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Bochs Author Launches VMware Clone Project

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the fun-projects dept.

nd writes "Kevin Lawton, author of the popular x86 emulator Bochs, has launched an open source project to create an application with functionality similar to that of VMware. Of course, he will need some help to get freemware (the title of this project) going. "

230 comments

  1. ripped off ? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I'm not really famialiar with the Harmony project. What is it ? Who got ripped off? By whom ?
    How ?

  2. FreeBOCHS project by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    There are people working on free CPU emulation
    for DOSemu and Willows TWIN. The fact BOCHS is
    non free is exactly what stopped people adidng
    a JIT to it to get good performance.

  3. Always seem to be catching up by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    hehehe, having a bad day? Give the guy a little break,
    would you? This is so good about America that one could
    say whatever he/she wants, and it is his/her opinion. You
    don't have to lecture him like you are his dad.

    Probably you have been coding too much and went
    blind? Just kidding! Got it?

    Larry

  4. Hmmm by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    /*VMware just
    happened to be the first group to apply it to Intel (I think most other people weren't */

    This isn't really true. IBM did this to handle DOS and Windows support in OS/2.

  5. Pretty harsh, man. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Putting aside all ideas about who is right or wrong about this, you really should make an effort to be civil. I mean, you had an okay counterargument to what he had to say, but did you really have to add that third paragraph? Name-calling doesn't strike me as a very good way to drive home your argument, you know?

  6. double edge sword? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    It works like this: the free product will most likely not be as refined as the commercial one, at least in the short run, yet it will generate a lot of hype. Many people will wait for the freebie instead of buying the commercial product. The guy with the original idea, who invested a lot of time and money in his software, will go out of business. People will be stuck with an inferior product.
    Welcome to the wonderful world of Copyleft.

  7. insignificant by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Is any of the crap written by the companies creating all those new licenses really significant? I thought not.

    - RF (dfelker@cnu.edu)

  8. Hmmm by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    OS/2 uses VM86 mode to handle DOS and Windows support. They don't provide a 386+ virtual machine like VMWare does.

  9. Why do linux user try to recreate everything? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    It has been brought to my attention that most linux users tend to want to re-invente every that is been successful on the market. If you like Wmware so much, why don`t you all buy it ? The usual excuse doesn`t work (which is: they [the company] aren't doing a linux port, so we have to do our own version of the program), so I wonder what excuse you will now come up. If you want linux to be popular and accepted by big company, you people will have to learn that you must stop copying everything they make and start to encourage them, or they will stop supporting linux.

    Thanks

    David (krynux@hotmail.com)

  10. I agree, cloning VMWare is pure spite by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Yeah. I can understand why people might want to clone word processors (proprietary ones create data in closed, proprietary formats, leading to a "network effect") and operating systems. But what is the point of cloning VMWare, other than pure spite? It is a standalone program. It will not lead to any "lock in". I don't care how proprietary it is, as long as it works well.

  11. Why do linux user try to recreate everything? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Personally, I've been thinking about this problem for about a year now. It's very interesting and challenging, because the x86 isn't really fully virtualized. So a free version of VMWare would be interesting to read through. VMWare works very nicely (though I've had some problems with the network bridge), but I don't really need another PC, I just want to know how to perform this neat hack.

  12. Keep WMware honest by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I think that the threat of an OSS project will keep WMware honest and sell their product at a more reasonable price (less than 100$). 300$ is just too much.

  13. Always seem to be catching up by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    There are Open Source (I prefer Public Software)
    collaborations, and even a free hardware spec
    project. I am sure all the ideas that companies
    implement and patent have been hatched before by
    individuals. If they could share and discuss them
    in a public place, then some darn good designs
    would probably emerge, and ideas posted in public
    places cannot be patented. It just has to be
    organised. I am not the one to do that. Niels L

  14. SUPPORTED BY REDHAT??? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Hey guys, check the 'whois' for freemware.org. Notice the nameservers: they are at RedHat.

    What's more, he claims on the freemware page that freemware.org will be *hosted by* RedHat.

    To me, this sounds an awful lot like RedHat is hostile to commercial software on its platform.

    Would any RedHat employees care to comment?

  15. bah by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    It wouldn't matter if VMWare cost 1 penny, people like you still wouldn't pay for it.

    Bottom line: buying VMWare is cheaper than buying a second computer, and one heck of a lot more convenient. If you can't afford to buy a second computer, get a job.

  16. Cloning by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    You won't see very much originality anywhere in software. It just works out that most of the time, what you want is what already exists, but with a few twists. Thus you see a zillion text editors, hundreds of IRC client, web servers, mail clients etc. They're all a little bit different, and probably none of them is the uncontested winner in its field. Free software actually encourages people to share features, and thus reduce the number of similar products. But it's difficult to get people to agree on "What's best", and that's fine.

    Just as in proprietary software though, there are occasions when Free Software developers have a genuinely new and useful idea. Take Perl as an example. There are no Perl features which don't exist in some proprietary software, somewhere - but the Perl language as a whole is original and Free. Some people would be lost without it.

    And finally, I'd like to defend Freeciv. It may not look as cool as Civ II, but Freeciv's depths are elsewhere. If you don't like Xaw and low-quality graphics though, try the GTK+ client with the new tiles.

  17. Bah humbug by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Hmmm. I have a job, and I also have a handful of computers. Unfortunately I can never see a need to dedicate a machine *entirely* to Windows and eventually either Linux, FreeBSD, or NetBSD ends up on it and I end up back in the dual-booting situation anyway. In the long run I'd rather just have one or two machines and run whatever apps I need. Why is it so bad not to want to have tons of seperate machines? Does it make me a non-geek? If so, then fine. Take your elitist geek bullshit and shove it. I don't like Windoze but sometimes I just HAVE to run it (Rollercoaster Tycoon lately).

  18. Cloning by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Uhhh, gcc isn't a cc "clone", it's a fully functional implementation of the Ansi C standard. Why don't you bitch about Visual C being a "clone" of cc? X11amp is an mp3 player with a bitchin interface. The win95 Winamp looked cool so they stole the interface. So go use mpg123 or one of the others if you don't like that. How about Emacs or pine or vi or even top? What do these programs steal from Windows proprietary software?

  19. crap by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The GNU world revolves around making money from support though and NOT from selling your software. Personally when VMware comes out of beta I'll probably just end up pirating it from someone else anyway. It is NOT worth $300. For that kind of money I can just go buy another cheap Pentium system and a monitor/keyboard switch. If they were selling it for $30-$50 I wouldn't hesitate to buy it though. It is a decent product, just extremely overpriced. Sorry, but you shouldn't bitch about COMPETITION! If someone comes along and can write a better version of your commercial software *for free* and you can't give your customers any value-added features then you might as well just give up.

    1. Re: crap by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      This is the very reason WHY linux will never gain the market acceptance it needs to become a major player for the desktop market. No one wants to touch it because shit like this happens. Someone comes up with a good idea, then some jerkoff whines and cries that its not opensource, then forms a team and writes a clone.

      This is not what happened.

      First the "jerkoff" came with the idea of Bochs (which is a first step towards VmWare-like software) 6 years ago. This was discuted in the mailing lists of DOSemu in 1993/1994. Unfortunatly the author had choosed the commercial way (shareware with source code), so of course very few people helped him (Writing code for free is one thing. Writing code for free where all the benefits will go to another person, is another).

      Now suddenly, in 1999, a startup releases a product (VMware) that is incredibly superior to this one (Bochs). The author gets upset since the events turned badly for him: it is clear that he won't be successful commercially; and it is clear now that if, instead of going shareware, he has choosen the open source way, he would have been the famous and successful initiator of a insanetly great piece of software. Instead it is now the owner of an incomplete, slow, closed-source and commercially dead software.

      So what does he do: he does what you would have done if he knew that the events turned that bad: he start the open source virtual machine.

      So the full story isn't evil student cloning very useful commercial product. It is just a small start-up (1 person) that lost the commercial war to a bigger startup and which decide to release part of its sources. It is similar to Microsoft vs Netscape.

  20. to all you 'Free Software' advocates by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Stop blasting people with your bullshit lie theories. Freedom is way more important than 'free software'. Free Software is a tool that can be used to achieve freedom, but it can also inhibit freedom.

    If VMware produces software that gives me the FREEDOM to use Linux and still run Win32 apps, well by golly, that's a good thing. I don't give two hoots whether it's proprietary software or not.

    The ideals of "Free Software" must always be subordinated to the ideals of "Freedom" because only human freedom counts.

  21. what a hypocrite! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    "For that kind of money I can just go buy another cheap Pentium system and a monitor/keyboard switch." ... "I'll probably just end up pirating it from someone..."

    Okay, so go ahead and buy that Pentium system. Why steal from VMware? Could it be that VMware is *better* than the Pentium system? If it is, then it must be worth more, so why are you stealing it from VMware?

    Don't come up with sanctimonious explanations of why it's not really stealing. Tell it like it is: you want to steal from VMware, inc.


  22. crap by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Uh. Yes, it's about freedom, i agree with that other response.. but it's also about choice.

    People yapped and yapped about KDE + GNOME and now we have 75% of posters here yapping about VMWare vs Freemwhatever (scuse the memory, tv child here) Anyway, the point is freem__ obviously has a lot of advantages. VMWare is not dead yet though. If they're really creative (and starving :) then they'll Find a Way.

    I don't believe this is the reason why people _aren't_ switching to linux. If Linux + Free software start to really gain market share extremely fast, there's bound to be a lot of people bitching about losing their job because .. well obviously: it'll hurt them.

    Writing this, brings to mind a counter-argument to World Domination. Which is that when Linux really does _take over_ meaning > 90% market share, what will the motivation be to create new software? Who will learn? Those who have the -passion-? With some exceptions, passion stems from the drool that gathers on our chins when we see new [hardware|software|etc] that is __cool__. I (think I) already see it now, kids these days take a lot of technology for granted. The kids that are born now, will no doubt see computers like we see AM/FM.. they will lack the drool on their chins. I'm not trying to say free software is doomed, I'm speculating. Flame on brother /.ers!

    Anyway, take it from Linus himself: ``The Linux philosophy is to laugh in the face of danger. Oops, wrong one. Do it yourself; that's it.''

    -- some kid

  23. crap by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I personaly think you are wrong. If open souce projects become better than there comercial counter parts then all it means is the comercial software must be writen beter if they want some one to buy it. This is a good thing and realy doesn't have anything to do with linux at all. There is nothing stoping me or you from starting open projects for MS Windows software. The more the beter. Compitition is good, the freedom to choose is good.

  24. Dubious Project by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Frankly, If I needed to use win nt, I could spring $399 for another pc, or simply buy VMWare.

    I'm not trolling - really - if the cost of running PC apps right now is only about $300, then I'd rather spring for a solution that is available right now.

    Unless you are really intrigued by the problems posed by this application, then I think it is largely a waste of time. If it came down to $300 or six months of work, the choice should be obvious.

    Why are people afraid of developing native apps? Emulation is a losers game - it weakens the attractiveness of the native platform. If I want to run NT apps, I'll do it on a dedicated box.

  25. VMware should have been Open Source by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Folks, that isn't ideology, that's a proven mathematical theorem

    Ah, yeah. Since the society you live in is a mixture of many ideologies, and reflective of none, your point is meaningless.

    Somewhere a third rate prof reeeled you in like a sunfish.

  26. bah by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Don't be so judgemental of the guy! He's just stating a fact that it is quite pricey for what it's used for. To be honest, it's not cheaper than a second computer. More convenient, yes, but not cheaper. Company I work for sold it's old 486s with monitors as well for $50/system. Since I have a 200MMX, VMWare runs about the same speed as a 486DX2-66 on it.

    The "get a job comment" was just plain ignorant. Some of us have priorities you know, like paying rent and bills before dumping $300 on a program that's likely to get used a lot less that we think (good thing it's got an evaluation period). It's an interesting program, but not an overly complicated one. Would you still be singing the same tune if the program were $3000? Hey, that's still cheaper than some computers!

  27. Why do linux user try to recreate everything? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Why are you applying this logic merely to Linux users? This statement covers ALL commercial products and it's the reason we have a choice when deciding what to buy. Don't like a particular product/company/marketing angle? Just buy from the other guy. It's nice to be able to have a say in what we want. Would you like being locked into one OS because "nobody needs to recreate the OS, we've already got one!"? How about only one kind of car you could buy?

    No competition = Monopoly

    Sure it's small scale when applied to a product/company like VMWare, but the point still exists. There is NO disadvantage to having a choice, yet there are many disadvantages when there is no choice.

  28. Ripping off other people's ideas is *not* cool by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Good point. If I was the VMWare author, I'd certainly be pissed at RedHat for this.

    Products like Qt and VMWare are good for Linux, but the community response seems to be to support attemtps to put them out of business.

    I'm using Linux as a development platform for a unique piece of software that I'd eventually like to make money from. Unfortunately Linux users seem totally hostile to anyone who wants to make a living from writing software. When I get beyond the technology creation phase and have to commit to a platform, I can't see how Linux is going to be a priority.

  29. I don't agree by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Harmony doesn't even have the goal to be better that Qt - just a straight rip off.

    If the project is ever sucessful, I expect Troll to sue anyone involved. You can hardly use the "clean room cloning" defense when the source code is freely available.

  30. Always seem to be catching up by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Even the maturest of open source projects like gcc lag way behind top quality commercial software. The reason, of course is money.

    Open source projects are basically people's hobbies - people who are learning as they're programming. If I've got a couple of code optimizer projects under my belt, I'm hardly going to write another one for fun - more likely to sell my skills to the highest bidder.

  31. ripped off ? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I am sure they will sue if Qt it cloned. They should do.

  32. Good luck.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Prior art for what? Do you know what they're patenting? Surely what's unique about VMWare isn't the idea of a virtual machine, but the fact that they've somehow managed to do this without processor support.

  33. Always seem to be catching up by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    If they want to run a profitable business, I'm not sure it was such a bad idea to keep it closed. Naturally, I would prefer to have the source (especially as it doesn't run on my FREENIX of choice), but if it works well, it will still be useful for many NT and Linux users, while allowing the developers to earn a living writing the sort of code they enjoy writing.

    One problem with free-software projects is that all the money seems to flow to the people who support the software (meaning those who support users, not those who maintain code), not the people who write it. There are, of course, exceptions, but if this product were released freely (under a liberal licence or the GPL), it would probably be added to all the Linux distributions in no time, leaving only NT users as a real market for distribution. The problem of cheap CDs including the NT version would also be real. If it were released in source form, but with a commercial licence, it would still not appeal to those who only want (or can only afford) free software, but it would make cloning efforts by such people much easier.

    All things considered, VMWare probably chose the best licence for their particular product. Nevertheless, it doesn't meet everyone's needs, so those of us who need something else (for whatever reason) look forward to a free equivalent.

  34. Commercial Software by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Commercial UNIX vendors have borrowed ideas and code from the BSD community for years, and I think that sort of trading is good for `infrastructure' software, like operating systems.

    I'm not too keen on the practice of imitating top-level applications/UIs (which made Microsoft what it is today), but it does add competition (at times), and there's nothing you can really do about it.

  35. I don't agree by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Don't be absurd, if Trolltech want to sue someone then they'll have to prove (on the balance of probabilities for a civil action) their case. Saying "the source code was availablke so they COULD have infringed our copyright therefore they DID" does not make a case.

    Of course, if copyright infringement does take place then there's a good chance that there'll be evidence of it, but just because it can take place does not mean it will.

