Community Terms of Use

1. General

VMware, Inc. (“VMware”) welcomes you. The VMware Communities (hereinafter “Communities”) is a website hosted by VMware. The Communities is a family of many sub-communities comprised of blogs, discussion forums, document and information sharing about VMware products and services, virtualization software and technology. The purpose of the Communities is to provide a forum for interested users of virtualization products and services and for participants in VMware programs such as beta programs, user groups, and customer advisory councils to exchange information and to generally build enthusiasm for virtualization software and technology.

2. User’s Acceptance of Terms of Use

These Terms of Use shall govern your access, visits and participation in the Communities. Individual sub-communities may have community-specific terms of use, in addition to those set forth here. By registering for a Communities account, by using or visiting the Communities, you are subject to the Terms of Use. If you do not agree to all of the Terms of Use, you should not access, visit or participate in the Communities. VMware reserves the right to modify, suspend or terminate the Communities and/or these Terms of Use from time to time at its sole discretion and without notice. The Communities is provided on an AS IS and AS AVAILABLE basis. VMware will not be liable to you or any third-party for any claims or actions arising or resulting from your use, visit, or participation in the Communities and for any modification, suspension, or termination of the Communities, or termination of your access to the Communities.

3. Registration

You must be at least eighteen (18) years old to use and participate in the Communities. If you wish to have a Communities account, you must provide current, accurate, and complete information about yourself during the account registration process. By joining the Communities, you expressly agree to be bound by the Terms of Use as entered into by and between VMware and you. You are responsible for maintaining the confidentiality of your Communities password and account, and assume all liabilities and responsibilities for any and all activities that occur under your account. You must maintain and promptly update any account information provided to VMware in order to keep such information up to date, accurate and complete. VMware reserves the right to refuse access to the Communities to anyone, at any time, without notice, and for any reason.

4. Conduct

You must abide by the following rules of conduct:

a. Do not engage in any unlawful conduct in the VMware Communities. In particular, do not post, publish, or distribute any defamatory, obscene, infringing or other unlawful material or information in the Communities.

b. Treat others in the VMware Communities as you would expect them to treat you. Do not engage in personal attacks or any type of "flaming" of other users. Do not "troll", i.e. post topics or opinions that are designed to provoke a negative response from one or more specific users.

c. Do not use offensive language. If you have any doubts about whether a particular statement might be considered offensive by other users, do not post it.

d. Do not engage in disruptive activity in the VMware Communities, such as persistent off-topic contributions or comments, or statements that might incite other users to violate these guidelines or participate in illegal activities.

e. Do not contribute content that contains photos, software or other material protected by intellectual property laws, rights of privacy or publicity, or any other applicable law unless you own or have rights to these materials.

f. Do not post any instructions, software or other materials that would allow participants or third parties to harm other users' computers or to inappropriately access software or websites.

g. Do not post any computer programs that contain destructive features, such as viruses, worms or Trojan horses. Do not employ any type of bots for the use of scrolling, showing multiple screens, or other activities that might disrupt online communication.

h. Do not falsely impersonate any other person in the forum, including VMware employees or agents.

i. Do not use the VMware Communities to spam other users, including sending identical and irrelevant submissions to many different discussion groups, mailing lists or communities.

j. Do not misrepresent the source of anything you contribute.

k. While you may use the VMware Communities to provide supplemental information about your own business that might be of interest to other users (without spamming them), do not rely on the VMware Communities as the primary mechanism for operating or promoting your business. Any use of the VMware Communities for commercial purposes is solely at your own risk, and VMware assumes no liability for such use.

l. Any space provided to you in the VMware Communities is for your own personal use, and may not be sold, licensed, exchanged or bartered for any purpose, including advertisements.

m. You are responsible and liable for all your activities while participating in the VMware Communities, including anything you contribute.

n. Do not rely on the VMware Communities for the safe and secure storage of any materials, such as photos, documents and software. The VMware Communities are not designed as the primary place to store any of these materials, and VMware is not responsible for the alteration, deletion or loss of any stored items. Create back-ups for any materials that you contribute to the VMware Communities.

o. VMware reserves the right to remove at any time, without notice, any contribution that violates these guidelines. VMware also reserves the right at any time, without notice, to ban a user who has violated these rules of conduct from any sub-community or all VMware Communities.

p. Some participants may post Internet website links in the. VMware is not responsible for the content on the websites associated with these links. In addition, we must remind you that some content and links on the Internet contain adult content that is not suitable for children and may be offensive to some users.

q. You are responsible for any actions you may take based on information or advice you receive while online. Use your own good judgment when evaluating information provided through the VMware Communities or any other communication service. The decision to share information or conduct transactions with anyone is your own; therefore conduct your own research prior to making any decisions.

