium, but shall also extend to student members who are primary residents of that household but residing at a separate on-campus location. The Family Pack License does not extend to business or commercial users.
Being used on an Apple computer - check. Only one license of Snow Leopard running on said Mac - check.
