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Red Hat open-sources SPICE
Red Hat has announced that it has open sourced its recently acquired SPICE
desktop virtualization technology.
"Red Hat, Inc., the world's leading provider of open source solutions, today announced that, in an effort to openly collaborate with partners to drive the future of virtualization, it has open sourced its SPICE (Simple Protocol for Independent Computing Environment) hosted virtual desktop protocol. SPICE is a core component of the Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization for Desktops product that is currently in beta. Through the Spice project, Red Hat will collaborate with its partners and the open source community to expand the development of the protocol in an effort to help break down barriers to virtualization adoption."
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Red Hat open-sources SPICE Posted Dec 10, 2009 19:23 UTC (Thu) by sharms (subscriber, #57357) [Link]
This is very exciting I have been waiting for this for a long time.
The initial videos I saw a few years ago had a remote session playing hd
I will give a shout out to the Google Chrome discussion last week where
Red Hat open-sources SPICE Posted Dec 11, 2009 17:07 UTC (Fri) by robilad (guest, #27163) [Link]
Red Hat Enterprise Linux comes with locally-patched-for-SPICE versions of cairo, ffmpeg & pixman, according to the list of q* packages listed here:
http://www.redhat.com/docs/en-US/Red_Hat_Enterprise_Linux...
To quote the summary for qffmpeg:
"Summary: Stripped-down fork of ffmpeg for libspice"
Red Hat open-sources SPICE Posted Dec 11, 2009 18:03 UTC (Fri) by rahulsundaram (subscriber, #21946) [Link]
Note that Spice was a product of Qumranet and acquired by Red Hat. You can bet that removing the need for patching would be high priority for Red hat.
ffmpeg, however is a different story. Upstream version is illegal, atleast for US based distributions to include without forking.
Red Hat open-sources SPICE Posted Dec 10, 2009 19:31 UTC (Thu) by rfunk (subscriber, #4054) [Link] Simple Protocol for Independent Computing Environment? So it's not the circuit- simulation software then? (Oh wait, that's already open-source.)
Red Hat open-sources SPICE Posted Dec 10, 2009 20:11 UTC (Thu) by rahvin (subscriber, #16953) [Link]
I had to do a lot of reading on it because I thought the same thing you did. The SPICE that Redhat is supposedly quite amazing, the first real software that make desktop virtualization a reality. People have been calling for them to OSS the software since they acquired it over a year ago. Looks like Redhat upholds the idea of open source yet again.
Now Redhat you need to release the details of the system breech you had and said you would release the details on but have yet to fulfill that obligation. I defended the position that you needed time to evaluate the breech and work with the FBI on evidence but it's high time for you to release the details so the community is aware of what happened and how to prevent it.
Red Hat open-sources SPICE Posted Dec 11, 2009 0:57 UTC (Fri) by motk (subscriber, #51120) [Link]
Red Hat: Hey, FBI, can we release these details yet?
FBI: No. Red Hat. OK.
Law enforcement isn't advogato.
Red Hat open-sources SPICE Posted Dec 11, 2009 1:03 UTC (Fri) by rahvin (subscriber, #16953) [Link]
They don't have to have clearance from the FBI to release the details, the FBI might not want to them to and it might hurt the investigation but it's not illegal for Redhat to talk about what they know.
Red Hat open-sources SPICE Posted Dec 11, 2009 1:29 UTC (Fri) by rloomans (subscriber, #759) [Link]
Do you really think that your Need To Know(tm) outweighs Red Hats desire to not have the FBI
pissed at them?
Law enforcement have a rough enough job without people actively fouling things up for them.
Red Hat open-sources SPICE Posted Dec 11, 2009 19:05 UTC (Fri) by rahvin (subscriber, #16953) [Link]
If they haven't caught the party responsible by now it's not going to happen. This isn't television, the real world rate of cold cases (1 year or older) being solved is likely less than 1%. The details are far more valuable to the community than law enforcement at this point and they should be released.
Redhat isn't going to piss the FBI off by releasing the details if they simply tell them they have to release the details also it doesn't prevent them from continuing to conceal information that isn't relevant to the how and what of what was a effected that the community cares about.
Red Hat open-sources SPICE Posted Dec 11, 2009 2:35 UTC (Fri) by mmcgrath (guest, #44906) [Link]
> Now Redhat you need to release the details of the system breech you had and said you would release the details on but have yet to fulfill that obligation.
I don't remember Red Hat ever saying that. The Fedora Project said they would, and they did.
Red Hat open-sources SPICE Posted Dec 11, 2009 11:07 UTC (Fri) by drag (subscriber, #31333) [Link]
Yes.. If I remember correctly the breach was that a Fedora developer lost
control of his SSH key which lead to the compromise of a Fedora signing server.
This _may_ have lead to the compromise of the signing keys and if you were
Comparison with other virtual desktops Posted Dec 10, 2009 21:25 UTC (Thu) by epa (subscriber, #39769) [Link]
Will the Grumpy Editor some day review SPICE and compare it to its competitors such as NoMachine NX (or the Google version thereof), VNC, and plain X11?
Comparison with other virtual desktops Posted Dec 10, 2009 23:59 UTC (Thu) by qg6te2 (guest, #52587) [Link] ... review SPICE and compare it to its competitors such as ... plain X11?If I recall correctly, SPICE is intended to be used as a component of an overall desktop virtualisation solution, which includes handling of USB devices (e.g. using a memory stick on a "dumb terminal" that is displaying a virtualised desktop is supposed to work). As such, one could compare X11 and SPICE purely on the protocol level, but not at the intended use level.
