vSphere Beta and the NDA

In the past 2 weeks or so there has been a lot of info that is starting to be posted about the next generation of ESX. Just to name a few Duncan Epping, Eric Sloof, Rich Brambley, MalaysiaVM, have all posted some extremely interesting content with previews of features and new additions to vSphere – which is currently in private Beta.

Now the question came up in the forums about the NDA (and righteously so!)

Hi all,

It is my understanding that the vSphere is still in private beta and that we are not allowed to publish any tutorials or even screenshots in public, however, i can see that there are many blogs publishing lately many information and screenshots about vSphere and showing many features about it. Am i missing something here? am i allowed to start creating demos and tutorials for vSphere or it’s still under NDA ?

Interesting question here – I mean – those who are in the Beta program all signed this NDA – but all this content is still coming out.

Today John Troyer (Sr Mgr, VMware Communities) gave us (I suppose) VMware’s official answer on the subject. Answer quoted  below:

As stated above, here are the current ground rules: you can post about any thing that has been disclosed publicly. That includes the vmware.com website, VMworld presentations, non-NDA briefings, and non-NDA labs. (I believe there was at least one lab at VMworld that was considered under NDA - please correct me if I’m wrong.) My understanding is that it also includes things that others have disclosed, whether it was in compliance with their NDA or not, because that information is now public.
In general, though, the NDA on the beta still holds.
This is tricky, because that line is not explicit – what exactly was shown in each lab isn’t immediately obvious, especially if you weren’t there. I appreciate that we’ve put everybody in a bit of a bind by releasing some information but insisting that other information is confidential. Eric Sloof (NTPRO.NL), for instance, is very carefully going through and posting tidbits inspired by the lab manuals.
So at this point just be conservative, and know that this will be over as we get ready to announce this thing. If possible, indicate the source of your posting and you’ll have no questions. (Hm, indicating your source is a good policy in general – I’m going to ask the current bloggers if they can do that for the moment.)

So my fellow bloggers out there in the “sphere” … let’s all abide by the rules.