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Microsoft contributes Hyper-V drivers to the kernelMicrosoft contributes Hyper-V drivers to the kernelPosted Jul 20, 2009 17:19 UTC (Mon) by whacker (guest, #55546)Parent article: Microsoft contributes Hyper-V drivers to the kernel
Let me be the first to congratulate Microsoft. Given their history of public statements about the GPL, this is a HUGE step forward.
Well Done! :)
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Microsoft contributes Hyper-V drivers to the kernel Posted Jul 20, 2009 17:33 UTC (Mon) by drag (subscriber, #31333) [Link]
Yes. This is a good thing.
Plus they are working with the Linux kernels to get it integrated into the vanilla kernel.
They could of just used their own programmers to hack together a network, balloon, and block driver for Linux and had no intention of getting it into the kernel. Even if they did license it under the GPL then their programming style and approach could of easily kept it rather 'proprietary' in it's effect.
Similar how the 'nv' open source driver for Nvidia cards works.
Microsoft contributes Hyper-V drivers to the kernel Posted Jul 20, 2009 23:01 UTC (Mon) by ariveira (guest, #57833) [Link]
Well they are integrating those driver to avoid a lawsuit if i read
what Hamminger says correctly
http://linux-network-plumber.blogspot.com/2009/07/congrat...
Microsoft contributes Hyper-V drivers to the kernel Posted Jul 21, 2009 8:15 UTC (Tue) by skitching (subscriber, #36856) [Link]
Yes. Reading the linked articles reveals an interesting story.
It appears that a company called Vyatta (www.vyatta.com) has their own operating system for routing/firewall type stuff. This kernel is derived from Linux but they appear to have then added hyper-v support for their OS, so that people can run the vyatta kernel as a guest on windows.
They have then been shipping their kernel, and have made the source available. But the combined vyatta/microsoft-hyper-v code had never been correctly licensed. So when someone noticed this, Vyatta was in deep trouble. Technically, they would have to pull their product from the market, as they are shipping mixed GPL/proprietory code.
Microsoft have saved Vyatta's skin by agreeing to license their hyper-v code under the GPL (possibly after a payment from vyatta to MS?).
So it is no surprise that the code is in an ugly state; MS was presumably not expecting to have to release this. But it is still a step forward that they have done so. If they really do put some effort into cleaning up the code so it can move from staging to kernel proper, that would be great. It's not clear to me whether they will actually do that though; their primary motivation is obviously to allow Vyatta to continue to ship their product.
Microsoft contributes Hyper-V drivers to the kernel Posted Jul 21, 2009 10:42 UTC (Tue) by skitching (subscriber, #36856) [Link]
A correction to my comment..
I've read a little bit more, and it now appears that the drivers themselves are actually from the "Microsoft Linux Integration Components" (LIC) project. It's not clear from the articles whether vyatta ships these components, or whether a user was trying to add them into a vyatta install.
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=...
It seems that it is the Microsoft LIC product that incorrectly combined GPL and proprietory source.
The articles hint that RedHat and SuSE have been including the LIC drivers for some time. Anyone know if this is correct? I personally doubt it..
See:
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