by ngetchell on 11/11/24, 11:47 PM
Nice try Broadcom! I gave virt-manager a try and am happy to have made the switch.
I'll never install a VMware product again.
by miah_ on 11/11/24, 11:52 PM
Instead of waiting for the rug pull, just use something open source.
by burnt-resistor on 11/12/24, 5:03 AM
After endless PR blunders, they're trying to lure back customers probably with a spam platform or freemium nonsense. Nope, they shat the bed and now they have to sleep in it.
by ksec on 11/12/24, 12:21 AM
Even their Pro version are free. So are they basically abandoning the project and giving it away?
by tech234a on 11/12/24, 2:40 AM
by evanjrowley on 11/12/24, 10:08 AM
Literally a few days ago I was on their website trying to figure out how I could possibly get a commercial license just to test an OVA. Going through sales, convincing my manager to make a PO, and going through the expense reimbursement process is a lot of hoops to jump through just to test a virtual machine.
by onoke on 11/12/24, 1:16 AM
I am using VirtualBox. Who will be happy about this? Server Hosting providers?
by delsarto on 11/12/24, 1:04 AM
See also VMware Workstation Shifting from Proprietary Code to Using Upstream KVM (
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42013032) which I'm sure plays into this too ...
A while ago (like ~10 years ago) VMWare workstation, or some of the things virtualbox graphics drivers did, seemed to be the only reasonable ways to run a virtualised desktop with 3d or at more than 5fps. But these days virtio and spice seems to work just fine.
by completelylegit on 11/11/24, 11:50 PM
What a nice trap to set
by egberts1 on 11/12/24, 7:28 AM
After Broadcom's incredible zeal at killing their prized goose that lays golden eggs, they are killing it to a point of beating a dead horse.
by exsomet on 11/12/24, 11:55 AM
My number one choice for desktop hypervisor on Linux would be virtualbox, except that unity mode hasn’t worked in years and that’s my most needed feature.
It feels like a weird spot to be in that there’s a bunch of competing options and all of them have weirdness or broken features (no slight to the people building these - far be it from me to complain about free stuff).
by pjmlp on 11/12/24, 8:57 AM
VMware Workstation was my go to for "Desktop Linux", nowadays I use WSL, and most likely this is the main reason it is now free, before getting the axe eventually.
by tiffanyh on 11/12/24, 8:27 PM
What's the best alternative?
(since so many people in this thread think this is the end of VMware)
by 486sx33 on 11/12/24, 1:15 AM
“The paid versions of these offerings – Workstation Pro and Fusion Pro – are no longer available for purchase. ”