  36. Making money by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Do you think Linux users are hostile to
    Linus or Alan? They make living from writing software. Not from selling proprietary software *licenses*, though.

  37. What license and how "free" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    "I can't use any GPL code in anything I do. Everything I do, I'd have to give away -- whether I want to or not."

    Or to put it another way, you can't use GPL code unless you're WILLING to make your GPL derived code free.

    "That's not freedom, that's been imposed on me -- not by my choice."

    There is no compulsion here, it's a bargain you're free to enter into, or not to enter into. If you're happy with the constraints placed by proprietary licences (as it seems you are) then why do you consider the constraints placed by GPL to be unreasonable in comparison?

    1. Re: What license and how "free" by Gleef · · Score: 1

      Since he's conviced RedHat to host it for him, and I know they care about licensing issues there, I expect if his license isn't really free, they will tell him to leave. Than someone else with less direct experience, but a better understanding of Freedom can start an equivalent project.

      Hopefully, since I am sure he's gotten flamed aplenty for the Bochs license, he knows what he's doing and will actually make freemware Free. From the announcement, this certainly looks like the case, so don't go around saying it won't be Free unless and until it becomes clear that it won't.

      Pessimism is self-fulfiling.

      --

      ----
      Open mind, insert foot.
  38. What about a virtualizable CPU? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Um... Well, that's kindof what the VMWare people have achieved ... VMWare is NOT an emulation - they've just done what everyone said was impossible, and virtualised. I suspect its done with clever MMU hacking,like shapeshifter on the Amiga - of course, the amiga has no memory-protection (NB. nor does MacOS) unless you run guardian angel on top of enforcer/cyberguard (which then makes your amiga dog-slow), so the amiga shapeshifter is basically using the MMU as virtualising hardware, with 68k supervisor mode to control it. Of course, the amiga exec makes use of supervisor mode itself ( but not the MMU), so some clever coding was required.
    Sorry... ShapeShifter is a 68k MacOS "emulator" on the amiga - but it doesn't actually emulate 68k, it runs the code natively on the amiga m68k, and shuffles the amiga and mac os about so they work concurrently ( you need rom images) The amiga os helps by only having 1 absolute memory location - AbsExecBase == 4 , so long as you're doing OS-legal programming ( everything else is dynamic)


    I suspect VMWare uses very clever MMU page table + exceptions layout to achieve something similar. Maybe it uses x86 power management mode instructions or something, which are the closest I've seen to supervisor mode on the 68k, but are underused on x86 ( I didn't know about them, until reading some chip manuals) They're a bit like suprevisor mode, and can have their own linear memory mapping, which might be just what's needed as the extra abstraction layer the x86 lacks

    True -> Virtualising HW -> MMU -> CPU

    Amiga shapeshifter -> 68k Supervisor Mode +MMU -> CPU running non-protected OS

    VMWare -> x86 MMU + Exceptions + god knows what-> x86 MMU somehow virtualised -> MMU+CPU protected mode OS

  39. Wrong motive. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The freemware motive seems to be to keep the author's own commercial product alive (bochs). If he sincerely wanted to help the free software cause, he would simply have given the source code from Bochs to DOSemu and Wine projects.

  40. I don't agree by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Harmony was supposed to be fully threadsafe, and fully themeable. Their theme structure was/is more powerful than even the forthcoming Qt 2.0 one.

    I think Qt isn't great anyway - anything which needs an extra preprocessor is a bit dodgy. MUI on the Amiga is still to be bettered by anything else commonly available on Linux. GNOME/Gtk might get there one day, but at present is far too messy, and MUI's language bingings are more diverse ( MUI -> C,C++, Python, AREXX, Blitz Basic, Forth (really jforth), E, etc. etc. even 68k Asm to an extent - basically all the serious amiga languages) and mui is controllable down to the last pixel (for registered users) MUI isn't open source though... MUI is a lot more mature, so I'm willing to give Gtk + GNOME a chance to catch up.





  41. Will it be GPL og BSD licensed? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Because this Bochs thing wasn't. Don't go calling it free* if it's not.

  42. If anyone's listening, moderate this up. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    It deserves it.

  43. Whoah there. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I've been using Bochs for some time now, and it's really wonderful software. I've also kept up on the mailing lists and seen a bit of what is behind it. For all of you people that keep flaming Bochs for it's non-open-sourceness, you should look a bit at what Kevin has had to put into the project and what he's gotten out of it. The software cost isn't to MAKE money, it's to bring in enough to keep things in a state where Kevin can afford to keep up development. And there have been talks of releasing it under a free license at such a point as it is possible to do this. Keep in mind too some of the really big benefits that have come from having Bochs available as it is-- a number of people have been able to reverse-engineer proprietary hardware protocols to write drivers for free OS's by running bochs and trapping i/o accesses... Also, dynamic translation was being worked on before VMware was announced-- this isn't full virtualization but it's an important first step. Anyhow, before all this major Bochs bashing, look into what you're going off on a bit more.

    -Tymm

  44. Who's Idea??? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I'm pretty sure the VMWare folks weren't the ones who came up with the idea for a virtual machine and something tells me that Qt wasn't the first implementation of a widget set. Both VMWare and Qt are rip offs of other people's ideas. Linux is a rip off of someone else's idea. Netscape Navigator is a rip off of someone else's idea. All spreadsheets are a rip off of visi-calc. At some point in time, somebody got the idea for the potato chip, since then all potato chip companies have ripped him off.

    How many products out there are actually based on new ideas?

  45. Wow! Where do I pay? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Try toggling it to full screen mode, it's much faster like that. I have the same type of machine with 96 megs of ram and at fullscreen mode, win95+office97 runs like a 133mhz machine with 32megs of ram, not blazing fast, but fast enough.

    Chris
    mtnbkr@mindspring.com

  46. However it gets done, it's brilliant by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    because its really hard. I'm sure the freemware page discusses the annoyingness of x86..

  47. Testing a network? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Hm.. can they really act as different networked machines to the outside world (have different ips, etc..)?

  48. Bochs is a bit different.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Bochs emulates x86 on non-x86 platforms, wheras vmware only works on x86 machines..

  49. Two kinds of software by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    ..and a loss for end users. I've never seen a free userland program that surpassed the commercial equivalent in terms of quality and features.

  50. Two kinds of software by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    well, if the free one isn't better, or almost as good, it won't put the propriertary version "out of business".

  51. Two kinds of software by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    emacs is a userland program. X is a userland program. (well, most of the time)

  52. OpenSource == OpenWarfare by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    We are not talking about rational users here. It's a well known fact that most Linux zealots will NEVER pay for software, irrespective of how much it costs or how well it performs. GNU people are on a mission to replace every worthy commercial product with a free clone. And when I say "replace", I mean "annihilate". This has nothing to do with fair competition based on the relative merits of the products involved.

  53. Ripping off other people's ideas is *not* cool by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Virtual machines are *NOT* an original idea.

    Neither are widget sets.

  54. What license and how "free" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    > I can't use any GPL code in anything I do.
    > Everything I do, I'd have to give away --
    > whether I want to or not. That's not freedom,
    > that's been imposed on me -- not by my choice.

    This isn't true regarding Library GPL software, unless you are too lazy to use dynamic linking.

  55. It's RMS's desire by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Recreating everything was RMS's ideal since the beginning (see his rants at www.fsf.org). We must follow the path chosen by our Great Leader.

  56. bah by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Wrong. A second computer can be had for next to nothing if you know what trashbins to look in. I've picked up everything from 386s to Pentiums to SPARCstations along with all the accessories you could ever ask for... all from the trash.

  57. Hmmm by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    It's also worth noting that VMware isn't particularly original either--it's the first piece of software that does what it specifically does, but the concept is old. VMware just happened to be the first group to apply it to Intel

    Um, yeah. VMware is actually one of the few companies I hope does benefit from a patent on what they've done. No one's tried this before, but they made it work. To make an analogy, it's like saying "Sure, the idea of fusion's been around for over 30 years. They just made it work on a small, self-contained basis." The point being they made it work. No one bothered before? Why? Because, by and large, they had no clue that it could be done properly on x86. I will pay my $295 VMware tax because I think they damn well earned it.

  58. What license and how "free" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
    If you're happy with the constraints placed by proprietary licences (as it seems you are) then why do you consider the constraints placed by GPL to be unreasonable in comparison?

    Because I can make money by selling the software I write under those other licenses. I can't make money selling software I write under the GPL because people can get it without paying a dime.

    Free speech, my ass. It's about free beer, and everybody knows it.

    Free speech means you can't take away my ability to say things you don't want to hear. It doesn't mean you can take a novel I wrote and make a hit movie out of it and not give me any compensation in return.

    Comparing software to movies is actually a pretty good exercise. Writers create books for the same reasons that programmers do -- they have to, or they'll burst. But nobody makes a gorgeous movie like Bladerunner from a Philip K. Dick novel without spending lots and lots of money. I view user-oriented software (applications) as filling the same role as movies. You can't make Gone With the Wind by rounding up volunteers, and you can't get theatres to show it by asking them let people in for free.

  59. Who's Idea??? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The difference is in other industries you have patents, so the innovator has a window of a few years in which to establish itself. I think the patent scheme does encourage innovation, and it's a pity there was nothing like it in the software industry to protect innovators from the likes of Microsoft.

    Linux may go the same way as the Microsoft platform over time; if all the software is freely distributable, and private enhancements aren't allowed (i.e. if the software is GPL'd), success is entirely down to marketing. Once one company has a strong enough marketing `platform', it can just continue to plough its profit back into marketing, whilst adding any new free code that `platform' (preventing anyone else getting a competitive edge through innovation).

  60. Ummm......... Linux? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Linux still lags technologically behind commercial UNIXes. It may eventually surpass them, though, due to the growing dominance of the Intel PC platform.

  61. $300 Too Comercial by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    There's commercial software, then there's rip-offs. I don't mind paying for good software that runs on an OS that I love, but they expect you to pay up to 3.3707865 times the cost of Windows (which in and of itself is overpriced and a rip-off) just to run their VMWare software! It's bad enough that some software runs only on Win32 and you have to spend $89 OEM to $189 retail for Windows to run it, then you are expected to spend another $300 just so you can run it from within your favorite OS to save rebooting time? Not! It should be the other way around. If they were $50 or $75 bucks, I'd blow off the Freemware project as a neat but redundant thing, but at $300, you can keep VMWare - I'm going with Freemware.

    Mike

  62. Reason why freemware is good idea by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Hello,

    I am looking forward to freemware, so BeOS can be used as a host platform. Obviously, there are other platforms that can benefit from being able to run Windows apps.

  63. The Buck Stops at Proprietory by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    In a world dominated by Windows, the users of Linux who don't have anything whatsoever to do with Windows can fit in McDonald's bathroom. However, VMWare isn't targetting the average Linux user for their market. If they did, then the price would be more like $50 or even $25. Remember, with the shear numbers of Linux users out there that also use Windows, VMWare would still reap untold millions. But with a $300 dollar price-tag - twice as much as the guest operating system, they've set the target market for the professional, and the few diehard users with fat wallets. VMWare has created a product that could conceiveably add millions of Linux users to our community and allow us to run our favorite apps under Linux until native alternatives are created. But they are greedy. For those of you rich folks that can through out $300 here and $400 there, knock yourselves out. But for the vast majority of us who work hard to support families, school, pay bills and try to eat while enjoying our favorite OS, I think an open source project for virtual computing is perfect. Are we taking away from VMWare? Some, maybe - but most of us aren't within their target market anyway, so they won't notice the difference. Professionals, businesses and corporations believe they have to pay lots of money for products, so that's where VMWare will win. And at the same time, we too will have access to similar software targetted at the average home Linux user without losing a month's worth of groceries.

    The development community would also benefit greatly from this too. For VMWare's software, the buck stops there. That's it. What you have is all you get. With open source, however, if someone gets an idea for a different direction, or wants to experiment with different ideas, that person can. And that can be brought back into the Freemware project through contributions, modules and plugins. In other words, VMWare is the end for that idea - you have to wait for upgrades and bug-fixes and they decide where to take the development. Freemware is the beginning of that idea in that as a programmer you can go in and put a peice of your creativity into it and affect it's evolution on a personal basis. If there is a bug, then fix it. If you want a new feature, then write it.

    I think VMWare and Freemware will be able to co-exist happily without much friction. Surely VMWare can benefit from Freemware by following development and borrowing ideas. I personally don't know of any commercial software that was put out of business by open source - yet. (Watch out Windows).

    Mike

  64. The Buck Stops at Proprietory by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    In a world dominated by Windows, the users of Linux who don't have anything whatsoever to do with Windows can fit in McDonald's bathroom. However, VMWare isn't targetting the average Linux user for their market. If they did, then the price would be more like $50 or even $25. Remember, with the shear numbers of Linux users out there that also use Windows, VMWare would still reap untold millions. But with a $300 dollar price-tag - twice as much as the guest operating system, they've set the target market for the professional, and the few diehard users with fat wallets. VMWare has created a product that could conceiveably add millions of Linux users to our community and allow us to run our favorite apps under Linux until native alternatives are created. But they are greedy. For those of you rich folks that can throw out $300 here and $400 there, knock yourselves out. But for the vast majority of us who work hard to support families, school, pay bills and try to eat while enjoying our favorite OS, I think an open source project for virtual computing is perfect. Are we taking away from VMWare? Some, maybe - but most of us aren't within their target market anyway, so they won't notice the difference. Professionals, businesses and corporations believe they have to pay lots of money for products, so that's where VMWare will win. And at the same time, we too will have access to similar software targetted at the average home Linux user without losing a month's worth of groceries.

    The development community would also benefit greatly from this too. For VMWare's software, the buck stops there. That's it. What you have is all you get. With open source, however, if someone gets an idea for a different direction, or wants to experiment with different ideas, that person can. And that can be brought back into the Freemware project through contributions, modules and plugins. In other words, VMWare is the end for that idea - you have to wait for upgrades and bug-fixes and they decide where to take the development. Freemware is the beginning of that idea in that as a programmer you can go in and put a peice of your creativity into it and affect it's evolution on a personal basis. If there is a bug, then fix it. If you want a new feature, then write it.

    I think VMWare and Freemware will be able to co-exist happily without much friction. Surely VMWare can benefit from Freemware by following development and borrowing ideas. I personally don't know of any commercial software that was put out of business by open source - yet. (Watch out Windows).

    Mike

  65. Linux and Unix - nuff said. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    What motivation does Photoshop have to port to Linux when Gimp dominates Linux already. I have a feeling that Gimp would have started even if Photoshop was ported to Linux. And Gimp will certainly continue even if Photoshop finally does get ported. No complaints from anyone there, hmm? VMWare is made for both Linux and NT, and is very commercial. They aren't targetting the average Linux user. If they were, prices would be much lower. Even commercial Applixware is only $99, and our favorite 3D development app for Linux - Blender, will go commercial to the tune of only $99. Windows in all it's self-assumed glory is only $189 retail ($89 OEM). These are average user prices. $300 bucks is a price targetted at businesses and professionals, not at the average user. (You rich folks shouldn't forget that a vast majority of us work hard to feed our families and pay our bills - $300 could be a month's worth of groceries). Just about every Open Source app on Linux has commercial alternatives on and off Linux. Gnumeric can import Excel files - do you think that'll put Microsoft out of business? Freemware will most certainly not put VMWare out of business, and will probably not make a dent in their market. On the contrary, Freemware will, and has already increased awareness of VMWare - so rather than toppling the commercial effort, it has helped it. Lets go back to our roots - Linux was created because Unix was too expensive software and hardwarewise. Are you complaining against that? It's the same concept. The family of Unices have actually benefited from Linux. Now, Linux is touted as a competitor to Windows and similar desktops are being developed in competition and alternative apps for most office and non-office functions exist. Are you complaining against that? It's the same concept. We've perfectly emulated Unix in the design of Linux, and we've closely copied Photoshop in the design of Gimp, and several desktops have been designed to compete against Windows, MacOS, and Next. Tell me, is Unix, Windows and MacOS going out of business because of it? Is Applixware folding under the Open source pressure? Rather than looking at the big picture, you are quick to start bitching and moaning. VMWare will be helped enormously by Freemware, not vice-versa. Have you noticed a link to VMWare's site on the Freemware site? Free advertising for a commercial product. Open Source and Commercial will co-exist and for the most part get along. Open Source can even be a motivator for Commercial to up it's quality. Notice that even Microsoft is coming out with individual User configurations for Win98? Don't tell me we had nothing to do with that. In our community, over 90% of the software we use is Open Source, regardless of how many commercial apps we stick on our boxes. Be happy the trend continues...