5. Contributions

There are opportunities for you as a user of the VMware Communities to actively participate by creating, providing, sharing and uploading information to the Communities such as comments, ideas or suggestions for new or improved software products, technologies, marketing/advertising campaigns or product names, data, articles, documents, discussion forum threads, blog entries, computer code, such as software sample code, source code, scripts, patches, bug fixes, binaries or executables, or other information (collectively “Contributions”). Contributions in the Communities are subject to the Terms of Use. VMware assumes no responsibility or liability over the sharing of Contributions among users.

Any Contributions provided by you to the Communities may be editable and freely used by VMware and other users. Ways in which your Contributions may be used include, but are not limited to, creating comments, articles, documents, FAQs, or knowledge bases. For example, users may incorporate discussion threads written by other users into new documents. Additionally, users may incorporate documents written by others to create a new list of FAQs. VMware shall have the right to retain and use Contributions, in edited or unedited form, for any purpose in any way including but not limited to re-posting such Contributions to other areas of the Communities, by using Contributions in current or future products or services, or even give or sell your Contributions to others. Therefore, do not upload Contributions to the Communities unless you agree to these Terms of Use. VMware is under no obligation to post or use any Contributions provided by users and VMware may in fact remove any Contributions at any time at its sole discretion for any reasons.

6. Contributions Ownership, Rights and Liability

VMware does not claim ownership of any Contributions that you or other users post, upload, submit or otherwise provide to the Communities. By providing Contributions to the Communities, you grant to VMware a perpetual, worldwide, non-exclusive, no-charge, royalty-free, irrevocable copyright license to reproduce, prepare derivative works of, publicly display, publicly perform, sublicense, and distribute such Contributions and derivative works. Additionally, by providing Contributions to the Communities, you grant to VMware a perpetual, worldwide, non-exclusive, no-charge, royalty-free, irrevocable patent license to make, have made, use, offer to sell, export, and otherwise transfer or sublicense such Contributions. You also grant VMware and all users of the Communities the permission to use your Contributions in other areas of the Communities and for other commercial or noncommercial uses.

In order to grant VMware and other users of the Communities the rights, permissions and licenses contained herein, you represent and warrant that you either own or have all the necessary intellectual property rights in the Contributions uploaded or shared to the Communities and that your Contributions are non-infringing on the patent, copyright or other intellectual property rights of others. Do not post, upload, submit or otherwise provide Contributions to the Communities that are protected by the intellectual property rights of others, unless you own or have the necessary rights or licenses to use such Contributions.

For the Academic sub-community, Contributions consisting of previously published academic papers and courseware have additional terms governing their use, such as limiting their use to only non-commercial, educational and research purposes. Such additional terms governing the use of the academic papers and courseware shall control and you shall be responsible for abiding by those additional terms.

By uploading Contributions to the Communities, you warrant that you are not uploading viruses, worms, Trojan horses or other malicious, illegal, or unlawful code which is designed to interrupt, destroy, or limit the functionality of any software or hardware. All Contributions available for download and/or use are provided on an AS IS and AS AVAILABLE basis, without any warranty of any kind and you assume all risks associated with the Contributions that you download. VMware expressly disclaims all warranties of any kind, whether express or implied, including, but not limited to, the implied warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose and non-infringement of intellectual property rights. In no event will VMware be liable for any direct or indirect damages for any claims arising out of your download and/or use of such Contributions.

All Contributions are deemed be provided on a non-confidential basis. VMware is under no obligation to and does not control the Contributions created, provided or uploaded to the Communities. The nature of some Contributions may be offensive, harmful or inaccurate, and in some cases will be mislabeled or deceptively labeled. VMware reserves the right to take down and remove Contributions that are flagged by users or deemed by VMware as objectionable. However VMware is under no duty to take down or remove any Contributions.

