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Oracle demands $12K from network biz that doesn't use its software
- majkinetor 7y agoHistory repeats: https://github.com/chocolatey-community/chocolatey-coreteampackages/issues/1145 https://github.com/chocolatey-community/chocolatey-coreteamp...
- jopsen 7y agoHmm, selling software by embedded a purchase agreement in the EULA. That's innovation at Oracle? Seems like scammers should be ignored. Anyone can send you a bill, doesn't mean you should pay it.
- blackhaz 7y agoDear Oracle, I am ready to pay the bill. Please reply with your bank account details. EULA: [ Lots of boring text ] By replying to this e-mail you irrevocably agree to a $50,000 processing fee. [ Lots of other text ]
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- mathattack 7y agoAll the legacy software firms are grasping for straws like this.
- dade_ 7y agoIt is unfortunate that Oracle can't put this effort into fixing their horrible contract management system so that I can get Oracle support quotes on time.
- panpanna 7y agoThis is what happens when your legal department is 10 times bigger than your engineering department.
- klingonopera 7y ago> received a bill from Oracle for $12,200 for using the company's proprietary VirtualBox Extension Pack, which provides extra capabilities for the free GPL-licensed VirtualBox hypervisor This still means that vanilla VirtualBox is GPL, and can be (freely) used for businesses, right? EDIT: Looking at the downloads page, apparently so, VB is licensed with GPLv2. The Extensions Pack following that is licensed PUEL. Luckily, in my case, only vanilla was installed. But with VB's nag of new version, the possibility of a licensing bait-and-switch on a newer version and Oracle having left a bad taste... I'm uninstalling VB from all PCs except one or two devices as a precautionary measure.
- repolfx 7y agoNot really sure what alternative people would prefer here. DRM to ensure it doesn't run at all unless it can contact a license server? Complete with licensing related outages? Oracle's approach here isn't especially unusual and seems better than video game style DRM. Always run, ping home and let pirates be mopped up asynchronously or (more commonly) businesses that just aren't disciplined about licensing contacted to get proper billing in place. If you want to sell software users can run themselves, and not just rent via a cloud service, what better approach is there?
- mleo 7y agoLots of software provides base software and free trial of premium features with time limit without a paid license.
- repolfx 7y agoAnd so does Oracle. You usually only pay if it's in production. But again - at some point there needs to be some mechanism to catch people who don't pay. All other alternatives seem to be more aggressive and worse.
- znpy 7y agoRemember kids: Oracle has no customers, only hostages!
- mangosherbet 7y agoFor anyone that's curious, it seems you can check whether or not you have the Extension Pack installed with `VBoxManage list extpacks` in the CLI. I get the output "Extension Packs: 0". Not sure if that's the 'right' way to check.
- equalunique 7y agoIf my employer's C-levels saw this headline, they'd probably just ban Oracle outright and kill me several-VM lab env.
- toomuchtodo 7y agoNever let a crisis go to waste. Use it as an opportunity to get buy in for time and resources to replace VirtualBox with something more open. If you write code as part of the initiative, and it's not specific to your business, try to contribute it back to the community.
- toomuchtodo 7y agoWhat are the best alternatives to Virtual Box?
- brutus1213 7y agoYes .. specifically, I use vanilla VB to drive Vagrant. I noticed that libvirt seems to be an alternative .. does it work well? Any other options?