Which acceptance level could the driver have and still be include in the image?

There is another particular XML element in both the vib files and image profile file that we need to take care of: the . VMware distinguishes four different acceptance levels: VMwareCertified, VMwareAccepted, PartnerSupported and CommunitySupported, in the XML files they are coded as certified, vmware, partner and community. The names are pretty self-explanatory, and one can easily guess that certified is stricter than vmware that is stricter than partner that in turn is stricter than community. In other words: If the host image profile is of acceptance level certified only packages of the same acceptance level can be part of it. If it is of acceptance level vmware only VMware certified and VMware accepted packages can be installed. If it is of acceptance level partner (and this is the default!) partner supported packages can be installed in addition to that. The least restrictive level is community that would accept all four types of packages.
My expectation is that custom drivers for whitebox hardware are community supported (unless they are published by a hardware vendor company). However, if the driver’s vib file contains the acceptance level community the image profile’s acceptance level must also be changed to community. Otherwise the installation of the package will fail.