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Bochs Author Launches VMware Clone Project
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Hmmm (Score:1)
The other thing VMWare has done that is astounding is they are running their VM monitor on top of other OS'es that were not designed for this. Prior VM systems for other hardware have had the VM monitor running as the real OS, or designed into the real OS from the start.
The idea of a VM is not original. Everything else VMWare is doing beyond the basic idea does appear to be original, and very impressive.
Bah humbug (Score:1)
1) The vmware disk files are portable across computers... ie. i could make a vmware image with all the software I want and put it on a NFS server and access it from wherever I am.
2) The "undoable" disk write option is quite cool (ie. all writes to the disk during your session are saved to a temporary file instead of the real disk image... after you shut down you're asked if you want to commit the changes or not)
There are things that are possible in VMWare that are simply impossible or hard to accomplish any other way. That's the beauty of it... and i'm sure i'm only scratching the surface !
double edge sword? - Not at all! Here's why... (Score:1)
This will keep them on their toes, prevent exhorbitant software prices, and promote quality in proprietary software.
This is good for the customer. And the industry.
freemware == FUD (Score:1)
I don't see why I should volunteer my time to help eliminate Bochs' competition. I have better things to do. I suggest that any developer considering contributing to "freemware" think about what the real dynamics of the situation are.
What license and how "free" (Score:1)
I can't use any GPL code in anything I do. Everything I do, I'd have to give away -- whether I want to or not. That's not freedom, that's been imposed on me -- not by my choice.
So my choice? BSD. Golgotha. Even something that says I couldn't distribute source if I wanted to, simply for linking to a library. Any license that lets me write code, pay my bills, keep my clients happy -- and keeps their competitors from getting what they paid good money for... for nothing.
The reason all GPL application software sucks -- not the tools, mind you, geek-tools like GCC rock hard -- I'm talking about things like GIMP -- the reason it sucks is that NOBODY IS GETTING PAID TO WRITE IT.
Sure, some programmers have jobs where they get to work on GPL software. But the truth is, there are no companies that get paid to develop GPL'd applications. They package what others sell... provide support... but they're not writing innovative applications to solve real-world problems in a user-friendly way.
Say what you like about the GPL, you won't be seeing any impact from GPL-land on everyday users, beyond the OS, the software equivalent of the electric company. People pay good money, and care about, the things powered by electricity. They don't care about the electricity itself... and that's what GPL'd software is limited to, filling the role of alternating current.
And if "free software" is supposed to mean "freedom," not "free beer," shouldn't that include making technology accessible to those who will never figure out how to use a command line?
(An aside: Please don't tell me about any of the GNU/Linux-based window managers out there. Puhleeze! Yes, they'll get better over time. But the people working on them care more about skull-and-crossbones widgets than real user interface innovations, aimed at actually improving the human-computer experience for a broad spectrum of people. And please don't point to the flood of new GNU/Linux users as a source of innovative development -- they like it because they don't have to pay for the software, and it gives another way to impress their friends, just like glasspacks, D-size engines or double-humbuckers.)
(And yes, I know this comment will be moderated away because I used the word "puhleeze" -- that and the fact that I choose to remain anonymous... doesn't make what I said any less right.)
Ripping off other people's ideas is *not* cool (Score:1)
One example which actually involves kernel code is the softupdates code in FreeBSD, which improves I/O performance without the dangers of asynchronous mounts. It has been distributed with a somewhat restrictive licence, allowing it to be freely used in free software, while leaving the author with the right to `peddle it to the commercial UNIX vendors for money'. Because of its restricted nature, it's in the contrib tree rather than the main kernel tree, but the README explains how to easily replace the free stubs in the main tree with the full sources from the contrib tree.
Another interesting point about the free BSDs is that they're non-commercial volunteer efforts, unlike the most popular Linux distributions (IIRC, SuSE and Red Hat are the market leaders in Europe and America, respectively). That means there's no conflict with developers of commercial products, but also means they lack the sort of marketing machines that are behind commercial Linux distributions (non-commercial Linux distributions have the same problem of lack of press coverage as the free BSDs).
FreeBOCHS project (Score:2)
Watch this space for future announcements.
Re: What license and how "free" (Score:1)
Hopefully, since I am sure he's gotten flamed aplenty for the Bochs license, he knows what he's doing and will actually make freemware Free. From the announcement, this certainly looks like the case, so don't go around saying it won't be Free unless and until it becomes clear that it won't.
Pessimism is self-fulfiling.
Even Costlier (Score:2)
RedHat probably appreciates VMWare for providing a useful product on GNU/Linux, but RedHat would really like to be able to bundle a freed software emulator for Micros~1 software that actually works. The $300 is way to high to sell as a Windows {9[58]|NT} replacement.
VMWare is not a software emulator at all. It is a processor virtualizer, within which you can run Windows95/98/NT. You still need to pay for the operating system on top of the $300 for VMWare. For Windows NT Workstation (probably the most common thing run in VMWare), it's another $295 last I checked.
Now, if freemware gets off the ground, and Wine gets more stable, than with a little tweaking, you might be able to take freemware, run freedos in it, and run a modified version of Wine on top of it, and have a completely Free Windows clone running in a window on your Linux box
Motif & Lesstif (Score:1)
In the same way, Lesstif is a rip-off of Motif, gcc is a reimplementation of c. There are times when a strict reimplementation is justified -- impelementing a truely free development tool or toolkit is one.
Proprietary software has done this as well -- there's more than one C compiler out there. But it's also done this for end-user apps. Word and Quattro both had emulation modes for WordPerfect and Lotus 1-2-3, respectively. Borland's implementation of the Lotus UI was supported by the Supreme Court in a landmark case.
I've also got it on good authority that proprietary developers are gleening features from free software. Idea appropriation goes both ways.
