VirtualBox is free of charge, but the use of the “Oracle VM VirtualBox Extension Pack” harbours financial risks.
VirtualBox is basically free of charge. It is open source and is licensed under the GPL licence. This means that commercial use is also possible.
Licence trap Extension Pack
However, there is a pitfall, the Extension Pack. This upgrades a few functions. USB 2.0, 3.0 support, RDP and other things. It is also free to use, but only for private purposes.
Corporate customers have to pay. What’s more, installation is easy and there are no big warnings. Many a company has already been unpleasantly surprised here. Installations are reported to Oracle and then Oracle may get in touch and demand money.
That gets expensive. Although a licence only costs 50 dollars per user, the minimum purchase quantity is 100 units, which then costs a corresponding amount. You could almost suspect a business model here.
Check whether the extension pack has been installed
If you want to check whether the extension pack is installed, we can check the installed extensions via Tools – Extension Pack Manager. Well, it’s actually already too late here and Oracle has already been notified of the installation.
Here we can find the package if necessary, select it and uninstall it.
Conclusion
As already mentioned, this seems to be a good business model for Oracle if you look on the Internet. One company installs the stuff and then 100 licences become due. It would actually be fair to make the whole thing transparent and chargeable for everyone. 50 dollars would also be a price that is basically okay for the function. But there are no individual licences.
It will also be interesting to see how Oracle obtains the data and what is installed when the Extension Pack is installed.