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Microsoft Releases Linux Device Drivers As GPL
mjasay writes "Microsoft used to call the GPL 'anti-American.' Now, as Microsoft releases Hyper-V Linux Integration Components (LinuxIC) under the GPL (version 2), apparently Microsoft calls the GPL 'ally.' Of course, there was little chance the device drivers would be accepted into the Linux kernel base unless open source, but the news suggests a shift for Microsoft. It also reflects Microsoft's continued interest in undermining its virtualization competition through low prices, and may suggests concern that it must open up if it wants to fend off insurgent virtualization strategies from Red Hat (KVM), Novell (XEN), and others in the open-source camp. Microsoft said the move demonstrates its interest in using open source in three key areas: 1) Make its software development processes more efficient, 2) product evangelism, and 3) using open source to reduce marketing and sales costs or to try out new features that highlight parts of the platform customers haven't seen before."
Send sweaters
Perhaps Microsoft's lawyers found a weakness in the GPL, or they want to litigate the FSF into the ground.
"Beware of G[r]eeks bearing gifts".
It's Linux, damnit! Pay no attention to renaming attempts by self-aggrandizing blowhards.
I guess a few years Microsoft finally got the memo that they can't protect sales of Windows by attempting to force lock-in to their entire Windows ecosystem. They realized that many of their customers mix technologies together. Examples are Java/JBoss on Windows server, Windows desktops and Linux servers (Samba), working with Mozilla developers to port Firefox to Vista, and iPhones connecting to Exchange servers (licensing ActiveSync to Apple).
By taking these actions, Microsoft ensures the continued relevance of the Windows platform instead of potentially dooming it to a proprietary ghetto.
The flip side of this focus is that Microsoft will still push Windows to OEMs to fend off other platforms. An example is their actions in the netbook space among which was to essentially give away XP. So for at least some things, Microsoft is still up to their old tricks.
This space left intentionally blank.
Some drivers to make Linux work better inside MS's Windows Server Hyper-V virtualization platform? How altruistic...
I'll be more impressed when MS, for example, helps with the SAMBA project. Or at least, doesn't actively screw up with such interop projects from the FOSS community. No GPL code required, just give people decent, up-to-date, open specs; and no patents bullshit.
Or at very least, when MS stops enforcing such patents (see TomTom / FAT32, or again SMB in MS/Novell "agreement").
I honestly don't know how I got here. I just woke up and here I am in your universe, AN ALTERNATE UNIVERSE TO MY OWN HOME UNIVERSE. IT'S TRUE! You can't imagine how glad I am to be here. I'm definitely not going back. Things are bad where I come from.
ideopath @ play
Hyper-virtualisation. Running OS's under other OS's. In other words, this is a patch for Linux to make it run well on Microsoft systems, so customers will feel less need to actually install Linux on servers. It's not a friendly gesture to make normal Linux systems work better, as the title suggests.
With IBM, their value proposition was quite clear and we could get along happily. Microsoft is a much trickier case. They frequently do things that are not necessarily in their best interest in the short term in order to destroy their competition and achieve long-term control.
And this results in things like IE languishing for years because nobody else is a credible threat in the browser arena. People who say that Microsoft is simply interested in making things better for their customers are blind. Microsoft had no interest in making IE better because they had no interest in the browser as a platform. It did not further their ability to control.
Microsoft would prefer a smaller and less innovative market that they completely owned to a much larger market in which they were simply a player, even if they could make a bigger profit in the larger market.
So your request to look for hidden dangers is a cogent one. And we should be looking for dangers in which Microsoft sacrifices profitability for control and destroying competition. Microsoft has repeatedly shown a willingness to do that in the past.
Need a Python, C++, Unix, Linux develop
I think Microsoft gets upset if any other company talks to the BIOS besides them. Here's a page from VMWare that compares their own product to Microsoft's Hyper-V. Hyper-V only debuted as a beta a year ago and they're already compromising company policy to release Linux kernel level code.
Wikipedia page for Hyper-V
I think you have this precisely backwards. The GPL is about protecting the rights of users to modify the software they use and distribute those modifications. So it does, in fact, give control to the end user--the sort of control that Microsoft does not tend to give--while the author relinquishes some control.
If you have a mixed environment and need to host both Linux VMs and Windows VMs with optimal performance, until now VMWarea and Xen were your best options, because Linux performed sub-optimally under Hyper-V.
Now with this patch Linux will probably perform just as good under Hyper-V as it does in VMWare and Xen.
So now you might be able to be convinced to host your VMs on MIcrosoft's Hyper-V platform, where before it was not even an option.
Big deal. Such drivers are trivial.
Virtualizing physical I/O devices on PC-like architectures requires code in the hypervisor to emulate the device. The driver in the operating system does stores into "device registers" as if talking the real device. Each such store or load causes a trap to the hypervisor, which has a device emulator watching the register changes and pretending to be the real peripheral. When the right registers have been loaded with the right values, and the final register store is made that would start the I/O operation, the device emulator then figures out what the OS wanted to do, and makes a call to the hypervisor's I/O system to do it.
In many cases, the device driver in the OS is doing all the optimization for the device controller of a real disk, doing angular optimization and head movement minimization. Since the real device underneath may be completely different, most of this is wasted work, and may reduce performance instead of increasing it.
So it's common to have dummy device drivers for virtual machines that just pass the OS's request through to the hypervisor, without trying to manage a real device. Such drivers don't do much, and are usually trivial, although Microsoft will probably try to complicate them somehow.
This isn't a new idea; it first appeared in IBM's VM for the System/370, where such calls were passed through using the DIAGNOSE instruction (an opcode used for hardware diagnostics only, and thus never used in ordinary programs and available as a spare opcode.)
One of the hypervisor vendors calls this "paravirtualization".
God the paranoia on this site is thick. It increases the value of Hyper-V to Microsoft clients, as their Linux virtual machines will run more efficiently in it. That's it. That's all. Relax. Breathe into a paper bag for a few minutes until you're under control again. The sky is not falling. Dogs and cats are not sleeping together.
Comment of the year
You are really funny! Actually, I'm the head of Open Source and Linux Strategy for Microsoft Corporation. I'm from Oakland, California.
Sam
sramji@microsoft.com
Sam, I mean this sincerely:
Microsoft has a long, long history of letting its mid-level managers and employees believe one thing, when the top managers intend something else, something very unfriendly and sneaky.
For example, Microsoft employees believed that they would be allowed to finish their work. But, in spite of strong opposition inside Microsoft, Windows Vista was released.
Other products released before they were finished:
Windows XP (Okay after SP2, a lot of grief before)
Windows ME
DOS 3.0
Since Microsoft has acted against the best interests of its customers in many ways in the past, people think that will happen this time.
I listened to this interview of you: Sam Ramji of Microsoft Tells all. It's obvious that you are intelligent and well-meaning. I would tend to trust anything you say if you have control over it. However, I think it is likely that you have no control. I'm guessing that it is likely that some vicious Microsoft top manager has some plan to cause trouble.
Why do I think that? Because sneaky behavior by Microsoft has cost me tens of thousands of dollars over the years.