7. Blogs

Blog authors and blog users (hereinafter “Bloggers”) who post blog entries, comments or other Contributions are expected to adhere to conduct as set forth in Section 4 above. Bloggers may create blogs generally discussing VMware products and services, or virtualization software and technology. Although VMware respects the freedom of Bloggers and the Contributions they post, blogs that predominantly discuss topics completely unrelated to virtualization or that consume excessive resources or bandwidth may be taken down at the sole discretion of VMware. Generally it is suggested that Bloggers take responsibility not just for their own words, but for the comments allowed on their blogs; label their tolerance level for abusive comments; consider eliminating anonymous comments; ignore the trolls (i.e., those who intentionally post derogatory or otherwise inflammatory messages); take the conversation offline, and talk directly, or find an intermediary who can do so; if you know someone who is violating the conduct guidelines, tell them so; and don’t say anything online that you wouldn’t say in person. Bloggers understand that they bear the full responsibility of any Contributions they post and that such Contributions may lead to adverse consequences in their personal or professional lives, such as damaged friendships or loss of employment.

8. Disclaimer

THE VMWARE COMMUNITIES AND ALL CONTRIBUTIONS AND OTHER ACCOUNT SERVICES ARE PROVIDED ON AN “AS IS” AND “AS AVAILABLE” BASIS. VMWARE EXPRESSLY DISCLAIMS ALL WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, WHETHER EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NON-INFRINGEMENT. VMWARE MAKES NO WARRANTY THAT VMWARE COMMUNITIES WILL MEET YOUR REQUIREMENTS, THE SITE WILL BE AVAILABLE ON AN UNINTERRUPTED, TIMELY, SECURE, OR ERROR-FREE BASIS, THE RESULTS THAT MAY BE OBTAINED FROM THE USE OF VMWARE COMMUNITIES OR ANY CONTRIBUTIONS AND OTHER ACCOUNT SERVICES OFFERED THROUGH VMWARE COMMUNITIES WILL BE ACCURATE, COMPLETE OR RELIABLE; OR THE QUALITY OF ANY CONTRIBUTIONS AND OTHER ACCOUNT SERVICES PURCHASED OR OBTAINED BY YOU THROUGH VMWARE COMMUNITIES WILL MEET YOUR EXPECTATIONS.

ANY CONTRIBUTIONS AND OTHER ACCOUNT SERVICES DOWNLOADED OR OTHERWISE OBTAINED THROUGH THE USE OF VMWARE COMMUNITIES IS DONE AT YOUR OWN DISCRETION AND RISK. VMWARE SHALL HAVE NO RESPONSIBILITY FOR ANY DAMAGE TO YOUR COMPUTER SYSTEM OR LOSS OF DATA THAT RESULTS FROM THE DOWNLOAD OR USE OF CONTRIBUTIONS AND OTHER ACCOUNT SERVICES.

IN NO EVENT SHALL VMWARE OR ANY OF ITS PARTNERS OR AFFILIATES BE LIABLE FOR ANY DAMAGES WHATSOEVER (INCLUDING, WITHOUT LIMITATION, INCIDENTAL AND CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES, LOST PROFITS, OR DAMAGES RESULTING FROM LOST DATA OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) RESULTING FROM THE USE OR INABILITY TO USE VMWARE COMMUNITIES OR CONTRIBUTIONS, WHETHER BASED ON WARRANTY, CONTRACT, TORT, OR ANY OTHER LEGAL THEORY, AND WHETHER OR NOT VMWARE IS ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES.

VMWARE’S MAXIMUM LIABILITY ARISING OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE VMWARE COMMUNITIES OR YOUR USE OF CONTRIBUTIONS, AND OTHER ACCOUNT SERVICES, REGARDLESS OR THE CAUSE OF ACTION (WHETHER IN CONTRACT, TORT, BREACH OR WARRANTY OR OTHERWISE), WILL NOT EXCEED ONE DOLLAR ($1).

9. Indemnification

If VMware and its subsidiaries, affiliates, directors, officers, agents, and employees should incur any liability to a third party arising out of or in any way related to your use of the Communities, you agree to indemnify and hold VMware free and harmless from any such liability, and from all loss, claims, costs, demands, debts and causes of action in connection therewith, including reasonable attorney’s fees.

10. Privacy Policy

VMware does not require that you provide personal information, the decision to provide personal information is voluntary. However, in order to register for an account with the VMware Communities, you must provide personal information. By providing your personal information to VMware, you consent to the collection, processing and storage by VMware of your personal information in accordance with the terms of VMware’s Privacy Policy.

VMware Communities Terms of Use