"Run GNOME in a **VMWare Player** in a Linux virtual machine."

    Or:

    "Run GNOME on a virtual machine using QEMU on Linux or **Parallels**
    for **Mac** or Linux."

    promoting the use of non-free software?

This is a case of running a free program on non-free platforms.
Nonetheless, I think it is more of a problem than running on Windows,
because those non-free platforms are optional add-ons to the system.

Thanks for telling me about this.  I have not visited this site
myself:

    http://torrent.gnome.org/

Would you be so kind as to tell me the precise URLs where you
found those quotes?  If not, I will look for someone else who
will do that for me.