Messages in this thread |  | | | Date | Tue, 5 Oct 1999 03:50:42 -0400 (EDT) | | From | "Mike A. Harris" <> | | Subject | Re: Kernel 2.2.11 crash... |
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On Tue, 5 Oct 1999, David S. Miller wrote:
> If so, what if the bug had nothing whatsoever to do with VMWARE, > but was in fact a legit kernel bug? Is there not a way to tell at > all? > >Without source code to VMWARE's kernel modules, we cannot >know what it does, nor can we fix the problem even if we >wanted to. So therefore it is a big question mark every >time we get a report when VMWARE is being used, and most >of the time we are just going to tell people to go to >them about the problem. They offer support with their >product right?
David, I respect your opinion, however you are mistaken about something and may have spoken too soon by accident. If so, no biggie - we've all done so...
VMWARE's kernel modules come WITH the source code, and have done so from day one. I just wanted to make this out in the open so that people don't start bashing them over it.
The code is not GPL, or at least doesn't appear so, however it is certainly there, and can be recompiled for whatever kernel you are using. I've done so myself in the past no problem.
>This is the price you pay for proprietary software, you've put >a black box into your kernel which no-one but them can help you >fix problems with.
Well again, that is not entirely true. It is not a black box, but rather an open-source box for all to see. The userland application "vmware", etc.. is a black box, but then that isn't in kernel anyways.
So, now that everyone knows that VMWARE comes with full source code for ALL of it's kernel modules, can we at least get someone very knowledgeable such as yourself to gander at the source long enough at least to determine if there might be a problem?
It is over my head to debug, but yourself, and many talented others here certainly can look into it as long as nobody has a chip on their shoulder about VMWARE releasing a userland product as closed source.
Read my .sig - I'm a very big GPL advocate, etc.. as you are probably aware of by seeing the intense heated debates about many GPL violation issues that have come up in the last few years to which I took a very active and adamant role against.
That doesn't mean that proprietary software isn't useful though. I'd love to see a free equivalent, but as for now there is nothing even light years away from VMWARE IMHO. Once you've used VMWARE, and got it working properly, it is pretty difficult to toss out...
If worse comes to worse, I'll just stop posting kernel bug reports that I get - that is if that is what is wanted by everyone maintaining stuff... I want to be helpful here, not the opposite.
So please, if you can, take a look at the problem and ignore the fact VMWARE is there, or else check out the vmware module source. The modules are very small, and the source is very readable, although I have no idea what it does as I haven't examined it much.
For what it is worth, I have: vmnet, vmppuser, vmmon all loaded.
Thanks in advance for anything you can suggest to me, and any help or debugging you might provide!
Take care! TTYL
-- Mike A. Harris Linux advocate Computer Consultant GNU advocate Capslock Consulting Open Source advocate
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