Always seem to be catching up (Score:3)
I mean, I've started to notice that OSS projects always seem to be trailing boldly behind closed source stuff. It's not that I don't see the value of an open source vmware-type project, but it's sort of upsetting that (lately, at least) we're always playing catch-up to ideas that companies have had.
I wonder if open source somehow doesn't foster originality...
----
Cloning (Score:1)
It seems that some originality is lacking. In fact, I'm hard pressed to find examples of originality in Free Software. I'm sure there are a few, but of the major Free Software projects I've seen out there, nearly all are clones. A few examples are Linux (UNIX clone), gcc (cc clone), harmony (Qt clone), and X11Amp (Amp clone).
Secondly, if this guy is so interested in cloning proprietary software, I'm sure he wouldn't mind a Free Software clone of Bochs. Or are things different when it's your software being cloned? Come to think of it, if he's so interested in Free Software, why doesn't he release Bochs under a Free Software license?
ripped off ? (Score:1)
GPL still the most popular license? Yes (Score:2)
"Headlining" software is simply software which big companies are releasing as Open Source, and isn't necessarily Free Software - an example is the Apple source license, which allows Apple to terminate your rights to the code - a decidedly non-free aspect of the license.
In any case, most [new] free software projects aren't announced on Slashdot, but most of them do use the GPL.
What license and how "free" (Score:3)
Obviously the author of bochs can do whatever he sees fit with his code, include licensing it as part of freemware under whatever license it uses, and we hope he goes with a Good choice (even if it is incompatible with GPL or the vast majority of other licenses (ie, if it's not GPL or BSD/X type license), if it's Free Software it will be ok).
Especially when most already own a copy of... (Score:1)
I've run VMware and it is good - price is too high right now - but it is good; needs DirectX capability - but it is good.
VMware is *almost* there on support for all technologies required to seamlessly run Windows software. With just a wee little bit more effort, they will have a major hit on their hands.
I support the Wine project and hope for success - heck, they've already been successful! If nothing else, they've put constant pressure on Microsoft to continue changing the source code to keep one step ahead of the Wine team. Now with VMware, BOCHS, and DOSEmu closing the other gaps and making an end run around Microsoft's defense, Microsoft's end could be near.
I will buy the VMware product (if the price comes down) because it is well done by folks who (currently) care about releasing a top-quality product.
Wow! Where do I pay? (Score:1)
Sure speed could be better, and the price is way too high for the average joe...but try to be pragmatic. Good software is _good software_, free or not. I still support Bochs (tried every snapshot in the last 12 months) but I won't lose any sleep speeding a little cash for VMware.
Not why I want it... (Score:1)
I'd like to run multiple *Linux* virtual machines to test out things like drivers, networking code and suspected cracker software.
You got it backwards (Score:1)
Yeah, we could go the MS route and tell OEMs "Hey, do whatever you want to our OS to make your POS hardware work--no one will notice an extra crash or two".
OR we could provide quality Free (speech) software that is so tempting big business gobbles it up. And then the OEMs have to play by OUR rules.
Furthermore, you are sorely mistaken that the usual excuse for Free alternatives is that no Linux port exists. If that was the case, Linux itself wouldn't exist in the first place. The real reason for creating a Free alternative is twofold:
1) Because no Free alternative exists
2) The same reason sex is good: it creates population diversity upon which natural selection works
my god, what a bunch of hypocrits! (Score:1)
How many of you complaining about commercial software make your money working for a commercial software company? I'd bet most of you.
Even Boch's is shareware. Sure the source is out there, but it's not GPL'd or NPL'd or whatever the fun license of the day is. Go jump on him! It almost seems to me that he's angry because someone did what he was trying to do, but did it better. (yeah, I know it's not exactly the same, but close enough for the point to be made).
Commercial software is not the enemy, it's a way to make a living.
Bad commercial software is the enemy. I, for one, think $300 is cheap...much less than a whole new machine and much more useful.
I use linux because it's better, not because it's free.
Always seem to be catching up (Score:1)
This is more true with regard to user-friendly features than with robustness or technical merit. For example egcs is more complete with regard to C++ compliance than a lot of commercial compilers, and Linux is more stable, certainly than Windows. Also I think a lot of commercial programmer editors are very affected by Emacs when it comes to offering user configurability. There are a number of other examples of free software setting the standard for commercial software, such as sendmail, perl, and named. So I think your statement isn't true in general.
You've made some assumptions... (Score:1)
Cloning (Score:1)
Why just Bochs? (Score:1)
DOSEmu already runs at full speed, as much as possible. All we want here is x86 on x86, so all that needs to be added are emulation for protected mode code, and porting from Linux. With Bochs as a base, on the other hand, there are a lot of needed features, and the first five of them are speed.
Bochs would be a good start for emulating x86 on something else, and possibly some virtualization could be taken from Bochs and used in DOSEmu.
...just use the right tool for the right job.
speed of DOSEmu (Score:1)
A true x86 emulator should run on other platforms, but according to this proposal, Freemware would be x86-only. Therefore, it shouldn't have to emulate x86 opcodes, and should use virtual machines as much as possible, only emulating protected-mode instructions. (i.e. it's easier to trap a few instructions and emulate them than it is to emulate *all* of them, when the chip natively supports these instructions in the first place.)
There's no reason to make a virtual environment on an x86 run as slowly or slower than Softwindows on a different architecture, say. That is my point.
Amp clone? (Score:1)
All software should be free ... hmm ?! (Score:1)
If free software then wins the competition with proprietary software, that's life. Vendors of proprietary software do not have any right to prohibit others from competing with them (patent issues aside, but let's stay out of that hairball).
OpenSource != OpenWarefare on Private Enterprise (Score:1)
Maybe freemware will fail, maybe VMWare will decide to go open source, who knows what will happen. But why should VMWare be free from competition?
