Solaris 11.2 and Licensing Issues

When you download Oracle's VirtualBox ( https://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Downloads ), they point out that they make a number of VMs available ( http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/community/developer-vm/index.html ). Many of them are clearly meant for Oracle training courses and not that interesting to me, but a couple that caught my attention were "Oracle Solaris 10.2" and "11.2". It's almost an irrelevant OS at this point (most servers are Linux or one of the open versions of BSD), but I'm always curious. And I used Solaris for three years ... I'm embarrassed to say how long ago. But you have to agree to the "Oracle Technology Network Developer License Terms". Any non-free license makes me leery, and gets me reading. This one includes a couple zingers:

  • "The Programs may communicate configuration data to Oracle."
  • "You may not: ... use the Programs for your own internal business purposes (other than developing, testing, prototyping and demonstrating your applications) or for any commercial or production purposes ..."

I also suspect from comments about "test programs" that the whole thing may commit seppuku after 30 days: I'm playing with so many VMs that there's a fair chance I'd set it aside for that long and return to find it dead. A little too much like a Tamagotchi for me - but at least the Tamagotchi doesn't phone home.

Update: With some reluctance I agreed with their license, but then I found I had to create an (admittedly free) Oracle account to even do the download ... Too much tracking. Too much headache.