Is it against Apple's license to bring Rosetta2 onto bare metal Linux (Asahi)?

[alshdavid]

It's possible to copy over the Rosetta2 binary to Asahi Linux and use it to run amd64 applications on bare metal Linux.

Does anyone know if that is permissible by Apple's license?

 

[ww1971]

It's possible to copy over the Rosetta2 binary to Asahi Linux and use it to run amd64 applications on bare metal Linux.

Does anyone know if that is permissible by Apple's license?

Rosetta 2 apps for mac won’t work on Linux on mac m1, only on mac os.

 

[Xiao_Xi]

You can try this.

GitHub - CathyKMeow/rosetta-linux-asahi: Hacked RosettaLinux that runs on Asahi Linux

Hacked RosettaLinux that runs on Asahi Linux. Contribute to CathyKMeow/rosetta-linux-asahi development by creating an account on GitHub.

github.com

 

[maflynn]

Does anyone know if that is permissible by Apple's license?

I can't say if it will work or not (I'm guessing no), but I'm like 99.99% sure the EULA doesn't permit this.

 

[jdb8167]

I'm like 99.99% sure the EULA doesn't permit this.

It might if the EULA is tied to the Mac hardware and not the OS. Apple’s VM agreement is like this.

Since Rosetta 2 won’t work on generic ArmV8 CPUs there really isn’t any reason for Apple to prohibit it.

 

[Xiao_Xi]

Since Rosetta 2 won’t work on generic ArmV8 CPUs there really isn’t any reason for Apple to prohibit it.

Why wouldn't it work?

The Github project linked above states:

Rosetta also runs on other ARM64 machines after being patched, but that's not legal. Please use FEX / Box64 instead.

 

[maflynn]

It might if the EULA is tied to the Mac hardware and not the OS. Apple’s VM agreement is like this.

Maybe, but its up to the OP to read the EULA and make the determination. I'm still fairly sure its not permitted, but since I don't have a dog in this fight, I'm not really going to make any effort to find out

 

[jdb8167]

Why wouldn't it work?

The Github project linked above states:

I’m not sure how they managed to patch it but without Apple’s proprietary TSO (total store order) bit it probably won’t be reliable.

 

[Joe Dohn]

Why wouldn't it work?

The Github project linked above states:

I would like to bring your attention to the wording again:

Rosetta also runs on other ARM64 machines after being patched, but that's not legal. Please use FEX / Box64 instead.

The wording actually implies that running Rosetta outside MacOS, but within an MX Mac (M1, M2, etc), is legal. What is not legal is running Rosetta on a generic ARM64 machine.

Which makes sense, because I remember Asahi developers stating on Twitter they make use of Rosetta to translate binaries.