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Commercial use

Commercial Use

VMware Player is also now available for commercial use. A commercial  license for VMware Player 5 is included with VMware Fusion 5  Professional to enable customers to  run virtual machines on Windows or Linux PCs and on Macs using a single  license key!


Do I get this right ? - to use VMplayer on Windows or Linux in a commerical context we have to buy a Fusion license ?

Sounds very strange to me - similar to going to a fruit-shop to buy an apple and getting the response: we dont sell apples - buy a banana and you will get one apple for free


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Do you need support with a VMFS recovery problem ? - send a message via skype "sanbarrow"
I do not support Workstation 16 at this time ...

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WoodyZ
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Immortal

From http://www.vmware.com/products/player/overview.html ...

Run Restricted Virtual Machines

VMware Player with a commercial license will run restricted virtual machines created by VMware Workstation or VMware Fusion Professional. It’s the easiest way to run restricted virtual machines on Windows or Linux PCs.

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DanielRigal
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You certainly have to buy the licence if you want to use the new restricted VMs feature but that is not the question.

The question is not about features, it is about whether you are violating the EULA by using VMWare Player in any business context without purchasing the licence. Recent announcements make me think that this is indeed the case. It may even be that this was always the case but nobody ever noticed.

I guess you could diff the 5.0 EULA against the 4.0 one and, if you find EULAs as incomprehensible as most people do, seek legal advice on what it actually means. I suspect purchasing a licence would be cheaper than the legal advice though.

I agree that the whole thing is confusing. What is really worrying is that even a guru/moderator/expert finds it confusing. I think it risks sending people away thinking that maybe a competing product that is unambiguously free would be an easier option which is obviously not what is wanted at all.

I think people making proprietary software licenses forget that there is more than one way to put off customers/users. There is the price, of course, but there is also the general hassle factor of working out what you are actually allowed to do with a licence and how you are supposed to demonstrate compliance. This is greatly exacerbated by confusing EULAs and unclear announcements around them. This problem can be greatly reduced by keeping the conditions of the licence simple and offering a clear and unambiguous summary of the EULA in terms people can actually understand alongside the legal jargon. Most people will comply with the rules if they can understand them.

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continuum
Immortal
Immortal

The reason why I posted is the really strange thing that happens if a user clicks the "buynow" button on the GUI main screen.

I would expect that a "buy this product now" button links to a site where I can buy this product now..
Instead it links to a site where I can buy a product for another app that needs a completely different computer to run.

First time I clicked that button I had to laugh and thought  " the guy that made this was drunk"

See the screenshot ...
Maybe it is just a bad link in the german redirection ... anyway - to me it looked like a joke.

... or - os it really intended like this ?
Is that really the correct way to buy a Player-licence ?
Do I have to buy a product I dont need and cant use to get the app I really want as a free give away ?
http://sanbarrow.com/img/buynow.png


________________________________________________
Do you need support with a VMFS recovery problem ? - send a message via skype "sanbarrow"
I do not support Workstation 16 at this time ...

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DanielRigal
Contributor
Contributor

That seems pretty explicit. Clearly you do need to buy the Fusion licence for any commercial use, not just to get the new features.

As you say, it seems a weird way to do it though. Realigning the product names before introducing this would have made a lot more sense. At the very least the licence should be sold as a Player/Fusion licence from a separate page to Fusion itself. The link will convert into more sales if people instantly understand what is being offered. If Windows users see a page about Mac software they will be confused.

Oddly enough, that message and link are not shown in the Linux version. The only "upgrade" or "buy" option is for workstation.

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Another_User
Contributor
Contributor

Same issue here.

The EULA states that:

VMware Player is intended for your own personal non-commercial use only.  Player may only be used commercially or be re-distributed with written agreement from VMware. Requests should be submitted online at http://www.vmware.com/go/playerdistribution.

What I take from this is:

  1. If I fill out the online form, vmware may (or may not) permit our company to use VMPlayer 5 commerically.
  2. If I by VMWare Fusion Pro, which I don't need, I get a license to use VMPlayer 5
  3. It is not possible to buy a license key for VMPlayer 5 for commercial use.

I guess we will stick with using version 4 until this is made simplier. I can't really justify purchasing either vmworkstation or fusion at this stage.

This seems to be being made more difficult than what is needs to be.

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niranjanpatil
Contributor
Contributor

Just updated to VMware player 5 and I noticed it immediately. This is really a 180 degree shift in their licensing terms and their support for free commercial use is diluted now. I am not sure why VMware did this.

And what's the point in buying Fusion (for Mac) when what I need is just Player for Windows? If I every decide to pay, I would rather pay for Workstation.

Time to switch back to version 4.

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Marc008
Contributor
Contributor

Unfortunately we'll be doing the same. Back to 4 and reconsidering platform options.

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saberman1
Contributor
Contributor

The EULA also includes:

9.1 Player

(a)     Additional License Terms:

VMware grants you a nonexclusive, nontransferable license, without rights to sublicense, to (i) use the Software solely for your own internal information processing services and computing needs in connection with permitted uses of the Software on a single computer; (ii) use the documentation accompanying the Software

Does that mean I cannot install VM Player on both my desktop and my laptop?