    Mike

  66. What about a virtualizable CPU? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    If you want a virtualizable CPU, just get a PowerPC. There's SheepShaver, the Apple blue box, and the Mac-on-Linux project that let you run MacOS under BeOS, MacOS X, and Linux (respectively).

  67. Hmmm by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Can you run NT in MERGE? Can you run Linux in MERGE? Can you run FreeBSD in MERGE? No. MERGE doesn't come anywhere near the level of virtualizaion VMWare has achieved.

  68. Get a job... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    And magically be able to blow money on hardware when there might be cheaper software to do the job you need? Seriously, a lot of people seem to write their posts as if they beilieved that a job granted unlimited money. This sounds like one of them...

  69. We're not talking about stereotypes here. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Yes, those crazy GNU/Linux zealots are out to annihilate every commercial product. Right. For the 20 or so people that I speak to on a daily basis that use Linux (in person, I mean), all use at least some form of commercial software which they've paid for.. I myself have nothing against commercial software, I simply tend to use whatever works better for me. I think that "most" Linux users are IT professionals who simply want to use the best software, and appreciate that which is available for free.

    If a company decided to create a closed-source clone of vmware, would you be saying the same thing? Competition is healthy, and whether it comes from another company or a group of individuals donating their time, the outcome will either be a cheaper or superior product (hopefully both). There's no guarantee that the free source clone of vmware will be better, as people might not want to waste their time on something that's available already; but calling people "zealots" because they provide competition is just trolling. Personally, I'm happy running one OS, but I wish the clone luck, simply because I'd like to see the source code...

  70. Making money by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Linus and Alan are at the top of the tree and hence they are making money both from their reputation as well as their respective jobs. It is unlikely however that a large majority of the people investing time into free source development will get the accolades not to mention Linus's quarter of a million annual salary.
    That said I've often wondered if I invest a year (~2500 hrs X $50 = $125,000) of my life to write a really useful and killer piece of software. Then I wanted to sell it with an open source licence to be utilized in my fav OS Linux. So I've invested $125,000 dollars of my assets on this piece of software. I would at least like to recoup my expenses so I can continue to feed myself and my family hence I need to sell 2500 copies for say $50 each. Since I'm distributing the software under the Copyleft everyone that gets my program will be allowed unconditionally to redistribute my software. What do you think the likelyhood is that I will sell 2500 copies? Not good I think. Not to mention I was hoping to actually make some profit from that piece of software to put my two kids through college. Oh well guess not huh? For now I see the Utopian Free Software dreams as just unachievable. Most of you who rant about free software care more about the free beer in free software than the actual freedom of being able to utilize the actual source. I'll stick to developing for someone who will pay me my $50 an hour. It's value for value everything else is just some lofty idealism that doesn't fit in with reality.

  71. crap by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Boy did you stick your foot in it this time.
    Love of all the Human feelings happens to be the most selfish one. If you don't believe so, you are fooling yourself.
    Case in point when people suffer the death of a loved one what are they really mourning? I'll tell you their lack of ability to derive self pleasure from the company of that poor soul who'm just met his demise.
    When that beloved girlfriend of yours delivers the news she's going to dump you and you spend countless days, weeks, months sobbing what are you crying about? You are crying cause you are going to miss her company, her sex and the sweet smell of her skin as she lay next to you no more. All pleasures that you derived from her.
    Selfish, selfish, selfish and guess what thats allright. The world will survive and continue to revolve not because of love but because of the understanding that we are creatures of need and that providing for those needs in a manner nondestructive to yourself and others is what makes you and consequently everyone who comes in contact with you a better person.
    So don't give me that love shit! The ego must be fed and creating is one of the biggest megalomaniac activities. Why do you think programmers write code? It feeds the ego.

  72. possible VMware sellout? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    For those of you critical of the freemware
    project, have you considered that it may very
    well be protecting you? At first, I was uncertain
    if this was a good idea, until I did some digging.

    Turns out the President of VMware, was the CEO of
    vxtreme, which sold out to Microsoft to the tune
    of $75 million dollars!!! Sounds like then she
    plowed a bunch of this money into VMware with
    her husband, Mendel Rosenblum, 2nd in line at
    VMware.

    Humm... Another sell out in the works?
    Where would that leave us users?

    That makes me a supporter of freemware!

    Check it out yourself...

    http://www.msnbc.com/news/253207.asp#BODY

  73. possible VMware sellout? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    ...wow I just checked out that link about
    VMware founders' previous company sell-off
    to Microsoft!!!

    Did you see the bit about how VMware gave
    a courtesy briefing to Microsoft mucky-mucks
    at the HQ in Redmond, one week before VMware
    was announced publicly?

  74. FREEMWARE WILL NEVER SEE THE LIGHT OF DAY by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    So who cares!

    Honestly, Slashdot gets about one posting a day about some new retarded copycat project. So far its been lots of talk and no action. That's why this is the last I think I'll ever hear of this particular debacle.

    The completion rate for open-source projects announced around here is around 50% and dropping like a led zeppelin.

  75. Work cut out for them by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    yeah, but i don't have $300 lying around.

    My Guess: This'll be the next PhotoShop and GIMP battle.

  76. CRYBABIES by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I'm tired of people complaining when someone
    tries to start a cool new project. Some work out,
    some don't. Besides, where's your project?
    At least this guy has worked on an emulator
    project for over five years and proved he could do it.
    CAN YOU SAY THE SAME?
    If you don't want to support this project DONT!
    but stop crying about it.

  77. "Former" M$ Aligned!?!?!? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Unless you're too lazy to read the article, these guys still bow to Microsoft...

    "...they argue their product could actually lead to loading more copies of Microsoft operating systems and applications on personal computers and servers."

    and...

    "A week before anouncing the company, VMWare executives gave a courtesy briefing at Microsoft's headquarters in Redmond, Wash."

    ...would lead one to believe that they are still very much in bed with M$. That they're making the ludicrous NT version to run a Linux guest also hints at that (what fool would run a stable Linux within an eggshell NT?). If M$ thinks it'll make or save them money, a sell-out is all but guaranteed...keep that in mind while you're busy writing your $300 check. Support Freemware.

  78. my god, what a bunch of hypocrits! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    What he says is true. Bochs has been around a while. He is making an excellent strategic move to
    get Bochs back in the game by going opensource... (if he actually drops the bochs license). He has
    two things going.
    1. VMWare guys may not jump to opensource
    2. By being opensource, he will allow debugger hooks - which is probably the most asked question
    to VMWare support. Having a really good bochs VMWare totally elminates the need for $20,000 hardware pentium emulators for doing serious
    protected mode development. (Crack any copy protection and really see everything that is going
    on, OS development, etc.)

    The VMWare guys now need to asses how far away he is from them...

    Funny how VMWare has been around for a LONG time and didn't get this kind of excitement.. :-)


    gorf@redwoodsoft.com

  79. This is why I support copyrights by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I believe people shouldn't take advantage of idea's by charging money form anyone using them like patents but I think software authors should have the right to protect their hard work. Copyrights are good. THey protect work done and prevent people from taking advantage of them. Linux is scary to alot of companies who make unix sftware because they love and believe in the oss movement but afraid some pimple faced 18 year old will make a mockery of them and use their own ideas to throw them out of bussiness (kind of reminds you of that company from Redmond). Lets make sure programers don't abuse their copyrights like Bill Gates and his assualt with multimedia encyclopidia's when Bill bought and then copyrighted all those famous photo's to throw comptons and other enyclopidia's out of bussines. If you notice only microsoft's encharta can show jfk inagrual; address or the photo's of Neil Armstrong on the moon. Only microsoft can have pictures in their products riiight.:-) I think their should be some laws on the power of copyrights and I oppose patents but we need some way to prevent people from taking advantage of innovations liek vmware. WHen I first saw the title of this comment tree, I thought Dam, ANother innovation stolen by the linux hackers. I would be very angry if all the software companies left linux and created a scare. Microsoft would have a field day and linux could rest in computer history. Their is an old sayinng from the cold war. Always watch your enemies becuase if your not carefull you might become like them. Lets hope linux and redhat wont be like microsoft ten years from now by stealing all ideas. I hate to see history repeat itself.

  80. What license and how "free" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I don't follow this at all. If you're the same person (if not then this still applies to the original poster's points plus your comments) then you said that you prefer the BSD licence. You also say that you like proprietary licences. You also say that you don't like GPL because "I can't make money selling software I write under the GPL because people can get it without paying a dime"

    If the problem is that you can't make money selling the software initially, then exactly the same problems arise with BSD (which you like?).

    If the problem is that you can't build on your own GPLd code to make a proprietary product, then that's simply untrue - you can relicence it on whatever terms you choose.

    If the problem is that you can't take other people's GPLd code and build it into a proprietary product of your own without obtaining a separate licence from the original authors then the same is true of proprietary licences (which you like?).

    GPL combines some of the restrictiveness of a proprietary licence (to prevent an author's code from being incorporated into a proprietary product without his permission) with most of the freedom of BSD. If you're happy with proprietary and you're happy with BSD, what's your objection to GPL?

  81. OpenSource == OpenWarfare by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    "We are not talking about rational users here"

    Ah... people who take a different viewpoint to you are irrational?

    "It's a well known fact that most Linux zealots will NEVER pay for software, irrespective of how much it costs or how well it performs"

    Well, either these "Linux zealots" must be a tiny tiny percentage of total Linux users or else, like so many other well known facts, this one isn't true.

    "This has nothing to do with fair competition based on the relative merits of the products involved."

    So if it isn't based on the relative merits of the products (btw the user gets to decide what aspects are merits, not you) then what is it based on? If it matters to the user then being free is a merit (whether freedom or price), so's just fitting in with the user's ideology for that matter (even if you don't agree with that ideology!)

    If it isn't "fair competition" then what's unfair about it? Anyone can create free software to compete on equal terms. If they don't have the ability or resources to do so effectively, then that's a problem that will arise for some poeple in any competitive market. If the market prefers free software, for whatever reason, then what's unfair about that? And if the market doesn't prefer free software then the proprietary producer has nothing to worry about.

  82. crap by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    {modifyed snip}
    This is the very reason WHY Windows will never gain the market acceptance it needs to become a major player for the desktop market. No one wants to touch it because shit like this happens. Someone comes up with a good idea, then Microsoft whines and cries that its not theirs, then forms a team and writes an MSclone.
    {/snip}
    What is the diffrence? Please tell me?

    ArsonSmith
    --atwork and dont have a password

  83. $300 pent system != free stolen/pirated software by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Your cost comparison is a little off bud.

  84. Announcement != Real Project by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0


    >The very next day, however, someone annouces a
    >"free" project to clone these guys' product
    >(which just happened to be released FIRST on
    >Linux - there's support from the community for
    >you). I'd say any hope of VMWare being willing
    >to release their source just dropped like like a
    >cruise missle over an aspirin factory.


    is it support or is it compitition?

    >If this was a true hacker project they'd take >the concept one or two steps further - provide >cpu independence for example. Run Mac apps for >the G3 on a PII under Linux or NT/Alpha on a G3 >under Linux for example.

    sorry they already have a product that does these kinds of amazing things, it will run x86 code on Apphas or on G3's running linux. they just see VMware as a copy made better than their software and are going to get the features that vmware uses put into a free/opensource product. because bochs is slow due to total emulation they probly took a lot of heat when vmware came out and was a lot faster at emulating x86 on x86 just because vmware only emulates what it has to and not everything. I think it is more like vmware stole the idea and made it better than the bocsh people and now the bocsh people need to catch up to comppete.

    ArsonSmith
    at work no password

  85. Wrong motive. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    THAT'S WHAT HE IS DOING!
    Keep an eye on the BOCHS license.

  86. FreeBOCHS project by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    GREAT! If you are willing to spend 80+ hours
    per week working on this project , sacrificing
    personal time, and putting tens of thousands
    of dollars of your own money into it then all
    I can say is Fantastic!
    BTW Do you know anthing about DYNAMIC
    TRANSLATION?

    Mike

  87. Announcement != Real Project by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Actually, if you read the freemware web page, you'd
    realize these guys actually *are* planning on
    having something that VMware does not offer.

    By having free source code, and flexible compile
    time or run time options, there will be much more
    flexibility for software development purposes.
    This is something VMware is not offering, and
    really can't, since they are only releasing bniaries.

  88. Why VMs are useful by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    You quote $300 for VMWare. You say this is CHEAPER than another machine? Wait here:

    $300 - VMWare
    +$190 - Windows '98 (You do BUY your software, right? ;-)
    +$140 - More memory (you said this yourself)
    = $630!

    For $630 you can buy a full computer /w monitor where I live. With windows included. And it'll be faster than VMWare will ever be... ;-)

  89. Whiners don't understand programming by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
    Wow! What a lot of people have simply no idea why many people work on free software. Some examples from above:
    It has been brought to my attention that most linux users tend to want to re-invente every that is been successful on the market.
    No. Often a hacker sees an interesting piece of software and thinks 'I wonder if I can do that'?

    or

    What the heck is your time worth to you anyway?!?!?
    My hobby programming time is worth nothing to me, in finacial terms. I do it for fun.

    Granted, a fair amount of OSS is created by people to fulfil a pressing need. But I would guess at least as much is taken on by people simply becuase it is an interesting problem. And there is a whole bunch for which both motives are mixed.

    Face it. For many of us programming is its own reward. If we have nothing to program we'll look for an interesting problem and tackle it for the sake of it.

    The only difference between tackling a problem which someone suggested in a pub, and tackling a problem which has already been solved in a closed source project is that in the latter case you know the solution is not impossible. The fun of working out how to do it remains.

  90. heh by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Don't come up with sanctimonious explanations of why it's not really stealing. Tell it like it is: you want to steal from VMware, inc.

    Okay. The moral of the story is that this guy's obviously more important than you and can tell you how it is and tell you not to argue when he's far more removed from the matter than you are. You got all that?

  91. prior art on VMware... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    In the 70's IBM sold an OS called 'VM' on its 3080/3090 series mainframes. This OS could create virtual machines, in which other OS's, including VM itself, could be run. One of the applications was to allow running of production and prototype systems simultaneously on the same machine.

    Of course the difference here is that VM was an OS, wheras VMware sits on top of a host OS.

  92. Who's Idea??? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I think an FSF world could be worse than the Microsoft monopoly in the sense that *every* line of source code would be available to the monopoly distributor. Microsoft still hasn't been able to eliminate some competitors (Quicken and Adobe come to mind). Nevertheless, it would probably be better than the current situation, simply because of the availability of source code.

