CherryOS Fraud

Ever since the public realized the existance of CherryOS, lots of comments and criticism have appeared. This article, is dedicated to collecting evidence that "CherryOS is a ripoff of open source software applications."

Background

Ever since the public knew the existence of the open-sourced PearPC, it has been a hot topic. Although emulation speed isn't so fast, it was actually the first PowerPC emulator that can run Mac OS X. Lots of PearPC-related site sprung up. Development went rapid as interested coders found out how great this thing is. Many Mac-lovers bought Mac OS X even though they don't have a Mac, for one reason: install it on PearPC. After a while, someone on the Net revealed the existence of CherryOS, and it even got slashdotted. Everyone thinks it's a rip-off product of PearPC, which made Maui X-Stream, the company behind CherryOS, strongly deny that "CherryOS is a ripoff of PearPC."

The main developer, Arben Kryeziu, has angered the public because of all of these acts.

Let's first see the backgrounds of the two software:

PearPC

• Open-source, licensed under GNU Public License.
  Because it's open-source, it's free, and anyone can view and download the code.
• Still in development. Although the emulation speed is still acceptable, it's still not for productivity use.
• Targeted use: emulating PowerPC architecture.
• Easy of use: not easy. It has a command line interface, it needs a lot of configuration, including editing a text file, know as the config file.

CherryOS

• Commercial, so it's close-sourced. No one can even give a peek of it's code.
• A commercial release, it should be "stable" and is intended for daily productivity tasks.
• Targeted use: providing an emulated environment for running Mac OS X.
• Ease of use: Really easy, user friendly, has a graphical interface, and basically doesn't need you to configure much.

Between the Two

Before we go on for anything else, lets first compare the two applications for advantages and disadvantages.

• Price. PearPC wins at this, because it's free. On the other hand, CherryOS costs US$49.99.

  Update: It now costs $99.95, according to MXS.

• Application status. PearPC is still "in development", while CherryOS is targeted for geing a productivity commercial product. At the surface, CherryOS wins more users because of this.
• Easy of use. CherryOS just prompts you to click through the wizard and pop in the Mac OS X installation CD, PearPC, in contrast, needs you to manually modify configuration files, set up TAP-32 networking, and all of the things. CherryOS apparently wins at this.

Claims vs. Facts

CherryOS promised many features, which turned out that wasn't available, here are some of them:

• 80% emulation speed of the host computer.
  Now they claim that it is "3 times faster than PearPC", although many people proved that it's actually slower than PearPC's G4 emulation.
  Note that a recently update claimed that the new CherryOS 1.2 provided 300% speed of the original CherryOS (1.0 and 1.1)
• G4 emulation. It is available as they promised.
• Hardware support. They first claimed that it "has complete access to the host computer's hardware resources -- hard drive, CPU, RAM, FireWire, USB, PCI, PCMCIA bus, Ethernet networking and modem", but when I boot Mac OS X in CherryOS and plug on my iPod Shuffle, nothing happens.
• Network bridging. They promised to have it, but they now say that "network bridging will be included in the next version".
• Sound emulation. They promised to have it, and definitely, Mac OS X does show up the volume control, but prasys can't even adjust it. If it's not there, it's not there.
• Drag and drop support. Actually, this is kind of tricky, because everyone thought you can drag and drop object between the virtual machine and host computer like in VMWare or Virtual PC, but actually, you can only drag and drop to move or copy files using CherryOS' internal "file manager", which looks almost identical to HFV explorer, a free HFS volume explorer on Windows. (Thanks to Casey for letting me know this)
• CherryOS is a MDI application. MDI stands for Multiple Document Interface, which consists of a "main window" and a "child window". A famous example is Microsoft Word.
• When you click in the screen window, the CherryOS main window loses focus.Apparently, they embedded the another video window into CherryOS.
• They state that it will format a "HPFS" volume. This is incorrect, because Mac OS X uses HFS, not HPFS. HPFS stands for "High Performance File System" and is used by IBM OS/2, while Mac OS X uses HFS which stands for "Hierarchical File System". A later CherryOS release fixed this. Gotcha.
• Disk images are created in quite a strange way.
  There's actually lots of RAR archives with images compressed, and then automatically extracted using unrar.dll when "creating" disk images. There are 13 RAR files, ranging from 3GB to 15GB images. Here is a list of the specific name and size detail of the files:
  • cherryos_hd_3gb.rar - 1,575,206 bytes
  • cherryos_hd_4gb.rar - 2,098,796 bytes
  • cherryos_hd_5gb.rar - 2,623,145 bytes
  • cherryos_hd_6gb.rar - 3,147,745 bytes
  • cherryos_hd_7gb.rar - 3,672,699 bytes
  • cherryos_hd_8gb.rar - 4,196,719 bytes
  • cherryos_hd_9gb.rar - 4,720,917 bytes
  • cherryos_hd_10gb.rar - 5,245,531 bytes
  • cherryos_hd_11gb.rar - 5,769,876 bytes
  • cherryos_hd_12gb.rar - 6,294,497 bytes
  • cherryos_hd_13gb.rar - 6,818,853 bytes
  • cherryos_hd_14gb.rar - 7,343,481 bytes
  • cherryos_hd_15gb.rar - 7,867,832 bytes