Hook, line, and sinker (Score:1)
That depends upon how short your memory is
double edge sword? (Score:1)
Commercial projects are built with free software. If they get replaced by free software, possibly, the free software they get replaced by will be used to develop future commercial/free software.
Personally, I have no remorse for companies who can't compete on terms of quality, and that includes free(price) open source software. It's software darwinism out there, whether it's a community driven effort that drives out a piece of commercial software, or another piece of commerical software.
Always seem to be catching up (Score:1)
LaTeX stole a lot from scribe, as is acknowledged by Lamport in the book.
What license and how "free" (Score:1)
double edge sword? (Score:1)
There is also commercial Linux software that has never been replaced satisfactorily with free software, Netscape being the prime example.
double edge sword? (Score:1)
Oh yes, here it is...
while i do agree that a Free Software/opensource alternitive is a good idea, we are also driving away alot of people from computers, everytime someone makes a good product for a computer it gets opensource alternative and everyone uses that. In the end it wont make people turn to programming open source programs but instead drive them away from computers.
What license and how "free" (Score:2)
If it is not going to be free software, why would anyone want to help for free?
OpenSource == OpenWarfare (Score:1)
I have no moral obligation to pamper commercial (proprieraty or not) companies. They are providing these products to make money and should expect competition (both proprieraty and free).
Good luck.. (Score:1)
(or are they outside the US? I didn't think to check that. Of course, then it'd still be technically illegal for anyone in the US to use it...)
Daniel
Bah humbug (Score:1)
Daniel
Hmmm imagine? (Score:1)
Daniel
SUPPORTED BY REDHAT??? (Score:1)
like OS/2's seamless feature); this is actually not that hard to do.
Hmm. What do you mean? I can't think (offhand) of *any* way to do this in a VMWare-style program since the virtual machine and physical machine are entirely separate and unaware of each other (except for a network connection). You'd need something like X11 that displays using a client-server model.
Daniel
I agree, cloning VMWare is pure spite (Score:1)
route, I'm not going to. Why? Because the only reason you use VMWare in the first place is to run
nonfreed software!
Actually, not true. I'd like to use a VMWare-ish program to play around with the Hurd or FreeBSD without having to reallocate my partitions and/or install bleeding-edge OSes (like Hurd) without having to risk them, eg, going mad and overwriting
Daniel
Hmmm (Score:2)
It's also worth noting that VMware isn't particularly original either--it's the first piece of software that does what it specifically does, but the concept is old. VMware just happened to be the first group to apply it to Intel (I think most other people weren't interested since (a) it's a major pain because of limitations of Intel hardware and (b) for most legacy apps, OS-level emulation is a better long-term goal, although [ perhaps ] more difficult in the short-term. If you think Wine is a resource hog, imagine running a 32-MB virtual machine on your computer.
I'd just like to say that there's no shame in being unoriginal as long as you're good and unoriginal. Obviously since they just announced the project we can't judge whether it's good or not...
Daniel
double edge sword? (Score:2)
Daniel
I don't agree with you either (Score:1)
Just to say one thing, on Gtk you can't change the widget's topology, which you could even do with Qt 1.3! (ok, as far as I know, only I bothered doing it http://ultra7.unl.edu.ar/themes/desktop01.gif
So, since Qt will, in 3 months (I'd say now, but let's restrict to releases, and yes, I am making up the 3 months figure) surpass gtk in style support, considering the gtk headstart, why wouldn't Qt be more likely to reach MUI?
And yes, in Qt 2.0, you can change the look of a widget, down to the last pixel, too.
Always seem to be catching up (Score:1)
I'm curious. Can you name any such software project?
All of the "follower" projects I can think of have either died by the wayside(Mozilla, many others), or have still not caught up with the commercial functionality even if they are damn close(Gimp).
Good luck.. (Score:1)
So what? (Score:1)
It appears that Bochs has been around for quite some time, so I don't think this is a "This is a neat idea, so I'll clone it" situation. It also works on several different platforms, which is good for those people who don't have intel machines, but who do want to run intel software.
With OSS, people spend time coding on stuff that they want to. If this guy wants to take his existing shareware project and move it to open source, I don't care. Strategically, Gnome/KDE might be more important things to work on, but I don't have any interest in them. I have other projects that I will work on because they are interesting to me.
When I get more disk space, I might even try both products out. If VMware is better I'll buy it (or when my wife goes back to school, get her to use the student discount). If I like Bochs/freemware, I'll use it. It's called competition in the marketplace. If VMware is a good product, they there will be people to buy it. People that I've talked to say it's a kick-ass product. Others on /. have said that Bochs is slow and from reading the docs on the web page for it, it isn't as straight forward to install. Given a choice between a good commercial product and a free product that might not be as good or is hard to install, there are many who will fork over the cash to get the commercial product.
Your argument sounds similiar to how people describe the Windows world: if you create a successful product, MS will clone it and use their marketing muscle to crush you. Why develop for any platform then? Someone might come along and think you have a good idea and create a different implementation of it. There may have been some bruised egos and spite involved in the motivation for the release, but I don't see how that is going to hurt VMware. It might even help in that they will implement features that will make their product better.
VMware should have been Open Source (Score:4)
I could not disagree more. Furthermore, I will be the first to way that I would pay the $99 student price for a GPL'd VMware. I am not against selling software. I am against the common practice whereby companies withhold (i.e. steal) millions of dollars of value from society by keeping their software proprietary.
I will not buy VMware, even though the product is worth more to me than the asking price. It seems obvious to me that if everyone who wants VMware puts their money into freemware instead, there would be ample money to fund a superior Open Source replacement. If you think VMware is a valuable contribution to society, then how much would an Open Source replacement be worth? Answer: much, much more.
Since I emphasize societal benefit so much in this post, a lot of you out there might accuse me of being socialist, and, by hidden implication, anti-capitalist. Well, I've got news for you: Capitalism is socialism, and socialism is capitalism. Folks, that isn't ideology, that's a proven mathematical theorem. Specifically, the first and second welfare theorems of microeconomics state that:
- A free market always maximizes net societal welfare,
- Any state of maximalization of net societal welfare is achievable through a free market.