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Marc008
Contributor
Contributor

Our company has contacted VMWare for licenses for internal use. They have gotten back to us with an amended EULA so I'm happy with that outcome.

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saberman1
Contributor
Contributor

>They have gotten back to us with an amended EULA so I'm happy with that outcome.

What did they change and how much did it cost?

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Marc008
Contributor
Contributor

>>They have gotten back to us with an amended EULA so I'm happy with that outcome.

> What did they change and how much did it cost?

Essentially that all employees had to abide by the EULA conditions and were not licensed if they left the company. Since we were using the product internally and not distributing with our software, it was no cost. Not sure if that would always be the case.

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jeremyd2019
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Contributor

Hopefully they will include that amendment in the normal EULA moving forward.

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JJoel42
Hot Shot
Hot Shot

The intent of the change to the VMware Player 5 EULA is to enable VMware's customers to legally run VMware Player for commercial use.   Recently, VMware has had thousands of companies request to use VMware Player to deploy corporate desktop images, provide training, enable software development, conduct compatibility testing, distribute product evaluations and other even more creative scenarios.

Until now, VMware has been unable to accomodate most of these requests since we were not able to provide support for a free product and making exceptions via an EULA amendment is a tedious and expensive task that involves the lawyers.

To solve this and make VMware Player available to our customers in the easiest manner possible, VMware has included the right to run VMware Player commercially with the VMware Fusion Professional license.   This allows our users who need to run Virtual Machines on hundreds (even thousands) of computers to purchase one product that works on Windows, Linux and Mac OS X devices. 

With a VMware Fusion Professional License, organizations do not need to track how many of their employees are running on Windows laptops vs. MacBook Pros and they do not need to worry about the number of users who are considering switching to Macs.  The license key included with VMware Fusion Professional can be entered into VMware Fusion or VMware Player and can be moved from one machine to the next - across platforms - as long as the organization has purchased one license per device.

We believe that including a license for VMware Player with Fusion Professional that can be easily purchased online, is offered with volume discounts and can be purchased along with a support and services agreements is an exciting solution that meets the needs of our customers.

We hope you will agree, but we recognize that we can always improve and your feedback would be appreciated. 

P.S.  We realize that it is confusing for customers to purchase "Fusion Pro" to get "Player"......   We considered rebranding VMware Player to VMware Fusion for Windows and Linux.... but thought this would be just as confusing to the millions of existing VMware Player users.  (all using it for for non-commercial purposes of course!)

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TonyPombo
Contributor
Contributor

I do not agree that forcing users of Player to buy Fusion is a good solution.  As a 100% Windows shop, it seems wasteful (and wrong) to buy a Macintosh application to get a license to use a [previously] free application.

I understand that VMware is not selfless enough to provide support for a free product, and that is understandable.  But, they should still offer Player for free (especially considering how good competing products have become).  They could choose to only offer support for people who have purchased Workstation or Fusion.  You see, buying Fusion should provide a support license, not a product license.

As for our company, we are moving all users of Player to Windows 8 Pro.  This way we can use Hyper-V and eliminate the reliance on VMware.  (For us, Hyper-V provides all the features we need).  We are considering a similar move for our ESX server systems too.

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jbhall56
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Seriously?????

I can just hear the conversation at the Marketing meeting, "Let's fake out management and boost our sales of flagging Macintosh software by mandating that VMware Player users (all of which by the way are NOT on a Macintosh platform) purchase Fusion so that they get a commercial license for Player."

If your Macintosh solution is dying on the vine, then kill it off.  Don't stick your user base with some cockamamie scheme to make it appear a sales leader.

Jeff Hall Minneapolis, MN, USA
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L1onKin
Contributor
Contributor

I know this is an old thread but the answer is still a bit blurry ..

We want to use VMWare player in a school (primary / secondary school) so that the kids wont be able to mess around with our computers.

Will it be classed as 'Commercial use'?

Thanks

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WoodyZ
Immortal
Immortal

Roywang wrote: I know this is an old thread but the answer is still a bit blurry ..

We want to use VMWare player in a school (primary / secondary school) so that the kids wont be able to mess around with our computers.

Will it be classed as 'Commercial use'?

This actually might depend on the version of VMware Player you're using however from the latest release's product page it states...

Free for Personal Use

Player Plus is licensed for commercial use but if you simply want to learn about virtual machines or run virtual machines at home you can always use VMware® Player™ for free!
Download Player for personal use.

The operative words in that statement are "free for personal use at home" and an educational institution certainly constitutes educational use and at one time there was a separate educational use license, however I do not know if that is still applicable.  So, unless a VMware employee can provide an authoritative answer I'd suggest you contact VMware directly and then post back with what the answer was.

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L1onKin
Contributor
Contributor

Thanks WoodyZ, Much appreciated

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L1onKin
Contributor
Contributor

by the way, we want to use vmware player 4

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