If you have performance and resolution issues, it means you need to install
the VBox Guest Additions. It enables more resolutions, usage of opengl and
shared folders. VMPlayer is not in the repos and might have extra
dependencies that are cumbersome to install (or even non-free if you are
unlucky). The preffered way is to use VBox.
If, for whatever reason, you really need to use VMPlayer over VirtualBox, be
careful not to install any non-free software.
I've taken a look at the licenses of VMPlayer, it is kind of messy. There are
lots of different licenses, for lots of different parts of the program. Most
of the time it's GNU GPL, LGPL, MPL or Apache. So far it looks OK to use.
However there are the Q Public License, V1.0 and a Common Development and
Distribution License, V1.0. I am not sure if those are free software, take a
look at www.gnu.org, they have a list of licenses that are considered free
software, even if they are no copyleft licenses. If both these licenses are
free, there is no reason to not try VMPlayer out.
