Licensing Issues

This page is for licensing issues content that will eventually be used to create formal documentation.  Please include information, questions, links and any other lore that may be of use.

Overview - Virtualized use of XP and Vista:

From our conference call with Microsoft on April 24, 2008

Background
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Under MIT's Microsoft Campus Agreement all MIT, faculty, staff and students are covered for Microsoft Operating System upgrades, provided that the machine being upgraded came with a valid, pre-installed operating system. Machines purchased with any version of Windows or MacOS are eligble to receive Windows OS upgrades under the Campus agreement. Machines purchased without an OS ("White Box" machines), or machines purchased with Linux as their only OS, are not eligible to be upgraded.

Under the Campus Agreement, all MIT-owned machines are covered for upgrade rights, provided that the machines are only used by MIT faculty, staff or students.

Students are allowed to install OS upgrades on one machine only. Each faculty and staff member is allowed to install an OS upgrade on one personally owned machine, provided that the software will be used for MIT purposes only.

Use of Virtualized Microsoft OS on MIT machines
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Using VMware Workstation or VMWare Fusion, Departments may have up to 4 virtualized instances of a Microsoft Operating Systems on each MIT-owned machine. Different virtualized versions of Microsoft OS (XP, Vista etc.) may be used on the same machine.

Use of Virtualized Microsoft OS on Student Machine
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Each student with a machine authorized for an upgrade under the Campus Agreement is entitled to use 4 instances of a Microsoft Operating System on that machine. Students may only use OS upgrades and virtualized instances on one machine.

Note: We are seeking clarification as to whether Microsoft will allow 4 virtualized uses of software for machines where the host OS has been downgraded from Vista to XP under the Campus Agreement downgrade rights.

 Draft statement on licensing:

You are responsible for ensuring that all software (applications and operating systems) you run on your virtual machines are licensed to run on those virtual machines.  Be aware that some vendors may have licensing restrictions related to virtual machines.

OS Licensing Overview (not comprehensive, review your own license for additional information): 

• Apple does not allow Mac OS X Client to be virtualized.  Mac OS X Server's license does allow for virtualization on Apple-labeled hardware, but VMware Fusion does not currently support it.  Should VMware Fusion ever support Mac OX Server, you would need an individual Server license for each virtualized server in addition to the license for your host OS.
• Microsoft permits Windows licensing on VMware. Each virtual installation is considered a separate computer requiring an individual license.
• Red Hat permits Enterprise Linux licensing on VMware.  Each virtual installation is considered a separate computer requiring an individual license. 

Notes from previous meeting

2 Broad Categories:

• Virtual OS
• Apps that run on the virtual OS

Imaging ISOs

MIT vs Personal Machines

Tech Issues:

• built-in license servers
• may not tech prob. may be legal problems

• moving around with machine

Number of copies of software when licensed for only one copy.  What if only using one at a time?

 Some vendors do not allow their software to be used in virtual machines.  MS, Apple, others?