    On the whole, I agree about the problem of business intruding on software development, but there are a lot of software developers who simply want to make a lot of money. If you write code, selling licences to users is arguably the best way to earn a living. The fact that there's no protection of innovation, the way there is in the hardware industry (among others), does, I think, hinder innovation. Of course, Intel's blatant violation of patents in its CPUs shows that systems isn't without flaws either.

  93. It's RMS's desire by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    It's a wonder Richard Stallman hasn't scared all the commercial developers away from Linux. I suppose the commercial distributors (SuSE, Red Hat, Caldera) are a sufficient counterweight.

  94. Cloning by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    GCC is a direct replacement for UNIX cc, as are the GNU clones of other UNIX development tools: the linker, assembler, make, etc. These tools can be dropped into virtually any UNIX system to replace the native tools (some systems don't even have non-GNU development tools anymore), although their primary intended purpose is to serve as the development tools for the GNU operating system (a clone of UNIX). GCC has improved upon the original in many respects (particularly in terms of portability to non-UNIX platforms and support of languages other than C), but at the core it is still a clone.

    In contrast to GCC, Microsoft Visual C is really nothing more than a tool for creating Windows applications. It isn't even close to a drop-in replacement for UNIX cc (it hasn't even been ported to UNIX; or anything other than Windows).

    Emacs isn't a clone of anything (nor can I imagine why anyone would want to clone it ;-D ), but vi originated as part of BSD UNIX, which required an AT&T UNIX licence in those days. The free clones are clearly better, which is why nvi replaced vi many years ago (I don't know if anything still uses the old vi), but the old vi wasn't free (though it was open, in the sense that source was available to anyone with an AT&T UNIX licence).

  95. Cloning by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    This relates to copylefted software, not free software in general, but the fact is that two of the three most important copylefted projects (GNU and Linux) are just clones of BSD UNIX (the whole system and the kernel, respectively). Emacs is one of the few original copylefted projects, and, of course, the original emacs predates the copyleft (IIRC, its history played a part in the creation of the copyleft).

    Of course, I recognise that without the FSF there would probably be no free operating systems (the FSF inspired the BSD people to strip out and replace the copyrighted AT&T code, thereby making the free BSDs possible), but it seems that most of the innovative work is still done outside the world of the copyleft.

  96. Hook, line, and sinker by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    It's also true that there has been a lot of innovation within open-source software, despite the largely imitative nature of GNU (and Linux).

  97. FreeBOCHS project by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    You silly boy, I wasn't planning on spending MY time working on this project. No, I'll just announce it on Slashdot and let the hacker hive-mind collective solve these problems for me. Just like the author of Bochs is doing with his freemware project. Obviously he knows what he's doing, so I'll emulate him (pun intended).

  98. Who's Idea??? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The big company, such as M$, can't set prices in the usual way -- since at the bottom end, you'll always get the $2 CD's. Consequently, the businesses fight out the business market, and the rest of us can chip in for a single copy, bin the support, and then copy, copy, copy...

  99. Hmmm by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1
    People didn't do this for 386+ before not because it's a major pain but rather because the consensus among the experts was that it was not possible at all due to the hardware design.

    The other thing VMWare has done that is astounding is they are running their VM monitor on top of other OS'es that were not designed for this. Prior VM systems for other hardware have had the VM monitor running as the real OS, or designed into the real OS from the start.

    The idea of a VM is not original. Everything else VMWare is doing beyond the basic idea does appear to be original, and very impressive.

  100. Bah humbug by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Obviously you don't see the point of VMWare. It is much more than what you describe. Dig a bit deeper and you see the true beauty of the system.

    1) The vmware disk files are portable across computers... ie. i could make a vmware image with all the software I want and put it on a NFS server and access it from wherever I am.

    2) The "undoable" disk write option is quite cool (ie. all writes to the disk during your session are saved to a temporary file instead of the real disk image... after you shut down you're asked if you want to commit the changes or not)

    There are things that are possible in VMWare that are simply impossible or hard to accomplish any other way. That's the beauty of it... and i'm sure i'm only scratching the surface !

  101. double edge sword? - Not at all! Here's why... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    With Open/Free/GNU alternatives following close on their heels, proprietary software companies will have to work harder to make sure that their software offer something more or better than Open/Free/GNU software.
    This will keep them on their toes, prevent exhorbitant software prices, and promote quality in proprietary software.

    This is good for the customer. And the industry.

  102. freemware == FUD by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    The purpose of the freemware "announcement" is to scare people away from buying VMware. The motivation is obvious, considering the author is manufacturing a competing (albeit vastly inferior) product.

    I don't see why I should volunteer my time to help eliminate Bochs' competition. I have better things to do. I suggest that any developer considering contributing to "freemware" think about what the real dynamics of the situation are.

  103. What license and how "free" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    The GPL is a virus.

    I can't use any GPL code in anything I do. Everything I do, I'd have to give away -- whether I want to or not. That's not freedom, that's been imposed on me -- not by my choice.

    So my choice? BSD. Golgotha. Even something that says I couldn't distribute source if I wanted to, simply for linking to a library. Any license that lets me write code, pay my bills, keep my clients happy -- and keeps their competitors from getting what they paid good money for... for nothing.

    The reason all GPL application software sucks -- not the tools, mind you, geek-tools like GCC rock hard -- I'm talking about things like GIMP -- the reason it sucks is that NOBODY IS GETTING PAID TO WRITE IT.

    Sure, some programmers have jobs where they get to work on GPL software. But the truth is, there are no companies that get paid to develop GPL'd applications. They package what others sell... provide support... but they're not writing innovative applications to solve real-world problems in a user-friendly way.

    Say what you like about the GPL, you won't be seeing any impact from GPL-land on everyday users, beyond the OS, the software equivalent of the electric company. People pay good money, and care about, the things powered by electricity. They don't care about the electricity itself... and that's what GPL'd software is limited to, filling the role of alternating current.

    And if "free software" is supposed to mean "freedom," not "free beer," shouldn't that include making technology accessible to those who will never figure out how to use a command line?

    (An aside: Please don't tell me about any of the GNU/Linux-based window managers out there. Puhleeze! Yes, they'll get better over time. But the people working on them care more about skull-and-crossbones widgets than real user interface innovations, aimed at actually improving the human-computer experience for a broad spectrum of people. And please don't point to the flood of new GNU/Linux users as a source of innovative development -- they like it because they don't have to pay for the software, and it gives another way to impress their friends, just like glasspacks, D-size engines or double-humbuckers.)

    (And yes, I know this comment will be moderated away because I used the word "puhleeze" -- that and the fact that I choose to remain anonymous... doesn't make what I said any less right.)

  104. Ripping off other people's ideas is *not* cool by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Although the user base is smaller than Linux (always a concern for commercial developers), the BSD groups don't seem at all hostile to software which isn't free (BSD/OS is a commercial BSD, and most commercial UNIXes include large amounts of BSD code). Anything under the FreeBSD licence can be used in a non-free product, and anything under the old BSD licence can too, as long as the contribution of the University of California at Berkeley is mentioned in any advertising (which is a bit of a pain, but still a small limitation). The reverse is also true to some extent, as there is no objection to including code with other licences (although, at least with FreeBSD, any *kernel* code which isn't under a BSD-ish licence will be disabled by default, and any non-BSD code will generally be put in the contrib tree rather than the main one).

    One example which actually involves kernel code is the softupdates code in FreeBSD, which improves I/O performance without the dangers of asynchronous mounts. It has been distributed with a somewhat restrictive licence, allowing it to be freely used in free software, while leaving the author with the right to `peddle it to the commercial UNIX vendors for money'. Because of its restricted nature, it's in the contrib tree rather than the main kernel tree, but the README explains how to easily replace the free stubs in the main tree with the full sources from the contrib tree.

    Another interesting point about the free BSDs is that they're non-commercial volunteer efforts, unlike the most popular Linux distributions (IIRC, SuSE and Red Hat are the market leaders in Europe and America, respectively). That means there's no conflict with developers of commercial products, but also means they lack the sort of marketing machines that are behind commercial Linux distributions (non-commercial Linux distributions have the same problem of lack of press coverage as the free BSDs).

  105. FreeBOCHS project by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2

    Gee, I think freemware is a great idea. Such a great idea in fact, that I've decided to create a freeware clone of Bochs.

    Watch this space for future announcements.

  106. Even Costlier by Gleef · · Score: 2

    jerodd wrote:

    RedHat probably appreciates VMWare for providing a useful product on GNU/Linux, but RedHat would really like to be able to bundle a freed software emulator for Micros~1 software that actually works. The $300 is way to high to sell as a Windows {9[58]|NT} replacement.

    VMWare is not a software emulator at all. It is a processor virtualizer, within which you can run Windows95/98/NT. You still need to pay for the operating system on top of the $300 for VMWare. For Windows NT Workstation (probably the most common thing run in VMWare), it's another $295 last I checked.

    Now, if freemware gets off the ground, and Wine gets more stable, than with a little tweaking, you might be able to take freemware, run freedos in it, and run a modified version of Wine on top of it, and have a completely Free Windows clone running in a window on your Linux box :-).

    --

    ----
    Open mind, insert foot.
  107. Motif & Lesstif by KMSelf · · Score: 1

    In the same way, Lesstif is a rip-off of Motif, gcc is a reimplementation of c. There are times when a strict reimplementation is justified -- impelementing a truely free development tool or toolkit is one.

    Proprietary software has done this as well -- there's more than one C compiler out there. But it's also done this for end-user apps. Word and Quattro both had emulation modes for WordPerfect and Lotus 1-2-3, respectively. Borland's implementation of the Lotus UI was supported by the Supreme Court in a landmark case.

    I've also got it on good authority that proprietary developers are gleening features from free software. Idea appropriation goes both ways.

    --

    What part of "gestalt" don't you understand?

  108. Always seem to be catching up by Skyshadow · · Score: 3
    This is kind of an unfortunate thing we have going on here.

    I mean, I've started to notice that OSS projects always seem to be trailing boldly behind closed source stuff. It's not that I don't see the value of an open source vmware-type project, but it's sort of upsetting that (lately, at least) we're always playing catch-up to ideas that companies have had.

    I wonder if open source somehow doesn't foster originality...

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    --
    Every year during my review, I just pray the words "slashdot.org" aren't mentioned.
  109. Cloning by Trepidity · · Score: 1

    Why does it seem that most Free Software projects I see announced are clones of proprietary software? It seems the clones rarely reach the stability and features of the originals, so that cancels out one of the supposed advantages of Free Software, that the software ends up being better (take for example FreeCiv vs. the much-superior but proprietary Civ and CivII).

    It seems that some originality is lacking. In fact, I'm hard pressed to find examples of originality in Free Software. I'm sure there are a few, but of the major Free Software projects I've seen out there, nearly all are clones. A few examples are Linux (UNIX clone), gcc (cc clone), harmony (Qt clone), and X11Amp (Amp clone).

    Secondly, if this guy is so interested in cloning proprietary software, I'm sure he wouldn't mind a Free Software clone of Bochs. Or are things different when it's your software being cloned? Come to think of it, if he's so interested in Free Software, why doesn't he release Bochs under a Free Software license?

    --
    10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
  110. ripped off ? by HoserHead · · Score: 1

    Harmony is (not was, it's resurrected!) the Free (LGPL) implementation of the library Qt, originally by Troll Tech. It was created because of the license problems (which still exist) with Qt - specifically, distributing binaries of programs linked to Qt, which is a no-no unless Qt is part of your base operating system. In any case, Harmony originally 'died' because of the QPL (Troll Tech's new Open Source (but not Free) license) and the fact that Troll Tech never guaranteed that they wouldn't sue over Harmony.

  111. GPL still the most popular license? Yes by HoserHead · · Score: 2
    Check freshmeat for proof. Most of the software announced there is licensed under the GPL; indeed, stuff not under the GPL is the exception.

    "Headlining" software is simply software which big companies are releasing as Open Source, and isn't necessarily Free Software - an example is the Apple source license, which allows Apple to terminate your rights to the code - a decidedly non-free aspect of the license.

    In any case, most [new] free software projects aren't announced on Slashdot, but most of them do use the GPL.

  112. What license and how "free" by HoserHead · · Score: 3
    technology will be carried over from the bochs project to the freemware project. I am currently exploring what needs to be done license-wise to bring the device emulation from bochs to the open source freemware project.
    Well, everywhere he says "open source." I hope he goes BSD-esque or GPL, but I'm afraid that it'll be something incompatible with GPL (and thus making it difficult for other authors to use it, seeing as GPL is by far the most popular license for new Free Software.)

    Obviously the author of bochs can do whatever he sees fit with his code, include licensing it as part of freemware under whatever license it uses, and we hope he goes with a Good choice (even if it is incompatible with GPL or the vast majority of other licenses (ie, if it's not GPL or BSD/X type license), if it's Free Software it will be ok).

  113. Especially when most already own a copy of... by Codifex+Maximus · · Score: 1

    Windows95. I know I have a few old copies and that is what I use.

    I've run VMware and it is good - price is too high right now - but it is good; needs DirectX capability - but it is good.

    VMware is *almost* there on support for all technologies required to seamlessly run Windows software. With just a wee little bit more effort, they will have a major hit on their hands.

    I support the Wine project and hope for success - heck, they've already been successful! If nothing else, they've put constant pressure on Microsoft to continue changing the source code to keep one step ahead of the Wine team. Now with VMware, BOCHS, and DOSEmu closing the other gaps and making an end run around Microsoft's defense, Microsoft's end could be near.

    I will buy the VMware product (if the price comes down) because it is well done by folks who (currently) care about releasing a top-quality product.

    --
    Codifex Maximus ~ In search of... a shorter sig.
  114. Wow! Where do I pay? by DrSpoo · · Score: 1

    Guys...this is neat software. After reading the website it took me just few moments to download the software, load up my old copy of Windows 95 (actually, that took a while), and setup the network to use IP Masq. I'm now on my K6-266 Linux box running Internet Explorer 4.0 in Windows 95...I love it! BSOD I fear you no more ;)

    Sure speed could be better, and the price is way too high for the average joe...but try to be pragmatic. Good software is _good software_, free or not. I still support Bochs (tried every snapshot in the last 12 months) but I won't lose any sleep speeding a little cash for VMware.








    --
    Sig (appended to the end of comments you post, 120 chars)
  115. Not why I want it... by gavinhall · · Score: 1

    Posted by FascDot Killed My Previous Use:

    I'd like to run multiple *Linux* virtual machines to test out things like drivers, networking code and suspected cracker software.

  116. You got it backwards by gavinhall · · Score: 1

    Posted by FascDot Killed My Previous Use:

    Yeah, we could go the MS route and tell OEMs "Hey, do whatever you want to our OS to make your POS hardware work--no one will notice an extra crash or two".

    OR we could provide quality Free (speech) software that is so tempting big business gobbles it up. And then the OEMs have to play by OUR rules.

    Furthermore, you are sorely mistaken that the usual excuse for Free alternatives is that no Linux port exists. If that was the case, Linux itself wouldn't exist in the first place. The real reason for creating a Free alternative is twofold:

    1) Because no Free alternative exists
    2) The same reason sex is good: it creates population diversity upon which natural selection works

  117. my god, what a bunch of hypocrits! by gavinhall · · Score: 1

    Posted by fowler@clearcommerce.com:

    How many of you complaining about commercial software make your money working for a commercial software company? I'd bet most of you.

    Even Boch's is shareware. Sure the source is out there, but it's not GPL'd or NPL'd or whatever the fun license of the day is. Go jump on him! It almost seems to me that he's angry because someone did what he was trying to do, but did it better. (yeah, I know it's not exactly the same, but close enough for the point to be made).