Evidences

• The way networking in CherryOS and PearPC are so similar.
  Originally, CherryOS promised to have zero-configuration networking ability,
  but now, it requires users to do tons of configuring.
• The AstroAMatro or Xeminga file.
  Users have reported that the content of this file is identical to PearPC's configuration file.
  pci_rtl8139_mac and pci_3c90x_mac are apparent evidences.

  Although CherryOS 1.2, the newer release, now has some slightly variable names, they still look similar.
  They are trying to cover up this.

• The way how blank disk images are created.
  There's actually tons of RAR archives with images compressed, and then automatically extracted using unrar.dll when "creating" disk images.
  There are 13 RAR files, ranging from 3GB to 15GB images, as mentioned previously.
  Why would the application "hang for a while" when "formatting" images?
  If you've ever extract an image file using WinRAR, it also appears to stop responding as well.
  The conclusion: it's just extracting files, not formatting any images.
• How networking is done.

  Originally, CherryOS promised to have zero-configuration networking ability, but now,
  it requires users to do tons of configuring.
  The steps and configuration are identical to configuring with OpenVPN.
  The only difference is that CherryOS installs the adapter for you.

• The AstroAMatro or the Xeminga file.
  The content of this file is identical to PearPC's configuration file.
  pci_rtl8139_mac and pci_3c90x_mac are apparent evidences.

  The contents of the file is as follows:

  pci_ide0_master_installed = 1
  
  pci_ide0_master_image = "e:\CherryOS_HD\Mac OS\hdimage.img"
  
  pci_ide0_master_type = "hd"
  
  pci_3c90x_installed = 0
  
  pci_3c90x_mac = "DE:AD:CA:FE:12:34" 
  
  pci_usb_installed = 1
  
  nvram_file = "nvram" 
  
  pci_ide0_slave_installed = 1
  
  
  pci_ide0_slave_image = "H:\Mac.OS.X.10.3.Panther.CD1.iso"
  
   pci_ide0_slave_type = "cdrom"
  
  prom_bootmethod = "auto" 
  
  redraw_interval_msec = 10
  
   cos_start_resolution = "1024x768x32"
  
  memory_size = 0x20000000
  
  pci_rtl8139_installed = 0
  
  pci_rtl8139_mac = "DE:AD:CA:FE:12:35" 
  
  
  key_toggle_mouse_grab = "F6" 
  
  cpu_pvr = 0x000c0000

  It's the identical configuration syntax. Redrawing interval is setted to 10, which is why it's so "smooth".
  Note that a recent CherryOS 1.2 update has different value names for the configuration file.
  To sum all of this up with one word? Cover-up.

• Focusing mode.
  When you click in the screen window, the CherryOS main window loses focus.
  Apparently, they embedded the PearPC video window into CherryOS successfully.
  It appears that they somehow replaced SDL with CherryOS's subsystem, making the video render inside CherryOS.

Possibilities of Legal Action

Personnels that have right to take legal actions

• Sebastian Biallas as the main developer of PearPC
  Reason: Violation of GNU Public License, using the code without also releasing the source.
• Daniel Foesch for G4 Altivec emulating
  Reason: Violation of GNU Public License, using the code without also releasing the source.
• canadacow (for sound emulation code)
  Reason: Violation of GNU Public License, using the code without also releasing the source.
• alex_extreme, Jens, robstah, thewer, and all other PearPC contributers
  Reason: Violation of GNU Public License, using the code without also releasing the source.
• James Yonan at OpenVPN Solutions LLC (for networking)
  Reason: Violation of GNU Public License, using the code without also releasing the source.
• Anygraaf Oy as the author of HFV Explorer (for shared drive)
  Reason: Violation of copyright law (using the program without the author's permission).

Companies that have right to take legal actions

• Apple Computers
  Reason: You know how zealous they are when it's about Mac OS X
• Indigo Rose Corp
  Reason: Using an illegal copy of the Setup Factory software.

Here is a list of company that can possibly take legal action on CherryOS:

• Microsoft Corp
  Reason: Possible pirated use of Visual Basic.

Links

• CherryOS - Is It Real?
• Advanced binary analysis of CherryOS: proof of theft
• eventhorizon's CherryOS code-stealing evidence

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