VMware joins Linux Foundation–while reportedly violating the GPL
Posted by: admin in Business and PoliticsThis day the Linux world broke out the champagne to celebrate VMware joining the Linux Foundation. I concur. It’s good news.
What it doesn’t resolve is the allegation that VMware is in active and conscious violation of the GPL. Some of these allegations appear to be well-founded. VMware’s lack of response to the allegations is not golden, especially in light of its embrace of the Linux Foundation.
Here’s the problem with how VMware apparently uses Linux (though there’s still an open question as to whether VMware does, in fact, use Linux, the evidence points pretty strongly to VMware’s use of the open-source operating system).
Products like VMware ESX Server and Citrix Xen Server divide each computer into one or more virtual machines. The virtual machines provide logical memory, CPU, and device resources to guest operating systems. ESX Server, like Citrix Xen Server, uses a hypervisor to mediate between the virtual machines and physical resources of the personal, and an embedded operating system (distinct from guest operating systems) to implement essential virtualization operations.
ESX Server and Citrix Xen Server both use Linux as the embedded operating system. This is where the trouble begins.
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