VMware Unveils VMware Tools as Open Source Software [LWN.net]

VMware Unveils VMware Tools as Open Source Software

Posted Sep 12, 2007 0:06 UTC (Wed) by ianburrell (subscriber, #47313)
In reply to: VMware Unveils VMware Tools as Open Source Software by ewan
Parent article: VMware Unveils VMware Tools as Open Source Software

The other thing that it would be very nice for VMware to release as open source are the kernel drivers that run on the Linux host operating system. The important ones are vmmon and vmnet. They are distributed as source since they need to be compiled for a specific kernel. But they aren't open source.

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VMware Unveils VMware Tools as Open Source Software

Posted Sep 12, 2007 2:37 UTC (Wed) by jwb (subscriber, #15467) [Link]

Not only are they not "open source", they're actually confidential. Who even knows what that could mean?

VMware Unveils VMware Tools as Open Source Software

Posted Sep 12, 2007 6:51 UTC (Wed) by hawk (subscriber, #3195) [Link]

Where did you find that text?

The web site says:

"VMware is announcing the release of large portions of VMware Tools for Linux, Solaris and FreeBSD guests under GPL and GPL-compatible licenses."

And the file headers of what is available for download (at this point, at least) seem to reflect that.

None of the files contain the word "confidential" and the ones I opened have this blurb at the top:

/* **************************************************************************
* Copyright (C) 2005 VMware, Inc. All Rights Reserved
* **************************************************************************
*
* This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it
* under the terms of the GNU Lesser General Public License as published
* by the Free Software Foundation version 2.1 and no later version.
*
* This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but
* WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY
* or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License
* for more details.
*
* You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along
* with this program; if not, write to the Free Software Foundation, Inc.,
* 51 Franklin St, Fifth Floor, Boston, MA 02110-1301 USA.
*/

VMware Unveils VMware Tools as Open Source Software

Posted Sep 12, 2007 6:58 UTC (Wed) by hawk (subscriber, #3195) [Link]

Sorry, I completely lost track of what this thread was about.

Never mind that comment, it was regarding the TOOLS, not kernel modules.

VMware Unveils VMware Tools as Open Source Software

Posted Sep 12, 2007 9:10 UTC (Wed) by jengelh (subscriber, #33263) [Link]

It is a contradiction. If they hand it out, it can obviously be not confidental.