VirtualBox Guest Additions with Virtualbox OSE in a company?

[mariuszcygan]

Are additives "VirtualBox Guest Additions" can be used in the company for commercial purposes, using the version Virtualbox OSE?
I read licenses Puel and I'm not sure whether it is legal ...

Please help.

ps
Excuse me for construe sentences. I do not know English well

[TerryE]

The OSE version cover all OSE components and can be used without restriction (other than the std GPL) for commerical purposes. This includes the GA.

You can also use the PUEL version commercially as long as the end user installs the package. You can't manage the PUEL version centrally. However, you can buy its commercial equivalent for (IIRC) $50 per seat.

[mariuszcygan]

From PUEL license:

(2) The “VirtualBox Guest Additions” are a set of drivers and utilities that are shipped as a subset of the Product for the purpose of being installed inside a Guest Computer to improve its performance and cooperation with the rest of the Product. In addition to and independent of the rights granted by subsection 1, Sun allows you to install, execute, copy and redistribute a) unmodified copies of the ISO installation medium of the VirtualBox Guest Additions as shipped with the Product and b) the VirtualBox Guest Additions together with the Guest Computer into which they have been installed.

Are you sure that the GA is licensed under the GPL?
Can I install it to the final users in many stations?

[TerryE]

Gosh it is really quite irritating when someone asks a Q, you answer directly and then they say are you sure?

For the avoidance of doubt all OSE GA code contains the following standard header:

Code: Select all

/*
 * Copyright (C) 2007 Sun Microsystems, Inc.
 *
 * This file is part of VirtualBox Open Source Edition (OSE), as
 * available from http://www.virtualbox.org. This file is free software;
 * you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU
 * General Public License (GPL) as published by the Free Software
 * Foundation, in version 2 as it comes in the "COPYING" file of the
 * VirtualBox OSE distribution. VirtualBox OSE is distributed in the
 * hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY of any kind.
 *
 * Please contact Sun Microsystems, Inc., 4150 Network Circle, Santa
 * Clara, CA 95054 USA or visit http://www.sun.com if you need
 * additional information or have any questions.
 */

[mariuszcygan]

VB OSE has no additives VBoxGuestAdditions. I thought the VBoxGuestAdditions_1.x.xiso file...

On the SUN and VB page I did not find data for the licensing VB OSE GA (??)

ps
When you install VB GA must accept licenses Puel to continue...

[TerryE]

Siggghhh. The PUEL version on the GA is licenced under the PUEL licence. The OSE is actually released by Sun in source form leaving it to individuals and Distributions to release their own copies. Yes, there is an OSE GA. I just posted an extract from one of the files, for goodness sake. Am I lying? It's just that it is in source form.

Most Linux distributions (Ubuntu, for example) produce OSE packages for hosts and guests of their OS. Unfortunately MS doesn't kindly build a version of the OSE guest for windows. There is, however, a web page on VirtualBox — Windows build instructions. I don't know if some kind developer provides a pre-built OSE GA for windows install, but given that you seem reluctant to do anyIresearch yourself, I googled "virtualbox OSE guest additions windows download" and came up with this: http://www.mydigitallife.info/2008/09/0 ... indows-os/

[elring]

Windows binaries for OSE Additions 1.6.6 are available at http://code.google.com/p/virtual-box-wi ... installer/.

I've modified this installer for current version of VirtualBox (2.0.6). I can upload the installer somewhere if someone wants it.

[twistedlincoln]

I've modified this installer for current version of VirtualBox (2.0.6). I can upload the installer somewhere if someone wants it.

If you have the time, that would be great!

[elring]

OK, you can download Windows binaries for OSE Additions 2.0.6 at http://rapidshare.com/files/174302951/V ... .0.6-0.exe.

Sorry for rapid, I don't have any good web for this stuff now.

Please let me know whether it works for you. It's only minimally tested.

I've already built Additions for 2.1.0, but it's completely untested.

[csb]

Hi!
I know it's been a long time since the last post here, but, the question has not been really answered, as far as I can see.

The short answer: The distributed ISO Guest Additions are PUEL licensed, NOT open source.
This is also visible in the formal PUEL license description.

Technically,
* the OSE code contains the GA code, but not all of it.
* the GA iso distributed (up to including 3.2.x, see below) is PUEL licensed because it contains code that is not part of the OSE source distribution (esp. the shared folders access code for windows, which contains either NDA stuff, or 3rd party code, I don't remember).
As not all code of the GA is distributed, the license headers of the source code do NOT apply to the (all off the) iso distribution!

I think the difference only really apply to windows. Linuxes should not be affected, as all linux GA source code is distributed and included in most distributions. No idea about other OSes.

This may be in the process of changing for the 4.0.0 version, where the distributed binary of VBox contains only OSE code (and is no longer PUEL), while the PUEL parts are distributed as extension packs.
I have not yet found "extension packs" for the GA, yet, and the iso seems to contain the shared folders, thus, is still PUEL.
Unfortunately, I have no yet managed to compile the 4.0.0 version for windows as the development tools used by oracle are "in transition" between VS05 and old DDK, and VS10 and Vista/Win7 DDK, and no information can be obtained about a working setup. This is to be changed with the later 4.0.x releases .. hopefully.

On the other hand, it would not really be a problem for Oracle to distribute an OSE version of the GA, as well ... this would also remove the cause of errors like "vboxservice.exe waiting endlessly for something that is initialised by the filesystem driver not present in the OSE edition" ... (own experience, solved around 3.2.4).

I am not part of VirtualBox, but maintain the (only?) public VBox GA win32 distribution on http://code.google.com/p/virtual-box-wi ... installer/. It seems there are not many people outside of Innotek/Sun/Oracle that compile VBox for windows (and can talk about it in public) ... while a lot do for linux.

I cannot tell when a OSE version of the 4.0.0 GA will be available, especially, as I just found out my work usage of VirtualBox IS in fact covered by the PUEL ...

Yours,
Sebastian

[Sasquatch]

The whole migration to OSE as base has been discussed in the beta section. To cut the story short, it means that everything is now under the GPLv2 license, including the GA. The installer(s) that are used are also open source. The only part that's under the PUEL license, is the ExtPack.

Shared Folders were never under the PUEL license. USB, VRDP, PXE boot, RAW Disk, those were PUEL licensed.

[Technologov]

>Shared Folders were never under the PUEL license.

Not true. Shared Folders were PUEL in the past.

Since v4.0 everything is GPL (except the extpack, which is not needed anyway)

[Sasquatch]

Not true. Shared Folders were PUEL in the past.

Really? I've always seen SF functionality in the OSE since I started using VB and that's from before Sun took over. So maybe it was in 1.4, but I've never seen it like that in 1.5.

[Technologov]

Probably Shared Folders for Unix-like guests became OSS since v1.5, and Shared Folders for Windows guests since v4.0.