    Commercial software is not the enemy, it's a way to make a living.

    Bad commercial software is the enemy. I, for one, think $300 is cheap...much less than a whole new machine and much more useful.

    I use linux because it's better, not because it's free.

  118. Always seem to be catching up by gavinhall · · Score: 1
    Posted by dwarin:

    Even the maturest of open source projects like gcc lag way behind top quality commercial software. The reason, of course is money.
    This is more true with regard to user-friendly features than with robustness or technical merit. For example egcs is more complete with regard to C++ compliance than a lot of commercial compilers, and Linux is more stable, certainly than Windows. Also I think a lot of commercial programmer editors are very affected by Emacs when it comes to offering user configurability. There are a number of other examples of free software setting the standard for commercial software, such as sendmail, perl, and named. So I think your statement isn't true in general.
  119. You've made some assumptions... by zerblat · · Score: 1

    True, but I don't think many GNU people think it's important to start a project whose goal is to make it possible to run windows (and other proprietary OS's) at the same time as GNU/Linux. (It's not on the GNU TODO list ;)

    --
    Please alter my pants as fashion dictates.
  120. Cloning by zerblat · · Score: 1

    Free Software projects are usually aimed at solving a problem -- making it possible to do something you couldn't do or making it easier to do something (read The Cathedral and the Bazaar by esr). Sometimes there are proprietary programs already doing these things -- or almost doing it -- and in that case it's a good idea to borrow ideas from those programs.

    --
    Please alter my pants as fashion dictates.
  121. Why just Bochs? by pb · · Score: 1

    Personally, I'd much rather start with DOSEmu, and add the necessary virtualization and portability. Why? Because I'd be very impressed if Bochs (which is designed to run on a platform with a C compiler...) ever gets faster than two orders of magnitude below the native speed of the machine.

    DOSEmu already runs at full speed, as much as possible. All we want here is x86 on x86, so all that needs to be added are emulation for protected mode code, and porting from Linux. With Bochs as a base, on the other hand, there are a lot of needed features, and the first five of them are speed.

    Bochs would be a good start for emulating x86 on something else, and possibly some virtualization could be taken from Bochs and used in DOSEmu.

    ...just use the right tool for the right job.

    --
    pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
  122. speed of DOSEmu by pb · · Score: 1

    Hmm? I know, but the point is that DOSEmu does emulate some protected mode services, and I think that by making speed the first consideration, Freemware would be a better product.

    A true x86 emulator should run on other platforms, but according to this proposal, Freemware would be x86-only. Therefore, it shouldn't have to emulate x86 opcodes, and should use virtual machines as much as possible, only emulating protected-mode instructions. (i.e. it's easier to trap a few instructions and emulate them than it is to emulate *all* of them, when the chip natively supports these instructions in the first place.)

    There's no reason to make a virtual environment on an x86 run as slowly or slower than Softwindows on a different architecture, say. That is my point.

    --
    pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
  123. Amp clone? by demon · · Score: 1

    Do you know what Amp is? Amp != WinAmp. (Actually, it used to use the Amp core, but now it's using MPG123's player core.) WinAmp did the same thing, but on Windows. X11Amp just borrows the WinAmp UI. (Yes, I've been helping some with X11Amp hacking of late, so I suppose this could be a Blatant Plug(TM).) Check out www.amp.com if you actually want to find out what Amp is, and why Nullsoft was, last I heard, in court with the company that owns Amp.

    --

    Sam: "That was needlessly cryptic."
    Max: "I'd be peeing my pants if I wore any!"
  124. All software should be free ... hmm ?! by rlk · · Score: 1

    Just to make things absolutely clear: free software does not mean that people are not allowed to charge for it. Free speech, not free beer.

    If free software then wins the competition with proprietary software, that's life. Vendors of proprietary software do not have any right to prohibit others from competing with them (patent issues aside, but let's stay out of that hairball).

  125. OpenSource != OpenWarefare on Private Enterprise by rlk · · Score: 1

    So what's the difference between free software competing with commercial software and commercial software competing with commercial software? The vast majority of companies started fail before ever producing a profit. Investing time and talent into developing a product doesn't guarantee any return.

    Maybe freemware will fail, maybe VMWare will decide to go open source, who knows what will happen. But why should VMWare be free from competition?

  126. Hook, line, and sinker by hawk · · Score: 1

    >Open source software traces its roots to GNU, remember?

    That depends upon how short your memory is :) Open source predates GNU and RMS by decades.

  127. double edge sword? by Sludge · · Score: 1

    Commodifying software is good in the long run for everyone. Take the Linux kernel and GCC for instance. If they were released under a commerical license, Linux would never have become the financial advantage companies seek right now because the user base would be considerably smaller.

    Commercial projects are built with free software. If they get replaced by free software, possibly, the free software they get replaced by will be used to develop future commercial/free software.

    Personally, I have no remorse for companies who can't compete on terms of quality, and that includes free(price) open source software. It's software darwinism out there, whether it's a community driven effort that drives out a piece of commercial software, or another piece of commerical software.

  128. Always seem to be catching up by Per+Abrahamsen · · Score: 1

    Emacs is far older than either Brief or Epsilon. They stole concepts from Emacs, not the other way around.

    LaTeX stole a lot from scribe, as is acknowledged by Lamport in the book.

  129. What license and how "free" by Per+Abrahamsen · · Score: 1

    The GPL removes your freedom to remove other peoples freedom.

  130. double edge sword? by Daverz · · Score: 1

    Companies expect (or should expect) competition. If they are going to sell closed-source software they had better provide some other kind of value that the open-source software doesn't have, or they should die.

    There is also commercial Linux software that has never been replaced satisfactorily with free software, Netscape being the prime example.

  131. double edge sword? by wayne · · Score: 1
    Uh, wait, where did I put my rant?

    Oh yes, here it is...

    while i do agree that a Free Software/opensource alternitive is a good idea, we are also driving away alot of people from computers, everytime someone makes a good product for a computer it gets opensource alternative and everyone uses that. In the end it wont make people turn to programming open source programs but instead drive them away from computers.

    --
    SPF support for most open source mail servers can be found at libspf2.
  132. What license and how "free" by wayne · · Score: 2
    I couldn't find any discussion about what license they are talking about using. Bochs, for example, isn't OSS by any stretch of the imagination. (See the license for bochs here.)

    If it is not going to be free software, why would anyone want to help for free?

    --
    SPF support for most open source mail servers can be found at libspf2.
  133. OpenSource == OpenWarfare by mill · · Score: 1

    A software's Freeness is a valid merit in my book. If you want to buy proprieraty software you are free to do so, but don't whine when people compete.

    I have no moral obligation to pamper commercial (proprieraty or not) companies. They are providing these products to make money and should expect competition (both proprieraty and free).

    /mill

  134. Good luck.. by Daniel · · Score: 1

    ..they're going to need it. Technical aspects aside, VMware claimed to have a patent on this idea. Regardless of the validity of the patent, I still think it would be good for them if they had lots of money for lawyers...

    (or are they outside the US? I didn't think to check that. Of course, then it'd still be technically illegal for anyone in the US to use it...)

    Daniel

    --
    Hurry up and jump on the individualist bandwagon!
  135. Bah humbug by Daniel · · Score: 1

    Personally, I wouldn't mind running Windows gam^H^H^Hprograms on my computer concurrently with Linux. But the really neat feature that a VM would provide would be the ability to try out bleeding-edge operating systems in relative safety and no repartitioning. (yes, there's a huge speed hit, but I don't mind in this case)

    Daniel

    --
    Hurry up and jump on the individualist bandwagon!
  136. Hmmm imagine? by Daniel · · Score: 1

    Ok, I should remember that not everyone is limited to 48MB of memory. :-)

    Daniel

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    Hurry up and jump on the individualist bandwagon!
  137. SUPPORTED BY REDHAT??? by Daniel · · Score: 1

    Making Windows windows integrate with the X11 desktop would also be nice (sort of
    like OS/2's seamless feature); this is actually not that hard to do.

    Hmm. What do you mean? I can't think (offhand) of *any* way to do this in a VMWare-style program since the virtual machine and physical machine are entirely separate and unaware of each other (except for a network connection). You'd need something like X11 that displays using a client-server model.

    Daniel

    --
    Hurry up and jump on the individualist bandwagon!
  138. I agree, cloning VMWare is pure spite by Daniel · · Score: 1

    While I would encourage VMWare to go the freed software
    route, I'm not going to. Why? Because the only reason you use VMWare in the first place is to run
    nonfreed software!

    Actually, not true. I'd like to use a VMWare-ish program to play around with the Hurd or FreeBSD without having to reallocate my partitions and/or install bleeding-edge OSes (like Hurd) without having to risk them, eg, going mad and overwriting /dev/hda. I can imagine a lot of possibilities for kernel (not device driver probably) developers, too.

    Daniel

    --
    Hurry up and jump on the individualist bandwagon!
  139. Hmmm by Daniel · · Score: 2

    Free software and originality are orthogonal. There are incredibly original free software projects and incredibly non-original ones. It's also a good idea to remember that originality and quality/usefulness are orthogonal; the first people to think of something aren't necessarily the ones to make the most useful implementation of it. Not that I have anything against originality. :-)

    It's also worth noting that VMware isn't particularly original either--it's the first piece of software that does what it specifically does, but the concept is old. VMware just happened to be the first group to apply it to Intel (I think most other people weren't interested since (a) it's a major pain because of limitations of Intel hardware and (b) for most legacy apps, OS-level emulation is a better long-term goal, although [ perhaps ] more difficult in the short-term. If you think Wine is a resource hog, imagine running a 32-MB virtual machine on your computer. :-) )
    I'd just like to say that there's no shame in being unoriginal as long as you're good and unoriginal. Obviously since they just announced the project we can't judge whether it's good or not...

    Daniel

    --
    Hurry up and jump on the individualist bandwagon!
  140. double edge sword? by Daniel · · Score: 2

    Hmm. Do you want people using Linux or do you want proprietary companies writing software for it? In the second case, you're correct that this is a proble, but I find it hard to believe that anyone will be 'driven away' as a user because people insist on writing free clones of closed programs.

    Daniel

    --
    Hurry up and jump on the individualist bandwagon!
  141. I don't agree with you either by Roberto · · Score: 1

    For one thing, Qt 2.0's theme support (styles, really) is a heck of a lot more powerful, simple, rational, and interesting than Gtk's.

    Just to say one thing, on Gtk you can't change the widget's topology, which you could even do with Qt 1.3! (ok, as far as I know, only I bothered doing it http://ultra7.unl.edu.ar/themes/desktop01.gif ;-)

    So, since Qt will, in 3 months (I'd say now, but let's restrict to releases, and yes, I am making up the 3 months figure) surpass gtk in style support, considering the gtk headstart, why wouldn't Qt be more likely to reach MUI?

    And yes, in Qt 2.0, you can change the look of a widget, down to the last pixel, too.

  142. Always seem to be catching up by sheldon · · Score: 1

    "Once the initial project is underway it doesn't take long before the open project excells the closed one. "

    I'm curious. Can you name any such software project?

    All of the "follower" projects I can think of have either died by the wayside(Mozilla, many others), or have still not caught up with the commercial functionality even if they are damn close(Gimp).

  143. Good luck.. by mikpos · · Score: 1

    Well I've patented software, so I agree: they will need some good lawyers. Really though, I don't think they could get hold up a patent for virtualisation very well since they didn't invent it and it was invented over 20 years ago.

  144. So what? by ksheff · · Score: 1

    It appears that Bochs has been around for quite some time, so I don't think this is a "This is a neat idea, so I'll clone it" situation. It also works on several different platforms, which is good for those people who don't have intel machines, but who do want to run intel software.

    With OSS, people spend time coding on stuff that they want to. If this guy wants to take his existing shareware project and move it to open source, I don't care. Strategically, Gnome/KDE might be more important things to work on, but I don't have any interest in them. I have other projects that I will work on because they are interesting to me.

    When I get more disk space, I might even try both products out. If VMware is better I'll buy it (or when my wife goes back to school, get her to use the student discount). If I like Bochs/freemware, I'll use it. It's called competition in the marketplace. If VMware is a good product, they there will be people to buy it. People that I've talked to say it's a kick-ass product. Others on /. have said that Bochs is slow and from reading the docs on the web page for it, it isn't as straight forward to install. Given a choice between a good commercial product and a free product that might not be as good or is hard to install, there are many who will fork over the cash to get the commercial product.

    Your argument sounds similiar to how people describe the Windows world: if you create a successful product, MS will clone it and use their marketing muscle to crush you. Why develop for any platform then? Someone might come along and think you have a good idea and create a different implementation of it. There may have been some bruised egos and spite involved in the motivation for the release, but I don't see how that is going to hurt VMware. It might even help in that they will implement features that will make their product better.

    --
    the good ground has been paved over by suicidal maniacs
  145. VMware should have been Open Source by David+Jao · · Score: 4
    Some people here say that since VMware is a good product, the authors are justified in keeping their software proprietary. Some even go so far as to say that a free VMware clone would be stealing well-deserved money from the authors of VMware.

    I could not disagree more. Furthermore, I will be the first to way that I would pay the $99 student price for a GPL'd VMware. I am not against selling software. I am against the common practice whereby companies withhold (i.e. steal) millions of dollars of value from society by keeping their software proprietary.

    I will not buy VMware, even though the product is worth more to me than the asking price. It seems obvious to me that if everyone who wants VMware puts their money into freemware instead, there would be ample money to fund a superior Open Source replacement. If you think VMware is a valuable contribution to society, then how much would an Open Source replacement be worth? Answer: much, much more.

    Since I emphasize societal benefit so much in this post, a lot of you out there might accuse me of being socialist, and, by hidden implication, anti-capitalist. Well, I've got news for you: Capitalism is socialism, and socialism is capitalism. Folks, that isn't ideology, that's a proven mathematical theorem. Specifically, the first and second welfare theorems of microeconomics state that:

    1. A free market always maximizes net societal welfare,
    2. Any state of maximalization of net societal welfare is achievable through a free market.
    I know that socialism/capitalism is not directly on topic but I just wanted to pre-emptively fend off the knee-jerk attack that since I'm against proprietary software I must be against entrepreneurism, capitalism, and the American dream.

    By the way, in case you haven't figured it out, the proprietary software market is based on a copyright monopoly, hence is not a free market economy, and that's why this market sucks from both a capitalist and socialist standpoint.

  146. Freemware benefit by tgd · · Score: 1

    The problem with this is the claim by VMWare that the way they do it (virtualizing a PC when the hardware doesnt' actually support it) is patented or at least patent pending, so there may simply not be a way to do this open source, at least not for the majority of the world that the patents would cover (presumably they're covering the EU, US, etc...).

    This kind of system, in response to come people's comments about the license for Bosch, isn't nearly as complex. It'd take a lot less code to get a usable product (which Bosch still isn't...)

    I think the best that could come from this effort is a rethinking by VMWare on their pricing, providing a more limited use version or non-commercial pricing for a more reasonable cost. The problem is, they've said they've been considering this, and maybe this effort is going to just stop them from really considering it.

    I hope the opensource community isn't shooting itself in the foot on this one. I'd hate to see this effort anger VMWare into being more restrictive in the future with their product, all for the effort to create a product that may violate their patents anyway.

  147. wine by tgd · · Score: 1

    Because Wine as an emulator is a worthless project. First time I ran wine was probably back in 1996 or 1997. It ran Solitaire. I installed a version a few weeks ago. Still ran Solitaire. Still doesn't run anything else.

