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A former employer was threatened by Oracle because some downloads for the (only free for noncommercial use) VirtualBox Extension Pack came from an IP block owne

A former employer was threatened by Oracle because some downloads for the (only free for noncommercial use) VirtualBox Extension Pack came from an IP block owned by the organization. Home users are probably safe, but Oracle's harassment engine has incredible reach.

thu2111 7y ago
Well ... that sounds initially unreasonable, but then if I think about it a bit more I'm not sure how you'd actually enforce a non-commercial use only license without some basic heuristic like "companies are commercial". Is the expectation here that firms offering software under non-commercial-use-is-free licenses just run it entirely on the honour system? And isn't it true that many firms use unlicensed software, hence the need for audits?
- hackmiester 7y ago
  They harass universities about it too. Which is ludicrous, because universities often have residence halls, and people who live there often download VirtualBox extensions.
  - malty7301 7y ago
    Their PUEL license even has a grant specifically for educational use.
    - secabeen 7y ago
      It does, but it's not 100% clear if administrative employees of universities count as educational. Sure, if you are teaching a class with it, go for it; but running a VM in it for the university accounting office is not as clear.
    - HorstG 7y ago
      Education might not be the same as research in this license's terms. And there are even software vendors picking nits about writing a thesis being either research or education, depending on their mood and purse fill level...
- smileybarry 7y ago
  IIRC VirtualBox offers to download the Extension Pack without stating it's not free for commercial use. There isn't even a link to the EULA in the download dialog as far as I can tell (from Google Images, at least). Conversely, VirtualBox itself is free for commercial use. Feels more like a honeypot than license auditing. They can also apply stronger heuristics, like popping up a dialogue box if the computer is centrally-managed (e.g.: Mac MDM, Windows domain, Windows Pro/Enterprise, etc.).
  - Polylactic_acid 7y ago
    Wait is this the pack that gets screen resizing and copy/paste working?
    - DoofusOfDeath 7y ago
      A tad offtopic, but on my 2017 Macbook Pro the "pack" was called VMWare Fusion. With my MBP as host and Ubuntu as guest, I found that VirtualBox (with and without guest extensions installed) had a lot of graphical performance issues that Fusion did not.
    - waste_monk 7y ago
      You're thinking of the Guest Additions which is part of the base Virtualbox package and free for commercial use. The (commercially licensed) Extensions pack provide "Support for USB 2.0 and USB 3.0 devices, VirtualBox RDP, disk encryption, NVMe and PXE boot for Intel cards"[1] and some other functionality e.g. webcam passthrough [2]. There may be additional functionality enabled by the Extension pack I cannot find at a glance, but those are the main things. [1] https://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Downloads https://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Downloads [2] https://www.virtualbox.org/manual/ch01.html#intro-installing https://www.virtualbox.org/manual/ch01.html#intro-installing
talideon 7y ago
My employer straight up banned the use of VirtualBox entirely _just in case_. They'd rather pay for VMWare Fusion licenses than deal with any potential crap from Oracle.
- umanwizard 7y ago
  Anecdotal, but VirtualBox has always been a bit flaky for me. VMWare Fusion, on the other hand, powers the desktop environment I've used as a daily work machine for the last 6 months, and I've had absolutely zero problems other than trackpad scrolling getting emulated as mouse wheel events (making pixel-perfect scroll impossible). Despite that one annoyance, it's definitely worth paying for if you're using it for any serious or professional purpose.
  - vetinari 7y ago
    On the other hand, VMWare Fusion kernel extension is the only culprit, why I've seen kernel panic on Mac.
- pizza234 7y ago
  This is throwing the baby along with the bathwater. VirtualBox itself is GPL. There is no lawsuit risk. What requires "commercial considerations" is the extension pack. The extension pack is required for: > USB 2.0 and USB 3.0 devices, VirtualBox RDP, disk encryption, NVMe and PXE boot for Intel cards If licensing needs to be considered (ie. in a corporate environment), but one doesn't need the functionalities above, then there's no issue.
  - talideon 7y ago
    > This is throwing the baby along with the bathwater. It might be, but let's just say that Oracle aren't big fans of $WORK, and our founders are big fans of them. Thus our legal department are rather tetchy about anything that could give them even the slightest chance of doing anything. > What requires "commercial considerations" is the extension pack. And our legal department are nervous about that being installed, even by accident, so they prefer to minimise the possibility.

