On Jun 28, 2010, at 12:40 PM, John R Pierce <pierce at hogranch.com> wrote: > On 06/28/10 9:19 AM, Whit Blauvelt wrote: >> On Mon, Jun 28, 2010 at 09:06:43AM -0700, John R Pierce wrote: >> >> >>> I second the emotion on VBox, its a nice piece of work. >>> >>> Read the license carefully, however. Its no longer free for use as a >>> server in a business environment, only free for 'personal' use. Larry >>> needs a new boat. >>> >> They also clarify that 'personal' use can include in a business environment, >> if you're just installing on a system here and there and not doing a mass >> rollout on multiple machines. But that's from their website. Haven't read >> the full license to see how closely their informal synopsis matches the >> lawyereese. >> > > what I read said personal use in a business environment meant the VM > isn't a server accessed by anyone else. I can run vbox on my office > desktop and host a VM for my own use. I can't, however, host a > webserver VM that my department uses. > > but IANAL. If you use it in a production environment you will probably want to buy support where you can request bug fixes and such. But nobody is going to audit you if your performing an "extended" evaluation of the product. Most people who end up installing it for large deployments end up buying the support, if not to be 'legit', then for regulatory compliance reasons. -Ross