Sun Purchase of Innotek good or bad for Mac OS X VirtualBox?

[Son of a Beach]

I just noticed that the VirtualBox icon here now included the Sun logo, where it used to have the Innotek brand name. I then found that Sun bought out Innotek (you guys probably all knew this already, and I'm playing catch up).

I think in general that Sun will do great things with VirtualBox (they certainly did with OpenOffice/StarOffice).

However, OpenOffice on the Mac is still somewhat behind. How is sun going to treat Mac OS X with VirtualBox? The Mac OS X version of VirtualBox has always lagged substantially behind the Windows and Linux version so far.

I also note that the VirtualBox icon on the VirtualBox main web page merely replaces 'Innotek' with 'VirtualBox'. Odd.

[Son of a Beach]

I've just downloaded the new Sun branded version 1.6 which is available for all OS's including Mac OS X (and now for Solaris of course). However, it appears to have no obvious changes apart from the rebranding. In particular, the installer notes:

Currently, we are aware of the following restrictions:
• No support for Host Interface Networking
• No support for Internal Networking
• No support for audio input
• No support for VT-x/AMD-V (rarely required)
• No support for raw disk access
• The numlock emulation isn't implemented yet
• The VirtualBox kernel extension is currently accessible from all user accounts
Note that we are planning to address all known issues.

So it looks as though they've not yet addressed the most serious issues that have been plaguing recent Mac OS X versions, but at least they've included a reassuring message that they intend to do so.

Let's hope they increase the priority of getting feature parity for Mac OS X with the other versions.

[ForrestB]

Looks like they're improved a few things in the OSX versions, including full support for USB 2 devices and shared folders.

[lama]

Windows version is so cool and Mac version sux! Its pathetic probably because these sun dudes (former innotek) cannot afford a mac??? besides I don't ever see any lead programmer or someone cool responding our posts...

Only if interests them, they respond (something that is easy for them to answer) well, guess will do something to OSX version with Zibra, Lion, and all other animals are released (11.0)

[Phobos]

wth are you talking about lama?... how do you want anyone to answer posts like yours?... rule #1 for asking for anything, be polite

let's try to make you understand.... not everyone is so moronic to buy an overpriced computer like a mac and it is not your business to meddle in that affair... even if they can afford it (which is not your problem if they do or don't), they could not be interested in it (ever occurred to you?)... and even then, even if they do (which is the case) making a port of a program to another system always brings troubles like translating system calls, APIs calls and many other, thus bringing new bugs... who told you it was easy?

even then, macs are pretty popular at Sun... that's part of the reason there is native OOo 3.0 now...

by the way, if you have so much money, why don't you go buy VMware Fusion or Parallels for your mac?... and go and whine to them?... even better, why don't you buy a license for virtualbox and ask for features as a paying customer?

just so you know, mac version is very good too... and it just got out of beta with version 1.6.0... tested on Tiger over here and aside from the known problems, nothing else has popped up

[dagor]

[quote]wth are you talking about lama?... how do you want anyone to answer posts like yours?... rule #1 for asking for anything, be polite

let's try to make you understand.... not everyone is so moronic to buy an overpriced computer like a mac and it is not your business to meddle in that affair... even if they can afford it (which is not your problem if they do or don't), they could not be interested in it (ever occurred to you?)... and even then, even if they do (which is the case) making a port of a program to another system always brings troubles like translating system calls, APIs calls and many other, thus bringing new bugs... who told you it was easy?
[/quote]

ahh, Phobos, did you really mean to call everyone who has ever bought a Mac a moron? Because that's how this reads. If so, then doesn't your post smack of the pot calling the kettle black?
I'll assume you were attempting to direct the moron swipe toward lama and leave it at that...

[Excelsior]

As someone using Mac OS X Leopard with VirtualBox 1.5.5 beta months ago before Sun's acquisition, I had faith that innotek would continue to invest in the Mac version.

Now, post-Sun acquisition, I'm still running the same Mac... now with Sun xVM VirtualBox 1.6. I have continued faith that Sun will direct resources into the Mac build. After all, OS X is based on FreeBSD. Solaris is based on FreeBSD. That doesn't mean Sun and VirtualBox community contributing engineers have a turnkey solution when programming for both OSes. But I believe Sun will continue to improve and uplift this product.

What I really want to see from Sun: a roadmap.

Plain and simple: Some sort of publicly-posted roadmap that shows the plans for this software, when deliverables are expected, and where the community needs to help chip in. (Or where Sun needs to pick up the slack.)

[Phobos]

mac os x is loosely based on freebsd...

solaris has nothing to do with freebsd. At one point, SunOS was based on BSD, but this changed when Sun co-developed SVR4 with AT&T... but Sun has showed a LOT of dedication to mac os x software development, specially OOo 3... and vbox in mac os x is of interest to them too..

so, yes..

about the roadmap, check the threads already talking about that