    Wine is borderline useful for taking existing Windows source code and getting it to run -- that's why Corel's interested in it. It'll *never* be able to run current-generation Windows applications. Why do you think WABI disappeared? Its too complex and difficult to emulate Windows -- its better to just run windows and emulate the PC. Microsoft or Anti-Microsoft, a windows license isn't that expensive if you really need to use it.

  148. Always seem to be catching up by linuxci · · Score: 1

    Freedom of speech goes both ways. Someone can say what they like but when someone disagrees to it they have right of reply.
    To be fair the more people coding the better although some people have neither the time or the motivation to code.
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  149. Always seem to be catching up by linuxci · · Score: 1

    I wouldn't say Mozilla has died, yes JWZ has left, it has taken longer than expected to get anywhere and there's a lower proportion of non-Netscape employees than expected but the Mozilla project is now making progress and has the potential to produce the greatest possible web browser which is fast, cross-platform and standards compliant.

    As JWZ said just releasing the source code last year which didn't even compile when it was first released didn't exactly inspire confidence with the open source public now they've totally re-written it and now there's a decent layout engine there's the potential to go somewhere.
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  150. Assembly vs. C by dvdeug · · Score: 1

    I wrote an 80286 emulator myself--and it was in 32-bit assembler. Bochs is in C!

    I'm sorry, but I don't understand this statement. It seems to me that part of the point of a chip emulator is to be able to run those programs on any number of architectures - m68k, Alpha, Spark, Arm. C helps that goal. Assembly doesn't.

  151. Protection of commercial software? by Chilli · · Score: 1
    Do you mean, we should protect companies from open source competition? Why? Isn't competition improving the choice and value for the customers (= users of the software)? Furthermore, nobody prevents the company from evolving their business model, eg, going open source, too, and earning their money like other open source companies (eg, Cygnus) do. If a company doesn't manage this, it may be unfit in the free market sense and may die. Where is the problem?

    Chilli

    --
    -=- Just a random lambda hacker
  152. What about Microsoft? by edgy · · Score: 1


    I'm sure these companies would rather compete against Open Source, which competes fairly, instead of Microsoft, which will eat them alive as soon as they have an idea that sells for the platform.

    Ben

  153. wine by arielb · · Score: 1

    hmm why not just work on wine which already allows you to run and port windows apps. It's free, it's out now and you can even play some games on it

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  154. bah by arielb · · Score: 1

    what if you have an entire company full of computers? get a job! heh-an extra pc for everyone is stupid and bulky

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  155. Ripping off other people's ideas is *not* cool by arielb · · Score: 1

    why should they be pissed if they create a better product? Is Adobe pissed because gimp is free? No-because Photoshop is better than gimp. It's called competition.

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  156. double edge sword? by arielb · · Score: 1

    that's nonsense. people will just stick with windows if linux can't run their apps

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  157. All software should be free ... hmm ?! by arielb · · Score: 1

    I don't think all software should be free-I think all software should be better and if the open software is better than your commercial stuff then too bad for you. But if the commercial stuff is better then most people will buy your stuff but the free alternative will survive. It won't dominate but it won't be "put out of business". That's an important advantage over superior non-free stuff but I don't think it's an unfair advantage. It's certainly better than people pirating the commercial stuff

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  158. Idea "stealing" is normal in commercial software by John+Kacur · · Score: 1

    I read in a lot of posts that people think using software concepts other people created is unique to the freesoftware community.
    I think this is also the normal practice with commercial software, and is in fact legal. For example, nobody was allowed to own the idea of building a browser after the concept existed. Anybody could take that idea and make their own browser. Hopefully a company would do so in a manner that was innovative and added something new to the product, instead of relying on marketing to sell it :) (ha ha)
    If I remember correctly, only actual code and trademarks are copyrighted, so you can actually recreate almost verbatim interfaces of a product if you use your own code to make it work.
    Because of that, if you come up with an original idea, the only advantage you will have, is that you will be the first to develop it and market the idea, but as soon as it is out there, there is nothing to stop other companies or the free software community from emmulating it. (which explains why source code is so jealously guarded, so competiters can't catch up to you)
    What I find scarier than someone taking your idea (which I believe is the norm) is the new trend to patent ideas which should not be patentable. ie. somebody tries to patent the idea of selling on the Internet, so anybody who sells anything on the Internet owes him some money. I think there have even been some cases of large software companies putting patents on ideas that have been around for twenty years, that they didn't have anything to do with, but they have a money to pay for the patent and the lawyers to protect it. That is a resource that smaller companies and the free software community doesn't have.
    So to sum up, reverse engineering is the norm in both the commercial and free software world, and as long as you don't steal actually implementation details (like source code) or trade marked names. (my new product built by Kacur Company (fictional) is called Microsoft Word super plus) then everything else is fair game. I would be interested though to hear posts agreeing or disagreeing with what I said, especially from people more knowledgeable about the law. (lawyers, law students for example).

  159. Bah humbug by rcooper · · Score: 1
    At the risk of sounding like I have a bad attitude, I think the whole VMWare concept stinks. It might have made sense 10 years ago when hardware prices were much higher than today, but with clones being dirt cheap, this product is simply much too little far too late.

    I cant believe people would actually consider slowing thier boxes down, basically dividing its hw resources in half and doubling the chances of a system crash to have this astonishing abilitity to run unreliable crashware winbloz concurrently with their Linux boxes. Stupid. Buy a new machine. If you can't afford a new machine, get a job! (what a concept).

    Now about the proposed open source project to clone Vmware, I'd like to suggest to these people, they should divert their creative energies into existing projects that need help, for example GNOME. A vmware clone will have a very limited target audience, be of almost no use to the linux community as a whole. What a waste of valuable resources!!! We should channel our valuable resources into areas where linux is weak. Not wasting good programming efforts on sillyness like a VMWare clone. Good god almighty, what are these people thinking?
    My 2 cents worth.

    --
    You have been assimilated.
  160. You've made some assumptions... by Booker · · Score: 2

    The hard-core GNU/GPL free software people aren't necessarily interested in "market acceptance" or being a "major player." They're not worried about the cash flow of companies. They want software that works, that they can play with, that has source available, that is free. So, if they see a good idea in proprietary software, and set out to create a free version of that functionality, they're not hurting their cause in any way.

    You seem to equate being a major player in the desktop market with having proprietary, non-free software available for the platform... I don't agree with that logic.

  161. Work cut out for them by Jeffrey+Baker · · Score: 1

    These guys have a tough row to hoe. VMWare is a really stupendous product. It has worked perfectly ever since I have been using it.

    To those who question the usefulness of a product like this, consider my workplace. I have a Dell laptop in addition to my workstation. The laptop is for running Windows software, like Rational's Rose and Requisite Pro, plus Outlook. I can run all of these programs in a VMWare session with remarkable performance. When I am not using VMWare, I can simply suspend it and it no longer consumes CPU.

    Now what do you think costs more, an extra hard drive for my workstation, or a Pentium II laptop?

  162. Whine whine by bgarrett · · Score: 1

    Open source lags so much behind proprietary ideas, whimper whimper. As I type this into a web browser originally derived from an open idea, and click on a button which sends a form via an open protocol to an open web server descended from two other open web servers.

    The most visible OSS projects TODAY derive from ideas based on proprietary products. Why? Umm, maybe the big "conquer the desktop" push that some in the Linux etc. community have been making? People have been going on about GNOME etc. and how Linux must become more prevalent on the desktop. Well what's there now? Proprietary software. Is anyone else therefore surprised that a lot of new OSS projects resemble commercial offerings?

    As for "the vmware concept sucks", I beg to differ -- there are many applications for such a product, but not what you'd think. For example, I'm trying to get my company's webserver switched to Linux, but I can't do that until I find a way to run the eshare expressions chat system (NT or Solaris only). So I can either somehow find a spare system in our building and install eshare, have a new one ordered (which there's no budget for) -- or I could run something like vmware and emulate NT under linux while I find some new chat/message software :)

    Would I use vmware for long-term emulation of another OS? probably not. But just because I can get a PC for $300, don't make the stupid assumption that I have $300 to throw at a PC just for a single project (such as the one above).

    Those who whine after this post are encouraged to send me a check for $300 to buy a new PC. I will then stop supporting the use of vmware.

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    Nothing worth doing is worth doing today.
  163. VMWare Patent by bwb · · Score: 1

    VMWare's web site has a bit about their patent-pending layer that sits between the hardware and the other OSes, or between the host OS and the other OSes, but it's not clear what their patent claim is. Regardless, as the freemware page notes, virtualization is nothing new, so it's unlikely that they could put a halt to a similar project.

  164. Bah humbug by JadeSky · · Score: 2

    I too, might come across as a heathen, but I'd have to agree here.

    Linux doesn't need another x86 emulator, another dos emulator, or the ability to run windows 98/nt apps. Linux needs to be strengthened in the GUI areas (whether you like GNOME or KDE IS irrelevant), and possibly in the business applications arena, though with StarOffice, Applix, and WordPerfect there are already some good applications out there. (though I'm at a fundamental disagreement with Corel's porting of ver 8 using wine)

    Intel boxen are increadibly cheap today, and getting something that can run Windows faster than VMware on a Pentium 233 on Linux shouldn't cost more than $500 all said and done. That $500 buys a decent machine, too (which would run linux very well... erm... wait...)

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    I used to think printing on on Unix sucked. Then I figured it out. Printing on Unix *does* suck. Like a Kirby.
  165. Bah humbug by WORLOK · · Score: 1

    BTW, with Netscape mail client, you CAN use the IMAP client option to hook to an exchange server and see all of your mail folders and get your mail. the only thing I can't get is the Global Address Book.

  166. Hmmm imagine? by fishbowl · · Score: 1

    "imagine" running a 32MB VM on my computer?
    I'm *doing* it. It's *FINE*. Granted, I have
    plenty of RAM to work with, but it's getting the
    job done. The performance is acceptable to me.
    Not breathtaking, mind you.

    --
    -fb Everything not expressly forbidden is now mandatory.
  167. Revenge? by Espressoman · · Score: 2

    Open source projects have far greater flexibility than closed source applications. With tens, hundreds, or even thousands of hackers learning the code, and providing additions and optimizations, then you will end up with a better quality product.

    I do think that this isn't actually a very good project idea though. It seems to me that the creator of BOCHS, an extremely slow emulator which is unlikely to be useful for anything, has just seen his hopes and dreams for the project completely blown out of the water by a vastly superior product. I am rather suspicious of his motivations in setting up an open source project which aims to do little more than undermine the vmWare product, and thus vmWare's market.

    If we want to be constructive, we should be instead lobbying vmWare, promoting the benefits of making their product open source on the Linux platform. Personally I have little use for the product unless they can get games working well (though I suspect the game companies will catch on to the value of the Linux market before that happens).

    If the Linux community can't convince vmWare to free up the source code to their product - even for non-commercial use only (a really good idea guys), then perhaps they would like to reconsider their asking price for non-commercial use. Even without source code, providing the product freely to thousands of Linux users will gain great exposure and thousands of bug reporters.

    If they opened up the source, then they might get some really useful help with getting DirectX applications working well.

    A bit of a burble, but I think I made all the right noises.

    Be careful about this project - what's the guys real motivation? If he loved open source so much, why didn't he free up the source to BOCHS?

  168. Why VMs are useful by Cato · · Score: 2

    Just off the top of my head, here are some reasons to run VMware etc:

    - cost - much cheaper to add $300 VMware and extra RAM than buy a new machine - any decent machine costs more than $450

    - flexibility - run bleeding edge Linux/BSD/other kernels in a VM, hosted by production Linux installation. Run more than one guest OS at once.

    - power usage and heat - run several OSs on one box without increasing heat dissipation - reduce electricity usage and help avoid global warming (seriously - PCs use a big chunk of the US electricity production!)

    - tech support - boot a VM that is an exact replica of the one the user is running, without disturbing your normal session.

    - Windows development - run a Windows NT guest OS to do email, another to do development (will sometimes crash but who cares), and a Win98 one and Win95 one for testing. If you hate Windows, remember that Linux will be the most stable host OS for VMware, most likely, and you are thereby introducing Linux onto a Windows developer's desktop - can't be all bad. And remember that this will support a Linux guest OS for when they decide they must port to Linux :)

    - desk space - many of our developers have two PCs, one Windows and one Linux, which is a waste of desk space.

    - testing small networks on single machine - providing you have enough RAM, you could run 5 or ten VMs at once, enough to test a small network of systems - ideal for testing client/server setups using different OSs without consuming a lot of hardware. My company makes network management software, so if some of the VMs could boot Linux router code we could test a complete network on a laptop. Handy for when our testers want to work from home rather than suffer up to 1.5 hours commute each way in London.

    - research - develop and test new network protocols, or Beowulf apps, on a single machine

    - Year 2000 testing - run a guest OS with its clock turned forward

    - workload partitioning on large SMP systems - run different major apps, e.g. SAP R/3 and Oracle Applications, in different VMs with (hopefully) little impact of one on the other. Standard practice in mainframes and copied using hardware by Sun, HP, Amdahl, etc. Unix has traditionally been quite poor at workload partitioning - would be better to see it in the OS, but this is a useful stopgap. Very handy for server consolidation, where many small servers get merged into one or two huge servers.

    - demonstrations - would be useful to demo distributed client/server type software, including showing how the system recovers from a (guest) OS/hardware crash, simulated by halting the VM.

    It's worth remembering that the IT world is more complex than your own particular environment. Also, if Linux+VMware can be used to 'surround' Windows environments by running them in a more flexible way, it's only a short step to a more Linux-based environment.

    VM/370, the IBM mainframe equivalent of VMware, was once about to be canned (it was an unofficial project done in R&D labs, a bit like Unix at AT&T), when the suits discovered that it was being used by the MVS team (MVS being the main operating system then and now for IBM mainframes) for development and testing, running several MVS instances on a single mainframe. Once they realised that MVS, although notionally a competitor to VM, was in fact depending on it, they kept the VM project going, and it's now available as VM/390.

  169. Making money by Zygo · · Score: 1

    Wow, if you can't earn $50 from each of 2500 copies of "a really useful and killer piece of software" for $50 each, _regardless of license_, then you are doing something wrong. Go get some business clues from any shareware vendor or contract consultant.

    Really useful and killer pieces of software are exceedingly hard to come by; only a handful are made each year, and most of those are niche products.

    Most money spent on software per year is spent on maintaining or improving existing applications, or on supporting them. This is the service that big corporations will fork over the big dollars for. If you want to reliably earn money in software over the long term, this is where you do it.

    Of course under the GPL it is possible that e.g. Red Hat will make more money than you do. But that doesn't stop you from earning money--in fact, if your business strategy is right, it simply increases your own marketability while eliminating your distribution and advertising costs.

    It doesn't take a whole lot of thought to make money out of GPL software--just organize your business so you aren't competing with your own distributors (i.e. your users).

    --
    -- I avoid spam by accepting only OpenPGP encrypted or signed email at this address. Clear-signed, RFC2015, heck, even
  170. Who's Idea??? by Zygo · · Score: 1

    And that marketing company may in fact rely on the contributions of its users, and thereby avoid doing any R&D spending at all. They continue to make money promoting, supporting (or organizing support for), and distributing free software. If necessary, others can compete with them in market niches, but ultimately if the market does not support more than one multi-billion-dollar vendor then there will be only one multi-billion-dollar vendor.

    I don't see a problem yet.

