Crowdfunding Campaign Seeks a Fully Open Source Alternative to Citrix XenServer (kickstarter.com)

"Free/libre and 100% community backed version of XenServer," promises a new Kickstarter page, adding that "Our first prototype (and proof of concept) is already functional." Currently, XenServer is a turnkey virtualization platform, distributed as a distribution (based on CentOS). It comes with a feature rich toolstack, called XAPI. The vast majority of XenServer code is Open Source.

But since XenServer 7.3, Citrix removed a lot of features from it. The goal of XCP-ng is to make a fully community backed version of XenServer, without any feature restrictions. We also aim to create a real ecosystem, not depending on one company only. Simple equation: the more we are, the healthier is the environment.
The campaign reached its fundraising goal within a few hours, reports long-time Slashdot reader NoOnesMessiah, and within three days they'd already raised four times the needed amount and began unlocking their stretch goals.

Comments

Nice

[110010001000]

This is a good idea. I donated. If you don't have Open Source, you have no idea what your systems are doing. If the Intel debacle has taught us anything, it has taught us closed hardware is bad too.

Re:Nice

[hairyfeet]

Uhhh isn't it ALREADY a FOSS product, they just have a free and paid for version and they have removed some features from the free in the hopes of getting some to buy the paid and thus stay in business?

I always wondered if the day would come when a part of the "blessed trinity" of FOSS would break down. For those that do not know the blessed trinity is the only way one can make money in FOSS, every other way leads to failure and bankruptcy. You have to 1.- Sell services and support (which is what Xenserver is doing), 2.- Sell hardware (the Android/TiVo model) or 3.- eBegging (community projects) and while I always thought #2 would be the one to fail first as we have already seen the "TiVo clause" which caused GPL adoption to plummet (if you do not believe it has I can provide pre and post GPL 3 stats, the chart looks like a classic triangle going down) a close second would be the first part of the trinity as it really is not hard for people to have a sense of entitlement that allows themselves to justify fucking themselves in the long term for short term gains.

Because looking up this company they appear to be exactly what the FOSS community claims they want companies to be, they make FOSS software, they support the community and give back, no different than Red Hat. They aren't even making a ton of profit, 300 million in net income on 3 billion in sales for a company that large? Really ain't shit, especially when you consider how much of that is having to be spent on talent and R&D. Yet here we are, with the company still offering a 100% free product to the community and simply trying to tweak their free product so they can get some more sales (which considering how crazy expensive it is to hire the kind of talent you need to build complex virtualization software? Is probably warranted and needed to keep up with megacorps like AMZN and MSFT) but does the community try to build a dialog? Maybe come to a mutually beneficial compromise? Nope the community fucks them over by crowdfunding a bunch who promises to give you all the benefits of the paid version for free....now do you think if Citrix goes under or is bought out by another company because they can't hire the great coders and compete that this crowdfunding bunch is gonna be able to build the product from the ground up?

But hey biting the hand that feeds is something the FOSS community is quite adept at, right? After all look at AMD who spent untold millions opening all their software, hiring FOSS coders to work on FOSS software which they gave away, everything from a truly CPU agnostic compiler to drivers to even an entire new low level API in Vulkan, did the community embrace AMD, sing their praises and urge everyone to support them? Nope instead every article on Linux has a dozen "buy Nvidia" a company so FOSS hostile that no less than Linus Torvalds flipped them off. But just as AMD gave a great lesson to other companies that supporting FOSS gets you nothing in return so too will Citrix getting fucked provide a nice lesson that you either have to make your software so bug ridden they HAVE to pay for support or simply do not offer a free version at all because it will ultimately come back to bite you in the ass.

Re:FOSS must learn to organize and collaborate

[ilsaloving]

Remember that when you're next in a hospital and need heart surgery. I don't know about you but I'd rather have someone specialized to the task.

Software development requires a specific skill set, time, and energy that not everyone has. Despite all that bullshit Bill Gates et al are spewing about everyone learning to code, not everyone can code. Even if they had the talent, they may not have the time to learn it on top of whatever else they're doing.

Your argument is breathtakingly ignorant, and a perfect example of the self-important attitude that keeps Linux and most other OSS projects from going mainstream.