Instead of waiting for the rug pull, just use something open source.
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.
Even their Pro version are free. So are they basically abandoning the project and giving it away?
Workstation Pro/Fusion Pro were made free for personal users in May: https://blogs.vmware.com/workstation/2024/05/vmware-workstat...
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.
I am using VirtualBox. Who will be happy about this? Server Hosting providers?
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.
What a nice trap to set
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.
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).
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.
What's the best alternative?
(since so many people in this thread think this is the end of VMware)
“The paid versions of these offerings – Workstation Pro and Fusion Pro – are no longer available for purchase. ”
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.