VMware douses open source with waterfall of nonsense

With groin stimulating IPOs comes great responsibility. Ah, let's be serious. With ludicrous IPOs, comes great nonsense. For example, our recent interview with VMware CEO Diane Greene took place in the company's new waterfall room. This magical room is just like your average conference room except it has a large glass plate at …

[Anonymous Coward]

Nothing new ...

"This magical room is just like your average conference room except it has a large glass plate at one end with water constantly rushing down its face."

A place I used to work at had a conference room a bit like this - getting someone in to fix the guttering solved the problem in a flash.

[Karl Lattimer]

erm hold on...

"What we want to do is fund ourselves to be able to build new stuff. If you're purely open source, there is no way you can do new stuff."

David Reveman - Novell - Compiz - Xgl

'Nuff Said.

[Anthony B. Coates]

Sun isn't really an "open source company"

Sure, Sun provides a lot of great free and/or open-source software, much of which I use. However, it doesn't make its money off software and related services, it makes the majority of it off hardware. So it isn't fair to compare them to a pure software company that has to make a business decision about whether open sourcing their code would help or hurt their viability as a business.

Cheers, Tony.

[Mike Laverick]

Ho Hum

Come on Ashley you can't have it both ways. One article you criticise Dianne for not being a ultracaptialist like Bill Gates or Steve Balmer. The next she's being criticised for not making everything open-source. Where the completely open-source version of Windows. You said yourself

"VMware does not need to inspire interest in its products or tolerate the open source bandwagon nonsense."

Can we have some mature insights on Virtualization from El Reg, rather than this ill-formed rant-a-thon?

I get the feeling the Register doesn't like successful companies that produce great software....

[Mark]

Must be closed source to innovate?

How does that fall out? If it's because you can't keep the rest of the industry down if your new hotness is visible, then

a) that isn't helping advance the state of the art (why copyright is there)

b) just because your code is visible doesn't mean anyone is allowed to take it

How many of VMWare's competitors would take their code if it was GPLd? About bugger all, I reckon. So no loss there.

Is it that to innovate you must be able to write crap code? Well, if true, at least keeping it closed now makes sense, but I don't really see that this is true. Does anyone?

OK, GPLing (or BSDing, CDDLing MS-PLing...) your code won't necessarily make it better, but what are the downsides? You can't gouge your customers. Ah. I think I have it now. Well, why didn't they say. If the don't squeeze their customers 'till they sqeak, they won't be able to pay massive bonuses to their executives. If they can't pay their executives massive bonuses, they won't get "the best". If they don't get the best executives (leaving out that there can only be a limited supply of the best ones...) then they can't be a dynamic powerhouse (leaving out that the C*O codes naff all, so can't really produce a product at all, never mind a great one).

Well, I feel better now.

Bah.

[Joerg]

Open source is just pure speculation and hype....

..and the one that earned more out of open source has been Bill Gates so far in the first place.

Thanks to the open source '68 communistic minded myth of everything for free and no secret code (yeah,sure...) with GNU/Linux the monopoly that Microsoft is got stronger and stronger over the years by ensuring that no competitors could have had a chance.

No one wants to buy an OS that's not Microsoft owned, so any competitor would simply fail like OS/2 did. And everyone knows that Apple is owned by Microsoft thanks to Steve Jobs, which is the simple reason why OS X won't be sold as a standalone OS for any x86/x64 PC out there.

Open source is a cancer for the industry and all the naive and silly puppet employees are a real shame along with their top executive managers that used it just to earn some personal profit while entire Companies got crushed by that in favour of monopolies like Microsoft.

Giving away for free the hard work of employees in an open-source manner is not clever, it's suicide for any business. MySQL and Apache developers have recently started closing their code source if anyone didn't notice yet.. soon they will go full commercial and no one will be able to touch their code for free anymore.. and you could ask, why they would pursue such a radical change in policy ? Well, it's pretty simple, once you built up a successful product that million of business use (just count web hosting providers...) then you got an installed user base and you want more profit out of it, so you need to ensure that any further improvement to you business model and code quality remains a secret, and closed source it's the only way.

[Swashbuckler]

Why?

"Why fight against this crowd when you could be a shining example of open competition?"

Money.

Successful proprietary software companies make more money than successful open source companies.