    It seems perfrectly fair to me--whoever has the best marketing wins in the business world. Since the software itself would be free, those of us with real work to do can either 1) use an off-the-shelf system, or 2) customize an off-the-shelf system, or 3) build the whole thing from scratch, as we have to do today. The difference is that those of us using option #2 don't have to spend more than the cost of option #3 for non-technical reasons. The rest of you can go be the little lemmings you are, if you want to.

    The real problem I have with the business world is that it keeps intruding into software development. Once that problem is solved (and I don't particularly care how it ends, as long as it ends) then we can get on with our coding in peace.

    The entire _concept_ of non-open-source software comes to us exclusively from the business world--real software developers would never dream of withholding source code because it is simply counterproductive to making good software (except as an educational exercise in the difference between interface and implementation, of course).

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    -- I avoid spam by accepting only OpenPGP encrypted or signed email at this address. Clear-signed, RFC2015, heck, even
  171. Bah humbug by kuro5hin · · Score: 1
    I couldn't put it better than Cato just did, but I want to at least agree. I'm running a dual PPro machine w/128M ram, and I can run Win95 in VMWare and play QuakeII with the softx renderer at the same time. So on decent hardware (this setup cost me about $1000), it's performance is splendid. Also, the main reason I want to have it, after being microsoft-free for a couple years, is that my girlfriend's job hunting, and she needs a decent, word-compatible word processor to write resumes and such on. And yes, I have WP8, and it's a piece of crap. Try it before you flame me on that. I have a fairly standard BJC4000 printer, and it won't print to it. And yes, I have StarOffice, and it doesn't cut it either. StarOffice slows my machne down way more than running all of Win95. How's that for a performance hit?

    I also run it at work, because we're on an NT network with admins who don't know what the hell they're doing, and somehow they've made it so no matter what I do, Samba will simply not communicate with the network. So now, when some moron emails me that "The file's on the E: drive", instead of thinking "Well, wtf's that supposed to mean?" I can just fire up the winbloze and ftp it to myself. Try explaining ftp to your average office drone. It's amazing, these people have never heard of it.

    In any case, I think an OSS vmware clone is a nifty idea. And it continues to disturb me when new OSS projects get the rotisserie treatment on Slashdot. I thought we were Open-Source's proponents here? How bout some of us try opening our minds a little, along with our software?
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    There is no K5 cabal.
    I am not the real rusty.
  172. Usefulness? by Splat · · Score: 1

    While I truly appreciate anyone who writes Open source software to begin with, will this product actually be of any use? I believe it will probably take these guys a long long time to produce anything even half-way usable by anyone but code hackers. By the time Freemware probably rolls around in a stable state, it's technology will no longer be real "neat" or "awesome". Wine/DOSEmu will surely have progressed to the state where they can run everything most people would use Freemware to by that time. I'm not trying to say the product is a total waste, just something to think about. Time will tell.

  173. possible really paranoid person? by Splat · · Score: 1

    Forgive me if I miss the point of your post. How is Freemware protecting us from the big bad borg? A former Microsoft-aligned person starts a company, and we panic? This is redicluous over-reaction.

  174. "Former" M$ Aligned!?!?!? by Splat · · Score: 1

    Well everyone seems to be sucking up to Microsoft now and days. I was unaware of this information, thanks for pointing it out. And why anyone would run Linux on NT is beyond me also

  175. Always seem to be catching up by Logger · · Score: 1

    I think you hit it. Since most OSS software is being done by unfunded groups or individuals, the reason they do OSS is they see an immediate need that can be fulfilled and they build it or improve it. Most OSS is straight forward thinking type of stuff and not, "WOW thats a totally cool idea!" type of stuff. OSS often learns lesson from pioneers' mistakes or hastiness, and doesn't have to deal with corporate deadlines and the value of the company stock which is why I think OSS has been so good. Too much business money in OSS might mess that equation up.

    When trying to look at where truly innovative ideas have came from, look to where they have in the past. For the most part Universities, and certain research places like Xerox's Palo Alto Labs. Why? My guess is a full time, creative thinking environment. It is good to note that the ideas that come from these think tanks didn't take off over night either. It took S. Jobs to liberate the mouse driven gui from Xerox's narrow minded execs, and it wasn't until MS Windows that guis finally went big time. The creator of ethernet had to break away from the company to create the technology, and even then it took years to catch on. TCP/IP the underlying COOL technology of the internet existed for decades before the explotion of the web.

    Moral of the story, innovation takes time, frequently goods ideas aren't recognized at the time, and often if something is truly new, the inventor might decide to cash in with a patent. If it is one of a kind software, there is really no incentive to keep it public, except for moral reasons. If on the other hand, such software is well established (Word Processors, Spreedsheets, OSs, etc), there is less to gain by going proprietary and less risk that your effort will be wasted if you spend your own personal time on it.

    Ryan

  176. All noise, no code by elflord · · Score: 1
    One of the best ways to make an Open source project fall flat on its face is to begin it with an announcement about a new project which will save the world, cure world hunger and all that. Then you set up mailing lists so that everyone can give opinions instead of code.

    I work on an open source project, and I've observed that having a useful product on the table is the best way to attract developers who can then extend the product.

    GIMP began as the pet project of a couple of grad students working more or less by themselves. But now, there are contributors too numerous to count. Once a product does X and does it well, developers will jump on to make it do Y and Z.

    In conclusion , I am dead sceptical about any project that begins as an announcement.

  177. Hmmm by jms · · Score: 1

    Hello ... how about IBM's VM operating system? Originally called CP67, started in 1967.

    They better NOT get a patent on a technology with a 32 year track record.

  178. Bah humbug by IntlHarvester · · Score: 1


    That's a Netscape IMAP bug.
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    Business. Numbers. Money. People. Computer World.
  179. Two kinds of software... by Stiletto · · Score: 1

    I'll be the first to say that the author of a piece of software has the choice as to what license they use. But they should realize that, if they choose the closed, proprietary route, they should expect to be replaced by a free clone. I believe that every closed, proprietary effort that loses to an open alternative is a victory for free software.

  180. Bah humbug by PotatoHead · · Score: 1

    Wait a minute... I agree with you that the thing will be slow, but not everyone needs two boxes. Even though there are machines that will do what vmware does for the same price, there are upgrades, management, xtra monitors, loss of flexibility... The list goes on. For many, a product such as this will enable them to employ Linux while communicating with the rest of the world during the transition period (hehe :-j)

    Here is another idea for those who could have two boxes. Utilize the second using the VNC viewer client software. That way they could just put the windows box in a corner and forget about it!

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    Blogging because I can...
  181. capitalism v socialism by Wag+the+Dog · · Score: 1

    It seems to me that the generally accepted definition of socialism is an economic system where the means of production are owned or otherwise controlled by the government, as opposed to communism (owned/controlled by the people) or capitalism (owned/controlled by various individuals/corporations).

    And, in the case of software, I would be inclined to call source code the "means of production." And, the best way to keep the software under control, and help make sure people will pay for it, is *not* to make the software "free." And, the "freedom" of "sharing" that embodies the GPL is not compatible with requiring people to pay for software


    I would disagree. I believe the "means of production" for software is the programmer, not the results of that production - the product/software/code. So, you are advocating that the "means of production" (programmers) should be controlled by individuals/corporations. I don't think this is what anyone would particularly like, as it sounds a bit too much like slavery (and no, I'm not trying to inflame).

    I think the whole concept is different for "intellectual property" and can't be compared to physical property. A corporation can "own" a gold mine, and use people to extract the gold and produce the "product" (gold ingots?). The "control" is over the gold mine. People are just hired to do the work of extracting the product from the source.

    Software "production" is quite different. Corporations don't "own" ANYTHING when it comes to software production. Where does software come from? It comes from the intelligence of the workers. So for the company to "own" the source of production, they would have to "own" the workers. Unlike the gold mine, "intellectual property" is not transferrable from one person to another easily. In the gold mine, you could more easily fire all workers and hire all new ones and have them "producing" for you a LOT faster than if you did the same thing with a large programming staff (think if Microsoft fired each and every Windows programmer and hired all new ones. Even with the source code, how LONG do you think it would take that new staff to get up to speed?). So, software is more of a "product" of the individual programmer than the company they work for. That is not how it is generally viewed now, but in reality that's the truth.

  182. Announcement != Real Project by scherrey · · Score: 1

    This is a disturbing trend amongst the "free software" fanatics. What the heck is your time worth to you anyway?!?!? $300 for a full license on one of the most well implemented and innovative pieces of software I've ever had the happy pleasure to actually use is chicken feed! I installed VMWare for the first time last night and got NT4 running on it w/ Office 97 and Netscape within a few hours. Had never seen the product before in my life. Amazing! I actually am looking forward to sending my check on Monday and reformatting my one remaining Windows box to linux!

    The very next day, however, someone annouces a "free" project to clone these guys' product (which just happened to be released FIRST on Linux - there's support from the community for you). I'd say any hope of VMWare being willing to release their source just dropped like like a cruise missle over an aspirin factory.

    What could be the motive of this project? Hmmm.. could it be the fun in the technical innovation and sharing it with people who appreciate it? Well, that's unlikely since the project announcement doesn't claim to have a goal to do anything that VMWare doesn't already do right now. If this was a true hacker project they'd take the concept one or two steps further - provide cpu independence for example. Run Mac apps for the G3 on a PII under Linux or NT/Alpha on a G3 under Linux for example. Nope - these guys are just upset that the VMWare folks might get paid for their effort. This is the kind of FUD that would make Mr. Gates proud cause it certainly makes me less inclined to release source on any of my projects. Fortunately I expect this "free" project to become instant vaporware since most talented developers actually value their time at more than $300 for 1000 man hours of trying to do something someone else already does well. Perhaps they'll take my hint...?

  183. capitalism v socialism by JamesKPolk · · Score: 1

    1. A free market always maximizes net societal welfare,
    2. Any state of maximalization of net societal welfare is achievable through a free market.

    While this is true, this doesn't mean that socialism is capitalism. It seems to me that the generally accepted definition of socialism is an economic system where the means of production are owned or otherwise controlled by the government, as opposed to communism (owned/controlled by the people) or capitalism (owned/controlled by various individuals/corporations).

    And, in the case of software, I would be inclined to call source code the "means of production." And, the best way to keep the software under control, and help make sure people will pay for it, is *not* to make the software "free." And, the "freedom" of "sharing" that embodies the GPL is not compatible with requiring people to pay for software.

    Thus, if you do find capitalism efficient, and like it, then you shouldn't be too outraged when a company keeps some software proprietary. Because, until a cheaper (or even free) alternative comes around, they have every incentive to keep it proprietary. (As in the case of Netscape v. Internet Explorer)

  184. speed of DOSEmu by JamesKPolk · · Score: 1

    The reason DOSEmu runs so fast, is that it uses a feature of the x86 CPU to emulate the 8086. These virtual machines think they are running in real mode (1MB of RAM addressable). Using this feature one cannot emulate protected mode or system management mode or anything like that. And, with only real mode to work with, you get to run 1) minix or 2) DOS.

    Oh yeah, and doesn't it make sense that if one writes an x86 emulator, that it should be able to run on computers other than an x86? (sorry if that sounded hostile...)

  185. capitalism v socialism by JamesKPolk · · Score: 1

    (Applying old labels, defined during the industrial revolution and such, are so fun to apply to new situations, I think...)



    Where does software come from? It comes from the intelligence of the workers.


    Naturally, creating software isn't exactly the same as creating most products, but the processes can have similarities. In manufacturing, one usually starts with raw materials, and a customer order, applies men and machines to the task, and produces something
    to sell to the customer. In software, one starts with a desired set of functionality, applies men and machines, and comes up with some source code.


    Just as finished goods only come from raw materials when investments are made in

    1. employee's wages
    2. capital investment in tools and machinery
    3. training/managing employees to do their tasks
    ... software in the commercial world doesn't come without somebody
    1. paying programmers
    2. buying workstations for coding
    3. buying books/training classes for the programmers, plus organizing them and holding them to (reminding them of, perhaps) deadlines.


    Now, it can be argued that a programmer could produce his code without the capital investment, especially since people are more likely to own their own computers than their own assembly lines. More often than not, though, substantial projects require more than one person, plus it's not coders who usually are able to write the good documentation and marketing copy that a polished commercial offering has.


    Just as a guy on an assembly line can put a tire on a car at home, or at a factory, a programmer can write a good backend at home, or at a job. A fully finished car, or application, though, requires the effort of a team. And the investment of money is what usually forms this team. Thus, the finished product (the source code) should be the property of the company (the investor.)


    Note that this discussion has no relevance to open-source, GPL, bazaar, or whatever you want to call it today, projects. linux,
    perl, Apache.. these all follow a totally different model obviously, from the type of hacks I'm describing here.

  186. capitalism v socialism by JamesKPolk · · Score: 1

    I just noticed that I forgot to switch it to HTML Formatted... sorry :-)

    Where does software come from? It comes from the intelligence of the workers.

    Naturally, creating software isn't exactly the same as creating most products, but the processes can have similarities. In manufacturing, one usually starts with raw materials, and a customer order, applies men and machines to the task, and produces something to sell to the customer. In software, one starts with a desired set of functionality, applies men and machines, and comes up with some source code.

    Just as finished goods only come from raw materials when investments are made in

    1. employee's wages
    2. capital investment in tools and machinery
    3. training/managing employees to do their tasks
    ... software in the commercial world doesn't come without somebody
    1. paying programmers
    2. buying workstations for coding
    3. buying books/training classes for the programmers, plus organizing them and holding them to (reminding them of, perhaps) deadlines.

    Now, it can be argued that a programmer could produce his code without the capital investment, especially since people are more likely to own their own computers than their own assembly lines. More often than not, though, substantial projects require more than one person, plus it's not coders who usually are able to write the good documentation and marketing copy that a polished commercial offering has.

    Just as a guy on an assembly line can put a tire on a car at home, or at a factory, a programmer can write a good backend at home, or at a job. A fully finished car, or application, though, requires the effort of a team. And the investment of money is what usually forms this team. Thus, the finished product (the source code) should be the property of the company (the investor.)

    Note that this discussion has no relevance to open-source, GPL, bazaar, or whatever you want to call it today, projects. linux, perl, Apache.. these all follow a totally different model obviously, from the type of hacks I'm describing here.

  187. I agree by dirty · · Score: 1

    One nice thing about Open Source (from a companies' perspective) is that they can't be aquired by the project. The only way the open source project can win against the commercial one is if it's genuinely better.

    --

    -matt
  188. Announcement != Real Project by jerodd · · Score: 1
    This is, of course, common in any community. In the Windows community, everyone wants warez. (This is true both of the drones inhabiting IRC with their bLaCk-bAcKgRoUnDeD websites and also of the general populace, which routinely borrows CDs and installs unlicenced software with disregard.) That's not quite so cool in the freed software community. In general, there are four reactions:

    1. Good to see some commercial apps for GNU/Linux. I think I might buy a copy.
    2. Too expensive. I want a free version. Wahh, somebody write one for me please!
    3. Sounds interesting. I've got some code here that sort of does this, but needs some work done. Anyone want to start a FreeFoobar project?
    4. I tried this program and it's terrible. It won't work with my 2.3.176-ac13 kernel, and where are the glibc7 binaries? I demand opensource.
    #2 is the most common and also the most arrogant and stupid. If you want good software, write it. #4 is reasonable--that's why many of us use a distribution like Debian so we can always have the latest of everything, and we generally don't pay attention to non-freed software. #3 is, of course, the best reaction, because it creates more competition for #1.

    That said, I still think the world needs more freed software, not commercial software. I just don't know how to resolve this with the diametric problem of being able to eat.

