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Early testers of Maui-X Stream's Cherry OS report that it boots up in exactly the same way as the open source PearPC, has the same error messages and 'nearly identical' source files.

'When you examine the executables, it's still got so many identical strings that aren't just generic,' Dave Schroeder, a senior systems engineer at the University of Wisconsin-Madison told Wired. 'CherryOS is still using significant amounts, if not all, of PearPC's code as the emulation engine.'

The similarities come as no surprise since CherryOS's creator, Arben Kryeziu,

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was accused last year of stealing PearPC code. Although the PearPC code is open source under the GPL License, which means its code is freely available, anyone who uses the code must then make the modifications similarly available for free.

Maui X-Stream denies using any PearPC code.

'We are building an emulator like they are that uses Mac language,' said its president Jim Kartes. 'PearPC uses Mac language and next thing you know, they say we are using their code. This is a totally different architecture.'

However arguments over code may be the least of its problems. CherryOS lets you install OS X 10.3 on a machine running Windows XP. However Apple's licence states categorically that it 'allows you to install and use one copy of the Apple Software on a single Apple-labeled computer at a time.' Clearly anyone installing OS X on a PC will be in breach of this.

CherryOS costs $49.95 from www.mxsinc.com. A free 14-day trial is available; according to Kartes, it has already been downloaded more than 100,000 times.

Early reports vary, some suggest that it constantly crashes and renders unstable normally-reliable OS X applications, but its speed appears to be good at about 80 per cent of the host PC's performance.