I know that socialism/capitalism is not directly on topic but I just wanted to pre-emptively fend off the knee-jerk attack that since I'm against proprietary software I must be against entrepreneurism, capitalism, and the American dream.By the way, in case you haven't figured it out, the proprietary software market is based on a copyright monopoly, hence is not a free market economy, and that's why this market sucks from both a capitalist and socialist standpoint.
Freemware benefit (Score:1)
This kind of system, in response to come people's comments about the license for Bosch, isn't nearly as complex. It'd take a lot less code to get a usable product (which Bosch still isn't...)
I think the best that could come from this effort is a rethinking by VMWare on their pricing, providing a more limited use version or non-commercial pricing for a more reasonable cost. The problem is, they've said they've been considering this, and maybe this effort is going to just stop them from really considering it.
I hope the opensource community isn't shooting itself in the foot on this one. I'd hate to see this effort anger VMWare into being more restrictive in the future with their product, all for the effort to create a product that may violate their patents anyway.
wine (Score:1)
Wine is borderline useful for taking existing Windows source code and getting it to run -- that's why Corel's interested in it. It'll *never* be able to run current-generation Windows applications. Why do you think WABI disappeared? Its too complex and difficult to emulate Windows -- its better to just run windows and emulate the PC. Microsoft or Anti-Microsoft, a windows license isn't that expensive if you really need to use it.
Always seem to be catching up (Score:1)
To be fair the more people coding the better although some people have neither the time or the motivation to code.
--
Always seem to be catching up (Score:1)
As JWZ said just releasing the source code last year which didn't even compile when it was first released didn't exactly inspire confidence with the open source public now they've totally re-written it and now there's a decent layout engine there's the potential to go somewhere.
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Assembly vs. C (Score:1)
I'm sorry, but I don't understand this statement. It seems to me that part of the point of a chip emulator is to be able to run those programs on any number of architectures - m68k, Alpha, Spark, Arm. C helps that goal. Assembly doesn't.
Protection of commercial software? (Score:1)
Chilli
What about Microsoft? (Score:1)
I'm sure these companies would rather compete against Open Source, which competes fairly, instead of Microsoft, which will eat them alive as soon as they have an idea that sells for the platform.
Ben
wine (Score:1)
bah (Score:1)
Ripping off other people's ideas is *not* cool (Score:1)
double edge sword? (Score:1)
All software should be free ... hmm ?! (Score:1)
Idea "stealing" is normal in commercial software (Score:1)
I think this is also the normal practice with commercial software, and is in fact legal. For example, nobody was allowed to own the idea of building a browser after the concept existed. Anybody could take that idea and make their own browser. Hopefully a company would do so in a manner that was innovative and added something new to the product, instead of relying on marketing to sell it
If I remember correctly, only actual code and trademarks are copyrighted, so you can actually recreate almost verbatim interfaces of a product if you use your own code to make it work.
Because of that, if you come up with an original idea, the only advantage you will have, is that you will be the first to develop it and market the idea, but as soon as it is out there, there is nothing to stop other companies or the free software community from emmulating it. (which explains why source code is so jealously guarded, so competiters can't catch up to you)
What I find scarier than someone taking your idea (which I believe is the norm) is the new trend to patent ideas which should not be patentable. ie. somebody tries to patent the idea of selling on the Internet, so anybody who sells anything on the Internet owes him some money. I think there have even been some cases of large software companies putting patents on ideas that have been around for twenty years, that they didn't have anything to do with, but they have a money to pay for the patent and the lawyers to protect it. That is a resource that smaller companies and the free software community doesn't have.
So to sum up, reverse engineering is the norm in both the commercial and free software world, and as long as you don't steal actually implementation details (like source code) or trade marked names. (my new product built by Kacur Company (fictional) is called Microsoft Word super plus) then everything else is fair game. I would be interested though to hear posts agreeing or disagreeing with what I said, especially from people more knowledgeable about the law. (lawyers, law students for example).
Bah humbug (Score:1)
I cant believe people would actually consider slowing thier boxes down, basically dividing its hw resources in half and doubling the chances of a system crash to have this astonishing abilitity to run unreliable crashware winbloz concurrently with their Linux boxes. Stupid. Buy a new machine. If you can't afford a new machine, get a job! (what a concept).
Now about the proposed open source project to clone Vmware, I'd like to suggest to these people, they should divert their creative energies into existing projects that need help, for example GNOME. A vmware clone will have a very limited target audience, be of almost no use to the linux community as a whole. What a waste of valuable resources!!! We should channel our valuable resources into areas where linux is weak. Not wasting good programming efforts on sillyness like a VMWare clone. Good god almighty, what are these people thinking?
My 2 cents worth.
You've made some assumptions... (Score:2)
You seem to equate being a major player in the desktop market with having proprietary, non-free software available for the platform... I don't agree with that logic.
Work cut out for them (Score:1)
To those who question the usefulness of a product like this, consider my workplace. I have a Dell laptop in addition to my workstation. The laptop is for running Windows software, like Rational's Rose and Requisite Pro, plus Outlook. I can run all of these programs in a VMWare session with remarkable performance. When I am not using VMWare, I can simply suspend it and it no longer consumes CPU.
Now what do you think costs more, an extra hard drive for my workstation, or a Pentium II laptop?
Whine whine (Score:1)
The most visible OSS projects TODAY derive from ideas based on proprietary products. Why? Umm, maybe the big "conquer the desktop" push that some in the Linux etc. community have been making? People have been going on about GNOME etc. and how Linux must become more prevalent on the desktop. Well what's there now? Proprietary software. Is anyone else therefore surprised that a lot of new OSS projects resemble commercial offerings?