Comparison with other virtual desktops Posted Dec 11, 2009 1:02 UTC (Fri) by rahvin (subscriber, #16953) [Link]
More than a dumb terminal, the SPICE protocol allows the host computer, be it a thin client or a full blown PC to be evaluated and drivers loaded for various components, particularly video and use those local resources for the virtual desktop. This makes it possible for example to decode and play back flawlessly full HD video on a SPICE based virtual desktop (using a full pc for the desktop virtual terminal, something Quarmnet frequently demo'd) without bringing the virtualization server and network to it's knees.
It's an incredible -patented- technology, the only piece missing from the Redhat announcement is that the pledge that the patent won't be used against FOSS implementations. A key piece might I add, the FOSS doesn't do anyone any good with the patent threat still remaining.
Comparison with other virtual desktops Posted Dec 11, 2009 1:42 UTC (Fri) by jamesh (subscriber, #1159) [Link]
If we are talking about patents owned by Red Hat, then you should have nothing to worry about if you follow the license, no?
Comparison with other virtual desktops Posted Dec 11, 2009 6:19 UTC (Fri) by rahulsundaram (subscriber, #21946) [Link]
Read the Red Hat patent policy. It covers all free and open source software
released by Red Hat.
http://www.redhat.com/legal/patent_policy.html
Comparison with other virtual desktops Posted Dec 11, 2009 11:02 UTC (Fri) by drag (subscriber, #31333) [Link] Spice blows VNC out of the water. It is not even in the same class. It would be like comparing DES to AES-256. Sure both can encrypt, but one is so obsolete that its just not even a contest.SPICE's main competitors are going to be Citrix ICA and Microsoft RDP. X11 could be in contention, I suppose, but it is not really useful for anything other then Linux-on-Linux. If you want a decent comparison check this flash-based comparison video There is a small blog article that then leads to a flash-based animation. It is actually pretty decent way to compare these sorts of technology. Don't bother if your not using Adobe Flash. I swear I posted that here on the article earlier, but I guess I didn't. Basically they had Linux-KVM running on a remote server and was running SPICE over ethernet to their desktop. They had four monitors displaying a single extended desktop. SPICE had no problem displaying a large flash animation website + HD video (with sound) + browser session (or office session, I forget) + A live Skype phone call. Each application running simultaneously on it's own screen. It was able to do that without framedropping or audio skipping on the desktop. Very impressive stuff. For X to compete against something like that it is going to have to have some sort of video compression mechanism for transmitting large moving images over the network. Needless to say it provided a much better experience then ICA or RDP could provide. All in all this sort of this is very exciting if you at all care about happenings for the desktop. This sort of thing puts Linux KVM on the same level that Citrix and Vmware stuff is at. ========== Hell.. Considering Linux 2.6.33 should have the capabilities to support a modern-enough graphics framework that Wayland display server needs combined with SPICE this may actually be the beginning of the end for the use of a standalone X Server on Linux unless something changes dramatically.
Comparison with other virtual desktops Posted Dec 11, 2009 15:04 UTC (Fri) by sharms (subscriber, #57357) [Link]
Fantastic video thank you for the post
Comparison with other virtual desktops Posted Dec 11, 2009 17:12 UTC (Fri) by kragil (guest, #34373) [Link]
Thanks for the link!
One question:
Comparison with other virtual desktops Posted Dec 11, 2009 19:22 UTC (Fri) by rahvin (subscriber, #16953) [Link]
SolidICE is the implementation of the SPICE protocol and is what Redhat just FOSS'd. It's darn cool technology and I was stoked when Redhat acquired it, the only negative is it's taken a year to get it FOSS'd after the purchase.
This could literally put Citrix's main product out of business. I expect a huge ecosystem to develop selling this to Fortune 500 companies that want to virtualize the desktop (particularly companies where you don't have a fixed cube and they treat their employee's like cattle). Companies like call centers will probably jump all over this now that it's backed by Redhat instead of a small startup, particularly knowing that they can buy support from anyone. Citrix charges insane amounts of money for virtual terminals and now you can implement better technology for free.
What is/was SolidICE? Posted Dec 12, 2009 18:14 UTC (Sat) by dowdle (subscriber, #659) [Link]
SolidICE was the VDI solution sold by Qumranet before Red Hat bought it. SolidICE was the product that Red Hat worked on for a year to split into two products, Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization for Servers, and RHEV for Desktops. So far RHEV for Desktops hasn't been released but that is expected in January.
If you want to see a demo video of SolidICE, I saved a copy of their demo (may be available elsewhere but I haven't found it) before qumranet.com started redirecting to redhat.com.
You can find it here:
Sorry that it is in .wmv format but that's the original format Qumranet released it in. I converted it to .ogv with ffpmeg2theora but the A/V sync was terrible. That's my workstation at work... so don't kill it.
I wrote about the release of SPICE here:
Initial Reaction: Red Hat releases the SPICE protocol
Brian Madden was hired by Qumranet to compare SPICE to ICA and RDP and write a paper... and some of that work lead to those videos linked to in another comment. It would be nice if that paper were released or if Brian Madden could do another comparison test with the current release of SPICE in the RHEV products.
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