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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.
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.
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.
This page has KVM's "ToDo" list. A good number of items on that list are supported by Xen. In addition, KVM will not play well [if at all], with older CPUs made prior to extensions enabling virtualization.
KVM also doesn't work with Intel's Atom CPUs unless extensions are available.
KVM also doesn't work with Intel's Atom CPUs unless extensions are available.
It doesn't? In my last company we used an Atom C2000 and we used KVM/Libvirt to run VMs on it using Ubuntu 14.04. In fact we had one design win that depended on it.
You may be thinking of the feature (I forget the code name) that lets you virtual-ize PCI devices. It couldn't do that so you had to rely on the linux kernel bridge or OpenVSwitch.
Really no one could come up with a better name than "XCP-ng"?
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.
To continue your analogy... Would you rather have a heart surgeon who learned his craft from a secret society using methods which have not been openly peer reviewed OR would you like a heart surgeon who studies all of the open literature on heart surgery and learns the best practices from his/her peers.
I don't read your sig. Why are you reading mine?
That's actually not the comparison I was making. I was trying to point out not everyone who uses software, has the time AND the energy AND the skill to also maintain software. A heart surgeon, for example, cares about medicine. They care about saving lives. It is a demanding job that already requires a lot of time and energy and skill to master, and that doesn't leave much room for software development.
But according to the GP, because they don't ALSO know how to do software development, said heart surgeon can go fuck themselves. And that's just idiotic.
To your point, yes, medical knowledge is based on generations of doctors each standing on the shoulders of the giants before them. But the analogy still breaks down badly because if we tried to continue it, you would have small groups of heart surgeons divvying themselves up into different camps who all proclaim that their software is the best and insist on re-inventing the same medical procedures over and over again because of NIH syndrome.
"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."
Sorry I don't follow a lot of kickstarter campaigns, but of the ones I have heard about it seems like the ones that over raise are more likely to fail. I think it is a matter of their eyes are bigger than their ability to execute. I will be interested to see if this one can keep their expectations in check and not let feature creep kill the project.