[Ashlee Vance]

Re: Ho Hum

I'd say that's quite the sweeping reading of both stories, mate.

AV

[Dave]

Xen disappoints?

Whom found Xen disappointing? Well, well - seems VMWare failed to read the F*@3$ng manual, misconfigured it and disappointed themselves.

See here: www.cl.cam.ac.uk/research/srg/netos/xen/performance.html

versus here: www.vmware.com/pdf/hypervisor_performance.pdf

the latter being a calumny, a disgrace, an outrage

[amanfromMars]

Call me a cynic but ....

VMware ....... just another MS Phishing Operation?

Surely any Firm that has Virtualisation at the HyperVisor Level Perfected will sit in Proxy Control of MicroSoft and Open Source. Until then it's surely only Vapourware fooling the markets/creating buzz and Deep CAI Phishing.

To Lead in a New Technology doesn't have you hiding the code in the Shadows, so there is no new code? There certainly is no new Script to Use it that for sure......for Hollywood would be abuzz at the Possibilities.

[amanfromMars]

And a cynic indeed I was?

Having just read.......... http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/10/31/diane_greene_vmware_chat/ ..... I would like modify my opinion and suggest that all that is missing for VMware/Diane Greene is a Script/an Application for their Code to Run with and that will have EMC [who do come across as the pervy uncle type hustler getting their rocks off on a piece of tasty new ass, and if that is wrong, then I do hereby apologise and withdraw the view] and everyone else following their Lead, for it would appear that they are being deliberately milked for all they are worth rather than used for the Benefits which will Flow with Systems Virtualisation and HyperVision, which I would suggest is in Reality/Virtual Reality/Virtualisation .... call it what you will ...... a New World Order Programming which does not pay lip service to the Status Quo as a Server Technology to it but rather a Server Technology to Replace/Upgrade it. That Core Discipline is the Value in VMware which will see it take over as a market Leader in a new Creation Market rather than as just as an Arm waving the Flag of Existing Big Business to sell more of their existing wares to existing Customers.

I get the impression that Diane is being stifled in her Hypervision to play lesser mortals games...... and because of the huge GeoPolitical Stakes involved..... and Great Game Mastery is big enough surely in anyone's book, the stops have been put on Progress. Heaven forbid that any new players should step up to plate and show a New Lead whilst Old Money Players and lesser mortals playing Sub Prime Games in the failed and failing New World Order Debt is Money System, struggle to understand the New Order being Virtualised around them, without them.

Of course, only Ms Greene could know if that is what she felt was happening and whether that is what VMware is all about.

And a new Technology which allows Transparent Leadership in a New World Order Program and has a Script for Hollywoods and Media and IT to lead Society and Governments with, would be a Novel Innovation and Real Winner to Generate Real Interest and Buzz rather than being thought of as just cynical Hype/Spin.

Surely we've had quite enough of that Stuff and Nonsense. Lies and Deceit.

It does also raise the question, which indeed would radically alter the Picture which is painted as Reality by Media and News, of Hypervisors being Big Picture Story Tellers/Intelligence Hubs for Communications Technology to Share and for Business and Banking to put in Place/Provide Funds and their Services, with the Idea being to keep giving money away to be spent and generating industry and endeavour and always flowing rather than collecting it for storage and a rainy day/old age and creating bottlenecks and stops to Progress and Production.

The sub-prime lending market created a grateful customer base which only caused problems whenever the impossible was asked of them..... and it is pretty dumb and more than a little perverse of an institution rolling in wealth and capital asking for wealth and capital which it knows cannot be paid back. IT has created a lot of angry enemies of the System.

Spookily enough, that would seem to suggest that the biggest of crimes is to be seen to be gathering wealth and making exclusive claim to it, rather than spending it as one needs/wants.

Now that would be an interesting pilot scheme to BetaTest a new Society Model... Money on Demand Electronically with no Cash to Splash. Then our every Need could be Fed and all Feeds could be tailored to Need. That would also provide a Total Information Awareness Society which could rearrange things Beta knowing what is wanted and needed rather than being simply provided on an ad hoc/suck it and see basis. ...... the risk entrepreneurial route.

Together with Hypervision and Edutainment can Media and IT show what is being built and provided for the Future too ...which will speed along man's development immensely.