As for "the vmware concept sucks", I beg to differ -- there are many applications for such a product, but not what you'd think. For example, I'm trying to get my company's webserver switched to Linux, but I can't do that until I find a way to run the eshare expressions chat system (NT or Solaris only). So I can either somehow find a spare system in our building and install eshare, have a new one ordered (which there's no budget for) -- or I could run something like vmware and emulate NT under linux while I find some new chat/message software
Would I use vmware for long-term emulation of another OS? probably not. But just because I can get a PC for $300, don't make the stupid assumption that I have $300 to throw at a PC just for a single project (such as the one above).
Those who whine after this post are encouraged to send me a check for $300 to buy a new PC. I will then stop supporting the use of vmware.
VMWare Patent (Score:1)
Bah humbug (Score:2)
Linux doesn't need another x86 emulator, another dos emulator, or the ability to run windows 98/nt apps. Linux needs to be strengthened in the GUI areas (whether you like GNOME or KDE IS irrelevant), and possibly in the business applications arena, though with StarOffice, Applix, and WordPerfect there are already some good applications out there. (though I'm at a fundamental disagreement with Corel's porting of ver 8 using wine)
Intel boxen are increadibly cheap today, and getting something that can run Windows faster than VMware on a Pentium 233 on Linux shouldn't cost more than $500 all said and done. That $500 buys a decent machine, too (which would run linux very well... erm... wait...)
Bah humbug (Score:1)
Hmmm imagine? (Score:1)
I'm *doing* it. It's *FINE*. Granted, I have
plenty of RAM to work with, but it's getting the
job done. The performance is acceptable to me.
Not breathtaking, mind you.
Revenge? (Score:2)
I do think that this isn't actually a very good project idea though. It seems to me that the creator of BOCHS, an extremely slow emulator which is unlikely to be useful for anything, has just seen his hopes and dreams for the project completely blown out of the water by a vastly superior product. I am rather suspicious of his motivations in setting up an open source project which aims to do little more than undermine the vmWare product, and thus vmWare's market.
If we want to be constructive, we should be instead lobbying vmWare, promoting the benefits of making their product open source on the Linux platform. Personally I have little use for the product unless they can get games working well (though I suspect the game companies will catch on to the value of the Linux market before that happens).
If the Linux community can't convince vmWare to free up the source code to their product - even for non-commercial use only (a really good idea guys), then perhaps they would like to reconsider their asking price for non-commercial use. Even without source code, providing the product freely to thousands of Linux users will gain great exposure and thousands of bug reporters.
If they opened up the source, then they might get some really useful help with getting DirectX applications working well.
A bit of a burble, but I think I made all the right noises.
Be careful about this project - what's the guys real motivation? If he loved open source so much, why didn't he free up the source to BOCHS?
Why VMs are useful (Score:2)
- cost - much cheaper to add $300 VMware and extra RAM than buy a new machine - any decent machine costs more than $450
- flexibility - run bleeding edge Linux/BSD/other kernels in a VM, hosted by production Linux installation. Run more than one guest OS at once.
- power usage and heat - run several OSs on one box without increasing heat dissipation - reduce electricity usage and help avoid global warming (seriously - PCs use a big chunk of the US electricity production!)
- tech support - boot a VM that is an exact replica of the one the user is running, without disturbing your normal session.
- Windows development - run a Windows NT guest OS to do email, another to do development (will sometimes crash but who cares), and a Win98 one and Win95 one for testing. If you hate Windows, remember that Linux will be the most stable host OS for VMware, most likely, and you are thereby introducing Linux onto a Windows developer's desktop - can't be all bad. And remember that this will support a Linux guest OS for when they decide they must port to Linux
- desk space - many of our developers have two PCs, one Windows and one Linux, which is a waste of desk space.
- testing small networks on single machine - providing you have enough RAM, you could run 5 or ten VMs at once, enough to test a small network of systems - ideal for testing client/server setups using different OSs without consuming a lot of hardware. My company makes network management software, so if some of the VMs could boot Linux router code we could test a complete network on a laptop. Handy for when our testers want to work from home rather than suffer up to 1.5 hours commute each way in London.
- research - develop and test new network protocols, or Beowulf apps, on a single machine
- Year 2000 testing - run a guest OS with its clock turned forward
- workload partitioning on large SMP systems - run different major apps, e.g. SAP R/3 and Oracle Applications, in different VMs with (hopefully) little impact of one on the other. Standard practice in mainframes and copied using hardware by Sun, HP, Amdahl, etc. Unix has traditionally been quite poor at workload partitioning - would be better to see it in the OS, but this is a useful stopgap. Very handy for server consolidation, where many small servers get merged into one or two huge servers.
- demonstrations - would be useful to demo distributed client/server type software, including showing how the system recovers from a (guest) OS/hardware crash, simulated by halting the VM.
It's worth remembering that the IT world is more complex than your own particular environment. Also, if Linux+VMware can be used to 'surround' Windows environments by running them in a more flexible way, it's only a short step to a more Linux-based environment.
VM/370, the IBM mainframe equivalent of VMware, was once about to be canned (it was an unofficial project done in R&D labs, a bit like Unix at AT&T), when the suits discovered that it was being used by the MVS team (MVS being the main operating system then and now for IBM mainframes) for development and testing, running several MVS instances on a single mainframe. Once they realised that MVS, although notionally a competitor to VM, was in fact depending on it, they kept the VM project going, and it's now available as VM/390.
Making money (Score:1)
Really useful and killer pieces of software are exceedingly hard to come by; only a handful are made each year, and most of those are niche products.
Most money spent on software per year is spent on maintaining or improving existing applications, or on supporting them. This is the service that big corporations will fork over the big dollars for. If you want to reliably earn money in software over the long term, this is where you do it.
