LHC@home

If I remember right, CMS requires the Virtualbox extension pack, right? Well, just a fair warning that Oracle is sending cease-and-desist letters to any non-personal usage of the Virtualbox Extension pack without paying for an enterprise license. Base Virtualbox is GPLv2, but it turns out the extension pack is proprietary. No CMS on my work computers for me, I suppose.

I suppose it is NOT absolutely mandatory to install the extension pack for running CMS, same is true for ATLAS and THEORY.
However, without the extension pack, important/interesting information about a given running task cannot be called up.
I would guess the way we are using the Oracle VM here does NOT fall under "non-personal usage", does it?

VirtualBox extension pack is not a requirement. Having installed it makes following the job's progress easier.
For CMS (and Theory) you may use 'Show Graphics' on a running task in BOINC Manager to show logs.

Just to confirm CP's message, the VirtualBox extension pack is not required to run the payloads.

As I was mentioning a few postings above:

I would guess the way we are using the Oracle VM here does NOT fall under "non-personal usage", does it?

can anyone verify - or falsify - this assumption?

I am not qualified to offer any legal opinion, however since the license change, the LHC@home project no longer recommends or requires the installation of the extension pack. The decision to install it depends on your understanding of the license and your own personal circumstances.

The Oracle site says that the Extension Pack has license number 11 on 21 May 2020. What has changed?
Tullio

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As I was mentioning a few postings above:

I would guess the way we are using the Oracle VM here does NOT fall under "non-personal usage", does it?

can anyone verify - or falsify - this assumption?

Note that I Am Not a Lawyer, but I do know that our legal team said that in my case (a non-teaching staff of a public-sector university), it does not fall under personal use, as it is based on who owns the computer in question (the university in my case), and what the primary purpose of using the computer is (not directly related to teaching or learning, as I'm IT support staff). They could just be being over-cautious, but a cease-and-desist letter tends to make legal departments do that. If you're running it at home, you should be fine. It's really just if the computer is owned by a business, government, etc.

The Oracle site says that the Extension Pack has license number 11 on 21 May 2020. What has changed?
Tullio

To my knowledge, nothing. It's been this way for a while, so any change was quite a bit back. It's not (necessarily) that the license changed, it's that they now have sent a cease-and-desist to us. My guess is that the difference is that they're harvesting telemetry better from VBox, at least on Windows hosts, so they have a better idea who owns a computer and whether they're using the extension pack. Of course I could be wrong. This isn't meant to be a message meant to scare a bunch of home users. I meant this as a friendly heads-up to those of us whose boss is kind enough to let you crunch while your work computer isn't in use, so you can uninstall the extension pack before they get a scary letter like mine did.

Well, just a fair warning that Oracle is sending cease-and-desist letters to any non-personal usage of the Virtualbox Extension pack without paying for an enterprise license.

the interesting thing is: if one looks at their homepage where the extension pack is offered for download
https://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Download
nothing like this is written there.

VirtualBox Extension Pack is not needed.

With the free Oracle VM VirtualBox Manager 'Show'-button, you have access to the VM-Console with the ALT-Key functions.
Leaving the GUI with menu Machine - Detach GUI

With BOINC Manager's 'Show graphics' you have access to the running.log from CMS and Theory.

the interesting thing is: if one looks at their homepage where the extension pack is offered for download
https://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Download
nothing like this is written there.

It doesn't need to be on the download page for the EULA to be legally binding, though I agree they should've put it there as well. The license in question is here: https://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/VirtualBox_PUEL

Again, I'm not saying this is universal for every organization, nor why it happened now, I just know we got an valid cease-and-desist document from Oracle at my job instructing us to either pay for an enterprise license or stop using it. If you don't think this is pertinent to you, feel free to ignore this post.

VirtualBox Extension Pack is not needed.

With the free Oracle VM VirtualBox Manager 'Show'-button, you have access to the VM-Console with the ALT-Key functions.
Leaving the GUI with menu Machine - Detach GUI

With BOINC Manager's 'Show graphics' you have access to the running.log from CMS and Theory.

Thanks for that. I haven't noticed any problems from uninstalling the extension pack personally, so that checks out on my end. This post is, again, just a notification for anyone who still had it installed and are in the group of people at risk for this.

I have downloaded the latest version of VirtualBox without downloading the Extension Pack. After installing it when I opened it it asked me if I wanted the Extension Pack and I said yes and Installed it.
Tullio

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I have downloaded the latest version of VirtualBox without downloading the Extension Pack. After installing it when I opened it it asked me if I wanted the Extension Pack and I said yes and Installed it.
Tullio

That's because you had in the previous VirtualBox version the Extention Pack installed.
When you install the Extention Pack you have to click the 'Agree' button to proceed.