Is that what Virtualisation is for? Creating IntelAIgently Designed Vistas InterNetworking Together Feeding each other Needs?

[Mark]

Communist == Government control

Which is copyright.

So maybe, mr Joerg, you're accusing the wrong people.

[psychicist]

Where does VMware stand with respect to KVM

I primarily use VMware because of its Linux support, stability and performance on x86. But KVM is already more than good enough for workstation virtualisation and maturing fast, so it will probably end up being a good server virtualisation solution too in a few years time.

Then I don't see a big role for VMware anymore except as an application provider for management of virtual machine parks. Their decision to only supply a Windows application for management of VMI 3 already has me looking for a credible alternative, now that Xen's time has come and gone on the Linux platform.

[Joerg]

@Mark : What are you talking about ? You have some very confused ideas...

..really.

A government that doesn't control and protect its own country is just useless. If it's the pseudo-anarchy or full anarchy that you want then that's something Left Wing people (and now many of them became very rich burocrats and leaders, go figure...) theorized in the infamous '68 era. It's just a way to use/abuse people dumb enough to give them power, it's still communism, it's the same thing the communistic regime in China is enslaving its own population, by using a fake capitalistic market that actually owns and control and making a fool of everyone, its population above all which thinks to have got democracy,freedom and capitalism...

It's absolutely true that copyright promoters behind DRM and associations of lawyers and burocrats tied in with politicians like MPAA,BSA,RIAA and such are ,almost all of them at least, Left Wing supporters/leaders/theorists but that doesn't mean that copyright is evil per se nor that it has anything to do with communism.

Communism basic rule is to destroy and conquer, it's the same tactic that '68 neo-communist people use to raise taxes in every country they get in charge of worldwide. They have some puppets telling that the rich ones must pay more, the poor must not pay unless "it's absolutely needed for the country", which just means that they raise taxes and the population has got to obey in silence and be happy with it, and then they have many other puppets and leaders in their machine that are put in key roles to take control over society.

Microsoft, Apple, Sun .. are all Left Wing minded machines owned by '68 theorists, leaders and so on. In order to force insane anti-capitalistic copyright DRM rules on customers and turn customers into slaves with money that must be given to their masters, they needed to take control over society. Many famous books on communism with its basic rules to follow just tell that, taking over key roles in a country is the best way to take control of everything over time. And this tactic worked perfectly. The whole open-source/GNU/Linux stuff with its hype and myth are part of this tactic and mentality.

This is just what happened in the last 30 years or so.

[Anonymous Coward]

@Simon Ward

""This magical room is just like your average conference room except it has a large glass plate at one end with water constantly rushing down its face."

A place I used to work at had a conference room a bit like this - getting someone in to fix the guttering solved the problem in a flush."

There, fixed it for you.

[mogmios]

Closed source is a mistake for VMWare.

My company currently uses VMWare and have no problem paying for support from VMWare but open source is important to our strategy. If VMWare has not opened it's source before an open source competitor gets good enough for our needs then we'll be switching to the open sourced competition. It's not about the money, it's about the freedom and the guarentee that we have control of our business.

We require the stability and speed of VMWare, hosting on Linux, support for hosting at least Linux, BSD, and Windows without any OS patches, live backups, and clustering with live migration. When Xen on another open source product can offer these I'll switch and sign a support contract with them.

[foxyshadis]

What VMware wants

VMware makes the vast majority of its money on support contracts anyway. Oh lord, those were brutal, after our two-year was up we decided self-support was the better part of valor. Open source would change the dynamics and I'm sure it would lower their immediate revenue, but the overall effect would be less than she says and I bet she knows that; they have a unique position compared to most.

The reality is that they just don't want Microsoft or Xen to have any kind of access at all. They'll continue to use every dirty trick in the book to hold their position, as most companies in their place would, and only cede to open source the platform when it gets commoditized and the addons (like VMotion) become more important.

[Swashbuckler]

Umbrage?

"We're quite sure that a company such as Sun Microsystems and maybe even Red Hat would take umbrage at Greene's suggestions that innovation cannot happen under the open source model."

If Sun did, they'd be wrong. Most of their code was developed as a proprietary company.

Red Hat would be wrong too. As most of Linux was not developed by Red Hat.