thu2111 7y ago

Well ... that sounds initially unreasonable, but then if I think about it a bit more I'm not sure how you'd actually enforce a non-commercial use only license without some basic heuristic like "companies are commercial". Is the expectation here that firms offering software under non-commercial-use-is-free licenses just run it entirely on the honour system? And isn't it true that many firms use unlicensed software, hence the need for audits?

hackmiester 7y ago
They harass universities about it too. Which is ludicrous, because universities often have residence halls, and people who live there often download VirtualBox extensions.
- malty7301 7y ago
  Their PUEL license even has a grant specifically for educational use.
  - secabeen 7y ago
    It does, but it's not 100% clear if administrative employees of universities count as educational. Sure, if you are teaching a class with it, go for it; but running a VM in it for the university accounting office is not as clear.
  - HorstG 7y ago
    Education might not be the same as research in this license's terms. And there are even software vendors picking nits about writing a thesis being either research or education, depending on their mood and purse fill level...
smileybarry 7y ago
IIRC VirtualBox offers to download the Extension Pack without stating it's not free for commercial use. There isn't even a link to the EULA in the download dialog as far as I can tell (from Google Images, at least). Conversely, VirtualBox itself is free for commercial use. Feels more like a honeypot than license auditing. They can also apply stronger heuristics, like popping up a dialogue box if the computer is centrally-managed (e.g.: Mac MDM, Windows domain, Windows Pro/Enterprise, etc.).
- Polylactic_acid 7y ago
  Wait is this the pack that gets screen resizing and copy/paste working?
  - DoofusOfDeath 7y ago
    A tad offtopic, but on my 2017 Macbook Pro the "pack" was called VMWare Fusion. With my MBP as host and Ubuntu as guest, I found that VirtualBox (with and without guest extensions installed) had a lot of graphical performance issues that Fusion did not.
  - waste_monk 7y ago
    You're thinking of the Guest Additions which is part of the base Virtualbox package and free for commercial use. The (commercially licensed) Extensions pack provide "Support for USB 2.0 and USB 3.0 devices, VirtualBox RDP, disk encryption, NVMe and PXE boot for Intel cards"[1] and some other functionality e.g. webcam passthrough [2]. There may be additional functionality enabled by the Extension pack I cannot find at a glance, but those are the main things. [1] https://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Downloads https://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Downloads [2] https://www.virtualbox.org/manual/ch01.html#intro-installing https://www.virtualbox.org/manual/ch01.html#intro-installing

talideon 7y ago

My employer straight up banned the use of VirtualBox entirely _just in case_. They'd rather pay for VMWare Fusion licenses than deal with any potential crap from Oracle.

umanwizard 7y ago
Anecdotal, but VirtualBox has always been a bit flaky for me. VMWare Fusion, on the other hand, powers the desktop environment I've used as a daily work machine for the last 6 months, and I've had absolutely zero problems other than trackpad scrolling getting emulated as mouse wheel events (making pixel-perfect scroll impossible). Despite that one annoyance, it's definitely worth paying for if you're using it for any serious or professional purpose.
- vetinari 7y ago
  On the other hand, VMWare Fusion kernel extension is the only culprit, why I've seen kernel panic on Mac.
pizza234 7y ago
This is throwing the baby along with the bathwater. VirtualBox itself is GPL. There is no lawsuit risk. What requires "commercial considerations" is the extension pack. The extension pack is required for: > USB 2.0 and USB 3.0 devices, VirtualBox RDP, disk encryption, NVMe and PXE boot for Intel cards If licensing needs to be considered (ie. in a corporate environment), but one doesn't need the functionalities above, then there's no issue.
- talideon 7y ago
  > This is throwing the baby along with the bathwater. It might be, but let's just say that Oracle aren't big fans of $WORK, and our founders are big fans of them. Thus our legal department are rather tetchy about anything that could give them even the slightest chance of doing anything. > What requires "commercial considerations" is the extension pack. And our legal department are nervous about that being installed, even by accident, so they prefer to minimise the possibility.