Novell offers virtual machine driver pack

TalkBack 1 of 2:

Next »

• Thread View
• Flat View

Clarification from Novell

A clarification from Holger Dyroff, vp of SUSE Linux product management at Novell...

The SUSE Linux Enterprise Virtual Machine Driver Pack includes two sets of drivers --one set of drivers for Linux systems and another set of drivers for Windows operating systems. All of the drivers are supported by Novell when you purchase a subscription to the VM Driver Pack.

The Linux drivers come from the Xen open source project and enable you to run both Red Hat Enterprise Linux guests and SUSE Linux Enterprise Server guests. Like any distribution, we package them in a way that fits our distribution's needs. In this case, they need to be compatible with the version of Xen we are shipping. But they are available to the community in the same manner as any other piece of open source code. The Windows drivers have a proprietary license, although you can use them for them free during a 60-day evaluation period. (BTW - XenSource Windows drivers are also proprietary.) The Windows Drivers Development Kit (DDK) prohibits drivers built and linked against Microsoft DDK components from being open source. We therefore must ship our own proprietary version.

The drivers in the SUSE Linux Enterprise Virtual Machine Driver Pack are different from the drivers that XenSource ships, although both drivers offer similar functionality. Neither the SUSE drivers nor the XenSource drivers are identical with what's being developed in the Xen community. The Xen community develops open source code, and companies such as IBM, Intel, HP,AMD, Novell and XenSource are all contributors to that community. (In fact, Novell has made by far more contributions to the Xen project for x86 and x86 64-bit architecture than any other Linux distributor.) Companies like Novell and XenSource take the open source code from the Xen project and then develop differentiated open source drivers, in much the same way that Novell and Red Hat both take the Linux kernel, and develop differentiated open source distributions.

Posted by: blowry@...   Posted on: 06/21/07 You are currently: a Guest | Members login | Terms of Use

Alert moderator to an offensive message

Subscribe to this discussion via Email or RSS

SponsoredWhite Papers, Webcasts, and Downloads

• Why Isn't Server Virtualization Saving Us More? A Few Small Changes May Dramatically Increase Your Efficiency VMware Companies have rapidly adopted server virtualization over the past few ... Download Now
• Virtualization: Architectural Considerations And Other Evaluation Criteria VMware Of the many approaches to x86 systems virtualization available in the ... Download Now
• The True Costs of Virtual Server Solutions VMware In an economic environment that is repeatedly heralding the message "do ... Download Now