Of course under the GPL it is possible that e.g. Red Hat will make more money than you do. But that doesn't stop you from earning money--in fact, if your business strategy is right, it simply increases your own marketability while eliminating your distribution and advertising costs.
It doesn't take a whole lot of thought to make money out of GPL software--just organize your business so you aren't competing with your own distributors (i.e. your users).
Who's Idea??? (Score:1)
I don't see a problem yet.
It seems perfrectly fair to me--whoever has the best marketing wins in the business world. Since the software itself would be free, those of us with real work to do can either 1) use an off-the-shelf system, or 2) customize an off-the-shelf system, or 3) build the whole thing from scratch, as we have to do today. The difference is that those of us using option #2 don't have to spend more than the cost of option #3 for non-technical reasons. The rest of you can go be the little lemmings you are, if you want to.
The real problem I have with the business world is that it keeps intruding into software development. Once that problem is solved (and I don't particularly care how it ends, as long as it ends) then we can get on with our coding in peace.
The entire _concept_ of non-open-source software comes to us exclusively from the business world--real software developers would never dream of withholding source code because it is simply counterproductive to making good software (except as an educational exercise in the difference between interface and implementation, of course).
Bah humbug (Score:1)
I also run it at work, because we're on an NT network with admins who don't know what the hell they're doing, and somehow they've made it so no matter what I do, Samba will simply not communicate with the network. So now, when some moron emails me that "The file's on the E: drive", instead of thinking "Well, wtf's that supposed to mean?" I can just fire up the winbloze and ftp it to myself. Try explaining ftp to your average office drone. It's amazing, these people have never heard of it.
In any case, I think an OSS vmware clone is a nifty idea. And it continues to disturb me when new OSS projects get the rotisserie treatment on Slashdot. I thought we were Open-Source's proponents here? How bout some of us try opening our minds a little, along with our software?
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Usefulness? (Score:1)
possible really paranoid person? (Score:1)
"Former" M$ Aligned!?!?!? (Score:1)
Always seem to be catching up (Score:1)
When trying to look at where truly innovative ideas have came from, look to where they have in the past. For the most part Universities, and certain research places like Xerox's Palo Alto Labs. Why? My guess is a full time, creative thinking environment. It is good to note that the ideas that come from these think tanks didn't take off over night either. It took S. Jobs to liberate the mouse driven gui from Xerox's narrow minded execs, and it wasn't until MS Windows that guis finally went big time. The creator of ethernet had to break away from the company to create the technology, and even then it took years to catch on. TCP/IP the underlying COOL technology of the internet existed for decades before the explotion of the web.
Moral of the story, innovation takes time, frequently goods ideas aren't recognized at the time, and often if something is truly new, the inventor might decide to cash in with a patent. If it is one of a kind software, there is really no incentive to keep it public, except for moral reasons. If on the other hand, such software is well established (Word Processors, Spreedsheets, OSs, etc), there is less to gain by going proprietary and less risk that your effort will be wasted if you spend your own personal time on it.
Ryan
All noise, no code (Score:1)
I work on an open source project, and I've observed that having a useful product on the table is the best way to attract developers who can then extend the product.
GIMP began as the pet project of a couple of grad students working more or less by themselves. But now, there are contributors too numerous to count. Once a product does X and does it well, developers will jump on to make it do Y and Z.
In conclusion , I am dead sceptical about any project that begins as an announcement.
Hmmm (Score:1)
They better NOT get a patent on a technology with a 32 year track record.
Bah humbug (Score:1)
That's a Netscape IMAP bug.
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Two kinds of software... (Score:1)
Bah humbug (Score:1)
Here is another idea for those who could have two boxes. Utilize the second using the VNC viewer client software. That way they could just put the windows box in a corner and forget about it!
capitalism v socialism (Score:1)
And, in the case of software, I would be inclined to call source code the "means of production." And, the best way to keep the software under control, and help make sure people will pay for it, is *not* to make the software "free." And, the "freedom" of "sharing" that embodies the GPL is not compatible with requiring people to pay for software
I would disagree. I believe the "means of production" for software is the programmer, not the results of that production - the product/software/code. So, you are advocating that the "means of production" (programmers) should be controlled by individuals/corporations. I don't think this is what anyone would particularly like, as it sounds a bit too much like slavery (and no, I'm not trying to inflame).
I think the whole concept is different for "intellectual property" and can't be compared to physical property. A corporation can "own" a gold mine, and use people to extract the gold and produce the "product" (gold ingots?). The "control" is over the gold mine. People are just hired to do the work of extracting the product from the source.
Software "production" is quite different. Corporations don't "own" ANYTHING when it comes to software production. Where does software come from? It comes from the intelligence of the workers. So for the company to "own" the source of production, they would have to "own" the workers. Unlike the gold mine, "intellectual property" is not transferrable from one person to another easily. In the gold mine, you could more easily fire all workers and hire all new ones and have them "producing" for you a LOT faster than if you did the same thing with a large programming staff (think if Microsoft fired each and every Windows programmer and hired all new ones. Even with the source code, how LONG do you think it would take that new staff to get up to speed?). So, software is more of a "product" of the individual programmer than the company they work for. That is not how it is generally viewed now, but in reality that's the truth.
Announcement != Real Project (Score:1)
The very next day, however, someone annouces a "free" project to clone these guys' product (which just happened to be released FIRST on Linux - there's support from the community for you). I'd say any hope of VMWare being willing to release their source just dropped like like a cruise missle over an aspirin factory.
What could be the motive of this project? Hmmm.. could it be the fun in the technical innovation and sharing it with people who appreciate it? Well, that's unlikely since the project announcement doesn't claim to have a goal to do anything that VMWare doesn't already do right now. If this was a true hacker project they'd take the concept one or two steps further - provide cpu independence for example. Run Mac apps for the G3 on a PII under Linux or NT/Alpha on a G3 under Linux for example. Nope - these guys are just upset that the VMWare folks might get paid for their effort. This is the kind of FUD that would make Mr. Gates proud cause it certainly makes me less inclined to release source on any of my projects. Fortunately I expect this "free" project to become instant vaporware since most talented developers actually value their time at more than $300 for 1000 man hours of trying to do something someone else already does well. Perhaps they'll take my hint...?
capitalism v socialism (Score:1)
1. A free market always maximizes net societal welfare,
2. Any state of maximalization of net societal welfare is achievable through a free market.
While this is true, this doesn't mean that socialism is capitalism. It seems to me that the generally accepted definition of socialism is an economic system where the means of production are owned or otherwise controlled by the government, as opposed to communism (owned/controlled by the people) or capitalism (owned/controlled by various individuals/corporations).
And, in the case of software, I would be inclined to call source code the "means of production." And, the best way to keep the software under control, and help make sure people will pay for it, is *not* to make the software "free." And, the "freedom" of "sharing" that embodies the GPL is not compatible with requiring people to pay for software.
Thus, if you do find capitalism efficient, and like it, then you shouldn't be too outraged when a company keeps some software proprietary. Because, until a cheaper (or even free) alternative comes around, they have every incentive to keep it proprietary. (As in the case of Netscape v. Internet Explorer)
speed of DOSEmu (Score:1)
Oh yeah, and doesn't it make sense that if one writes an x86 emulator, that it should be able to run on computers other than an x86? (sorry if that sounded hostile...)
capitalism v socialism (Score:1)
(Applying old labels, defined during the industrial revolution and such, are so fun to apply to new situations, I think...)
Where does software come from? It comes from the intelligence of the workers.
Naturally, creating software isn't exactly the same as creating most products, but the processes can have similarities. In manufacturing, one usually starts with raw materials, and a customer order, applies men and machines to the task, and produces something
to sell to the customer. In software, one starts with a desired set of functionality, applies men and machines, and comes up with some source code.
Just as finished goods only come from raw materials when investments are made in
- employee's wages
- capital investment in tools and machinery
- training/managing employees to do their tasks
... software in the commercial world doesn't come without somebodyNow, it can be argued that a programmer could produce his code without the capital investment, especially since people are more likely to own their own computers than their own assembly lines. More often than not, though, substantial projects require more than one person, plus it's not coders who usually are able to write the good documentation and marketing copy that a polished commercial offering has.
Just as a guy on an assembly line can put a tire on a car at home, or at a factory, a programmer can write a good backend at home, or at a job. A fully finished car, or application, though, requires the effort of a team. And the investment of money is what usually forms this team. Thus, the finished product (the source code) should be the property of the company (the investor.)
Note that this discussion has no relevance to open-source, GPL, bazaar, or whatever you want to call it today, projects. linux,
perl, Apache.. these all follow a totally different model obviously, from the type of hacks I'm describing here.
capitalism v socialism (Score:1)
I just noticed that I forgot to switch it to HTML Formatted... sorry :-)
Where does software come from? It comes from the intelligence of the workers.
Naturally, creating software isn't exactly the same as creating most products, but the processes can have similarities. In manufacturing, one usually starts with raw materials, and a customer order, applies men and machines to the task, and produces something to sell to the customer. In software, one starts with a desired set of functionality, applies men and machines, and comes up with some source code.
Just as finished goods only come from raw materials when investments are made in
- employee's wages
- capital investment in tools and machinery
- training/managing employees to do their tasks
... software in the commercial world doesn't come without somebodyNow, it can be argued that a programmer could produce his code without the capital investment, especially since people are more likely to own their own computers than their own assembly lines. More often than not, though, substantial projects require more than one person, plus it's not coders who usually are able to write the good documentation and marketing copy that a polished commercial offering has.
Just as a guy on an assembly line can put a tire on a car at home, or at a factory, a programmer can write a good backend at home, or at a job. A fully finished car, or application, though, requires the effort of a team. And the investment of money is what usually forms this team. Thus, the finished product (the source code) should be the property of the company (the investor.)
Note that this discussion has no relevance to open-source, GPL, bazaar, or whatever you want to call it today, projects. linux, perl, Apache.. these all follow a totally different model obviously, from the type of hacks I'm describing here.
I agree (Score:1)
Announcement != Real Project (Score:1)
- Good to see some commercial apps for GNU/Linux. I think I might buy a copy.
- Too expensive. I want a free version. Wahh, somebody write one for me please!
- Sounds interesting. I've got some code here that sort of does this, but needs some work done. Anyone want to start a FreeFoobar project?
- I tried this program and it's terrible. It won't work with my 2.3.176-ac13 kernel, and where are the glibc7 binaries? I demand opensource.
#2 is the most common and also the most arrogant and stupid. If you want good software, write it. #4 is reasonable--that's why many of us use a distribution like Debian so we can always have the latest of everything, and we generally don't pay attention to non-freed software. #3 is, of course, the best reaction, because it creates more competition for #1.That said, I still think the world needs more freed software, not commercial software. I just don't know how to resolve this with the diametric problem of being able to eat.
All this said, I frankly will not contribute one line of code to freemware until the Bochs licence is changed. It's extremely arrogant of the author to astroturf like this when VMWare already has an excellent product, and he brings nothing to the table. I wrote an 80286 emulator myself--and it was in 32-bit assembler. Bochs is in C!
crap (Score:1)
I've decided that proprietary, closed software IS the problem (and Bochs is such a piece of software due to its licence). Case in point: Stardock Object Desktop. It's unzip feature is very broken. Try unpacking XFree86 for OS/2 with it. It scared me off from the demo right away--I never came back. I liked some things about Object Desktop, but it just was a still target.
With freed software, *I* can fix bugs, and I know the project won't suddenly go frozen and stiff when a company can't continue development (or won't), such as happened with Colorworks.
OS/2 has really turned me off to the non-free software world. OTOH, I have really been enjoying the freed software community, esp. the XFree86 and Debian people. It's simply a lot more fun.
I have too many times spent money on a piece of OS/2 software that, while nice, quickly became another coprolith lining my shelves that was a waste of (insert dollar amount here).
crap (Score:1)
I fail to see what makes freemware so much better than VMWare until the licence is fixed. Until then, I have to pay the author money after 30 days. This is no different than VMWare, and VMWare works--now. Bochs/freemware doesn't (the speed of an 8086/10 on an Ultra 5 is unacceptable).
I would also like to point out the piracy issue: a freed clone of VMWare could actually reduce the amount of pirated copies of VMWare. Do you really think pimply-faced kids who just got ``this Redhat thing'' installed are going to pay for VMWare? Of course not. They'll get it from their favorite EFnet channel like they do everything else.
On the topic of world domination and us freed software developers, I really don't see how it has any meaning at all. Who cares how many people are using my code or some code that has some contributions of mine? It doesn't affect me, except in the remote sense that better software makes the world a slightly nicer place. It's not like all these semi-free projects coming from IBM or Apple are hurting me. I keep on hacking away at my OS/2/X11/GNU/printing integration software. I continue to fiddle with xfstt to get antialiasing working with XFree86. I continue to install and use freed software packages, like mailman, that I need on my system and learn how to use them.
There's no-one clamoring for my resources. Freed software will go on long after the current Linux hype is over. GNU will still be around. I'll probably still be using the Linux kernel. My PS/2s will still be running. I'll still be maintaing the XGA XFree86 Xserver. Who cares if Linux has .01% of the desktop or 99%?
Disclaimer: I am pimply faced some of the time, at least after eating Syrian food.
SUPPORTED BY REDHAT??? (Score:2)
RedHat probably appreciates VMWare for providing a useful product on GNU/Linux, but RedHat would really like to be able to bundle a freed software emulator for Micros~1 software that actually works. The $300 is way to high to sell as a Windows {9[58]|NT} replacement.
If anything ever becomes of freemware, it will place competitive pressure on VMWare to compete. For starters, they might consider an accelerated video driver (easy to do), better performance (there's always a way), and Windows sound/mouse drivers that talk directly to X11 rather than through the hardware emulation layer (this would remove the mouse pointer weirdness). Making Windows windows integrate with the X11 desktop would also be nice (sort of like OS/2's seamless feature); this is actually not that hard to do.
That said, VMWare is a very nice product, but freed software is always better. =) And please DON'T tell me to go spend $300. I'd much rather use freed software and donate that money worthy causes.
double edge sword? (Score:2)
I agree all software should be free... but sometimes, like with the Harmony project for the Qt lib, i feel we are ripping off people sometimes...
double edge sword? (Score:2)
GPL still the most popular license? (Score:2)
Survival of the fittest (law of the jungle) (Score:2)
Novell is not still around because of their advertising and neither is Linux. They are products which have proven to be more stable in many respects.
Bah humbug (Score:2)
I've been trying very hard to get bring Linux into the company as a viable solution for many applications over the past year, and while I've managed to get it setup as a couple DNS servers, print servers and my desktop OS, it's still pretty slow going.
For them to accept Linux I have to "prove" its a viable OS on all counts. Stability, speed, inter-communications with other OS's and networks etc.
One problem I've been facing is that against my better advice they've decided to implement Micrsoft Exchange as their internal and internet mail system with Outlook on all the clients.
While this works great for the Windows NT networked workstations, it's practically left out our dos-Novell clients, X-stations running off Unix servers etc and my Linux workstation.
Luckily basic email is covered by standard POP3 and SMTP (though trying to log into exchange with a pop3 client is just plain weird, whoever heard of Domain name/Domain User name/Mailbox Name as a login name to a pop3 host, glad we dont expect users to setup their own email software), but now they've decided to move all calendaring and scheduling functions to Outlook and Exchange as well.
This wouldn't be a problem either except that they are also currently afraid to setup the web interface to the exchange server (I guess showing them how instable NT is compared to other NOS's backfired on me in this case)
For me to continue to be allowed to run Linux as my desktop in a Windows based company I have to show that I can be compatible with everyone else. They aren't going to issue me another computer and I dont have the desk space for one anyways. That either leaves me with the choice of moving back to Windows alltogether which for me is out of the question if at all possible, dual booting between Linux and Winx duable but a pain the butt just to check email and my calendar, or running an app like VMWare with a virtual 95 machine, which so far has worked with flying colors.
Granted on my AMD K6 -200 the 95 machine is a bit slow itself but it's still workable, and after installing 128MB ram on the system by keeping VMWare running in the background it doesn't effect my Linux applications hardly at all.
Now I just have to bring up the virtual machine to check and adjust the calendar and then minimize it to get back to my real work, and since I like windows based Pegasus email software better than another other email client around it still lets me run that as my client of choice.
Also it allows me to quickly manage the NT servers and users from the Win95 session, somthing thats kind of hard to do with the smb software currently available for Linux.
So software like this most definetly has it's uses, and can also be a great tool to bring Linux into areas that are reluctant to even try it out, even more so when they come out with an NT version that you can run virtual Linux machines on. In this case you can safly show off the benefits of Linux safely in NT only company's allowing them to test it out first hand without having to dedicate a computer to it. That might not be an issue for users who find 3-500 dollar computers, but I've yet to work for a big company that will even consider such a thing. Instead they've all "standardized" on the latest models of Compaq, Dell and Gateway who can easily run into the $1500 to $5000 dollar range. In these cases purchasing an extra computer for what is to them an untested OS would be out of the question.
Always seem to be catching up (Score:2)
Once the initial project is underway it doesn't take long before the open project excells the closed one.
Finally, stop complaining about this. If you think the free software world lags then shut up about that, learn to code and write some new programs. I think we'd all prefer that to a moaner who do little else?
Phill