    All this said, I frankly will not contribute one line of code to freemware until the Bochs licence is changed. It's extremely arrogant of the author to astroturf like this when VMWare already has an excellent product, and he brings nothing to the table. I wrote an 80286 emulator myself--and it was in 32-bit assembler. Bochs is in C!

    --
    --jon. Postel is dead. May we all mourn his, and our, loss.
  189. crap by jerodd · · Score: 1
    You're missing it.

    I've decided that proprietary, closed software IS the problem (and Bochs is such a piece of software due to its licence). Case in point: Stardock Object Desktop. It's unzip feature is very broken. Try unpacking XFree86 for OS/2 with it. It scared me off from the demo right away--I never came back. I liked some things about Object Desktop, but it just was a still target.

    With freed software, *I* can fix bugs, and I know the project won't suddenly go frozen and stiff when a company can't continue development (or won't), such as happened with Colorworks.

    OS/2 has really turned me off to the non-free software world. OTOH, I have really been enjoying the freed software community, esp. the XFree86 and Debian people. It's simply a lot more fun.

    I have too many times spent money on a piece of OS/2 software that, while nice, quickly became another coprolith lining my shelves that was a waste of (insert dollar amount here).

    --
    --jon. Postel is dead. May we all mourn his, and our, loss.
  190. crap by jerodd · · Score: 1

    I fail to see what makes freemware so much better than VMWare until the licence is fixed. Until then, I have to pay the author money after 30 days. This is no different than VMWare, and VMWare works--now. Bochs/freemware doesn't (the speed of an 8086/10 on an Ultra 5 is unacceptable).

    I would also like to point out the piracy issue: a freed clone of VMWare could actually reduce the amount of pirated copies of VMWare. Do you really think pimply-faced kids who just got ``this Redhat thing'' installed are going to pay for VMWare? Of course not. They'll get it from their favorite EFnet channel like they do everything else.

    On the topic of world domination and us freed software developers, I really don't see how it has any meaning at all. Who cares how many people are using my code or some code that has some contributions of mine? It doesn't affect me, except in the remote sense that better software makes the world a slightly nicer place. It's not like all these semi-free projects coming from IBM or Apple are hurting me. I keep on hacking away at my OS/2/X11/GNU/printing integration software. I continue to fiddle with xfstt to get antialiasing working with XFree86. I continue to install and use freed software packages, like mailman, that I need on my system and learn how to use them.

    There's no-one clamoring for my resources. Freed software will go on long after the current Linux hype is over. GNU will still be around. I'll probably still be using the Linux kernel. My PS/2s will still be running. I'll still be maintaing the XGA XFree86 Xserver. Who cares if Linux has .01% of the desktop or 99%?

    Disclaimer: I am pimply faced some of the time, at least after eating Syrian food.

    --
    --jon. Postel is dead. May we all mourn his, and our, loss.
  191. I agree, cloning VMWare is pure spite by jerodd · · Score: 1
    Not quite. One reason for a GNU VMWare would be to add features I want, like real soundcard support (not emulated soundblaster), that plugs straight into esd, accelerated video, and fixes for the mouse pointer problem. I would also junk Motif. Motif is terrible! It's the equivilent of Windows 3.1 in the Xtoolkit world.

    That said, I can't do these things. While I would encourage VMWare to go the freed software route, I'm not going to. Why? Because the only reason you use VMWare in the first place is to run nonfreed software! Freed software, by definition, can be ported natively to GNU/Linux (or OpenBSD =). If you want VMWare so you can run IE 5.0 and your Windows games, you have no business takling about freed software morality.

    Instead, work on Mozilla. I recently got the source tree working again, and it's so much nicer than last year around this time. Or, write some games--go work with the Golgotha Forever people. There's plenty to do besides try to get your security-blanket Windows programs running in VMWare.</end-shameless-vitriol>

    Cheers,
    Joshua.

    --
    --jon. Postel is dead. May we all mourn his, and our, loss.
  192. crap by jerodd · · Score: 1

    This is the very reason WHY linux will never gain the market acceptance it needs to become a major player for the desktop market. No one wants to touch it because [garbage] like this happens. Someone comes up with a good idea, then some [jerk] whines and cries that its not opensource, then forms a team and writes a clone.

    Firstly, who says GNU has to become a big force in the desktop market? Where I am, it's on 20% of the desktops (the rest are OS/2). Mass popularity for GNU/Linux is not my goal in life. Writing good, freed software and educating the masses on the importance of freedom in every aspect of life (not just software) is.

    Secondly, he hasn't formed a team yet, and won't until he fixes his licence. Right now, he's guilty of astroturfing support for a vaporware product.

    This is the EXACT reason why people aren't coming behind linux as one would think they should.

    Oh really? One of the goals of GNU was to provide lots of freed software. The goal of GNU/Linux is not to see how many copies we can get running everywhere at the expense of freedom. World domination of a freed kernel, but proprietary applications, would be a failure.

    Yes, its a far superior OS.. FAR superior. But, what good is it if someone can't be creative and support themselves from it? Absolutely none. As much as some of you goofs that read this stuff hate to hear it, the world revolves around money. You kill the cash flow of enough companies and it'll come around to bite you in the butt later.

    I've been that route before. IBM and almost every OS/2 ISV worked entirely on a non-freed commercial basis. Guess what? It failed majorly, and my rear end is quite bitten. The world does not revolve around money. The world revolves around love. As soon as it stops centering on the love both for those immediately around one's self (family, community, friends) and for humankind in general, the world becomes a bad place. Selfishness is always bad.

    BTW, you sound like you've had a hard day of OS/2 coding. I know what that's like. I should newgrp alt.gothic.os2--a place to go and just be bitter. After fooling around with IBM's glorious APIs for seven hours, you need to be a bitter. Something in the spirit of the unix-haters mailing list is well called for.

    Cheers,
    Joshua (a battered-spouse OS/2 user)

    --
    --jon. Postel is dead. May we all mourn his, and our, loss.
  193. SUPPORTED BY REDHAT??? by jerodd · · Score: 2
    Calm down. RedHat is not the Great Satan, at least not now. RedHat simply donated server space to Kevin Lawton and the freemware project.

    RedHat probably appreciates VMWare for providing a useful product on GNU/Linux, but RedHat would really like to be able to bundle a freed software emulator for Micros~1 software that actually works. The $300 is way to high to sell as a Windows {9[58]|NT} replacement.

    If anything ever becomes of freemware, it will place competitive pressure on VMWare to compete. For starters, they might consider an accelerated video driver (easy to do), better performance (there's always a way), and Windows sound/mouse drivers that talk directly to X11 rather than through the hardware emulation layer (this would remove the mouse pointer weirdness). Making Windows windows integrate with the X11 desktop would also be nice (sort of like OS/2's seamless feature); this is actually not that hard to do.

    That said, VMWare is a very nice product, but freed software is always better. =) And please DON'T tell me to go spend $300. I'd much rather use freed software and donate that money worthy causes.

    --
    --jon. Postel is dead. May we all mourn his, and our, loss.
  194. Virtual PC by Karrots · · Score: 1

    Virtual PC from Connectix emulates a Pentium based computer on just about any PowerPC based Mac.

    I have heard of people running OpenStep, Win9x and NT on it.

    http://www.connectix.com/html/connectix_virtualpc. html

  195. However it gets done, it's brilliant by swb · · Score: 1

    I think it's brilliant that someone's actually producing a virtual PC for linux. While some may carp about free/non-free versions, being able to REALLY run a win environment under linux is outstanding, since many of us are forced to use Windows applications & environments that can't be created under WINE or DOSEmu.

    My question is, why did it take so long?

  196. GPL still the most popular license? by Zico · · Score: 1

    I'd have to disagree with that part of your post. Just from reading Slashdot, it seems like almost every project that has garnered headlines lately is using any license but the GPL. See: QPL, APSL, NPL, NCL, whatever IBM's using, etc.

    Cheers,
    ZicoKnows@hotmail.com

  197. other platforms by gibson · · Score: 1
    Oh yeah, and doesn't it make sense that if one writes an x86 emulator, that it should be able to run on computers other than an x86? (sorry if that sounded hostile...)

    Absolutely. I need an x86 emulator running on Sparc/SunOS, in order to run those darned DOS programs ;-) which just are better. Linux on an emulator is a bit slow, admittedly. Yet.

  198. double edge sword? by vpp · · Score: 1

    while i do agree that a Free Software/opensource alternitive is a good idea, we are also driving away alot of people from Linux, everytime someone makes a good product for Linux it gets opensource alternative and everyone uses that. In the end it wont make people turn to programming open source programs but instead drive them away from the platform.



    I agree all software should be free... but sometimes, like with the Harmony project for the Qt lib, i feel we are ripping off people sometimes...



    --
    Scott Aaron Bamford (vpp) "We`re giving you the chance to skrew it up in a whole new and exciting way" sab@clara.net
  199. What license and how "free" by vpp · · Score: 1

    i just had a look at that, and yea, thanks for briing that to our attention. seems "free" and "opensource" really do meen _nothing_ now

    --
    Scott Aaron Bamford (vpp) "We`re giving you the chance to skrew it up in a whole new and exciting way" sab@clara.net
  200. GPL still the most popular license?, yea by vpp · · Score: 1

    the reason the GPL doesnt hit headlines is this:
    1) its old news
    2) the major companys now jumping on the bandwagon (the sort of thing that does make headlines) dont want something as free as the GPL, they want "Free with the exception of...."

    thats how i see it, if i was to do a search on an achive, maybe freshmeat i think youwould find the GPL the most common, it is the most common i come accross, and i`d say its one of the best

    --
    Scott Aaron Bamford (vpp) "We`re giving you the chance to skrew it up in a whole new and exciting way" sab@clara.net
  201. double edge sword? by vpp · · Score: 2

    while i do agree that a Free Software/opensource alternitive is a good idea, we are also driving away alot of people from Linux, everytime someone makes a good product for Linux it gets opensource alternative and everyone uses that. In the end it wont make people turn to programming open source programs but instead drive them away from the platform.

    I agree all software should be free... but sometimes, like with the Harmony project for the Qt lib, i feel we are ripping off people sometimes...

    --
    Scott Aaron Bamford (vpp) "We`re giving you the chance to skrew it up in a whole new and exciting way" sab@clara.net
  202. double edge sword? by vpp · · Score: 2

    personaly i dislike the current comercilastaion (sorrie i will learn to spell one day) thats happening to Linux, but i do think that in the same way we have the right to writing things under the GPL and expect the big copmanys not to rip us off on it, cant little companys expect us not to rip them off for what they slaved over? sorrie if i make no sense, i am not great with words

    --
    Scott Aaron Bamford (vpp) "We`re giving you the chance to skrew it up in a whole new and exciting way" sab@clara.net
  203. What license and how "free" by LeBleu · · Score: 1
    If you're happy with the constraints placed by proprietary licences (as it seems you are) then why do you consider the constraints placed by GPL to be unreasonable in comparison?
    Because I can make money by selling the software I write under those other licenses. I can't make money selling software I write under the GPL because people can get it without paying a dime.

    You can make money by selling the software you write under those other licenses? What are the odds of that? Just what percentage of software startups go bankrupt before they get anywhere? What about the 70-80% of programming that is for vertical markets? What about the more and more common practice of software piracy/warez?(Personally, I'm against warez... why use poorly written closed source software illegally for free when I can use well written free source software legally for free?)

    You can't make money by writing free source software? What about Redhat? What about all the people who were hired because they had proven themselves by working on free source software?

    If you try to sell closed source software, you're going to have to support it, right? The old model was that you got support free with paying for the software, but this is less and less common, probably because support costs are not directly proportional to (what people will pay for the software) times (number of copies sold). Most users will require some amount of support, although the top 20% or so are going to know how to do it themselves. Why should those 20% pay for support they never use while those who use support the most don't pay any extra? Why not fund your company entirely off of providing support for your software? You'll have to keep writing good code for it, because otherwise people might switch to some other software that you don't support. (Alhough, I do have to wonder if this model will encourage companies to keep software hard to use to keep support usage up... but I suspect that there are so many AOLers and people who don't know a cd drive from a cup holder out there that if they make it easy enough for those people to attempt to use it, they can rely on plenty of support calls from them. ;)

    By the way, you can build any commercial software you want on top of LGPLed libraries, and personally I object to any library that is GPLed rather than LGPLed.

    But the GPL is the way it is for a very good reason. If you had contributed code to a GPLed project, would you want someone else to be able to take it away, make improvements without returning them to the community(and most importantly, back to you!;), and then charge people money for something that isn't their own work? I wouldn't.

    Actually, I prefer the LGPL over the GPL, or perhaps the MPL... something that would make anyone who uses the licensed code contribute their fixes and improvements to the licensed code back, but let them combine it easily with alternatively licensed(even closed source!) code. Might also help with patent issues, because then you could have a piece of code that pays to be licensed to use the patent, but is essentially integrated with the rest of an open source project.

    Hmm... an interesting alternative license might be one that requires percentage donation to an open source software fund if you charge for reproducing the software... so, if someplace distributes it on cd for $3 or whatever, they have to give $0.30 to a fund that funds the development... Redhat sort of does the same thing by funding RedHat Advanced Development labs... This would be a license that does the same thing... it'd have to make the percentage based on percentage of their code or something though... so if you're selling, say, an entire distribution with one program by them on there, let's say their code is 1% of the code on the cd, then they'd get 1% of what they would get if it was 100% their code.(.3 cents per copy, in above example) OTOH, if you have many fractured little groups using this method, you run into problems like the BSD-style advertising clause, only in this case it's a problem of accounting for the hundreds of different groups you have to pay money to. Just a thought.

    --
    --LeBleu

    If you're reading this you're part of the mass hallucination that is Kevin the Blue.

  204. Cloning by LeBleu · · Score: 1

    Although I mostly agree with you, I disagree about X11amp. X11amp is a poor knockoff of the winamp interface wrapped around an mp3 player. The playlist support in x11amp is exceedingly limited. Unfortunately I haven't found any decent GUI mp3 players under linux yet. Feel free to offer suggestions. Just as a note, my favorite feature of the winamp playlist is the ability to add entire directory trees to the list... maybe I should just use mpg123 in a shell script with find.

    --
    --LeBleu

    If you're reading this you're part of the mass hallucination that is Kevin the Blue.

  205. marketshare vs. developer mindshare by LeBleu · · Score: 1
    I fail to see what makes freemware so much better than VMWare until the licence is fixed. Until then, I have to pay the author money after 30 days. This is no different than VMWare, and VMWare works--now. Bochs/freemware doesn't (the speed of an 8086/10 on an Ultra 5 is unacceptable).

    Go reread the page... Bochs is not freemware. Bochs is shareware with source included. Right now he's trying to figure out how to use code from bochs while putting freemware under a real open source/free software license.

    On the topic of world domination and us freed software developers, I really don't see how it has any meaning at all. Who cares how many people are using my code or some code that has some contributions of mine? It doesn't affect me, except in the remote sense that better software makes the world a slightly nicer place.

    There's no-one clamoring for my resources. Freed software will go on long after the current Linux hype is over. GNU will still be around. I'll probably still be using the Linux kernel. My PS/2s will still be running. I'll still be maintaing the XGA XFree86 Xserver. Who cares if Linux has .01% of the desktop or 99%?

    I really don't care what percent of desktop marketshare linux has, though I would like it if my less computer savvy friends didn't have to suffer crappy Microsoft software.

    What I do care about though, is how many developers use the software. I care how many people are using my code or some code that has some contributions of mine, because I want to see it to continue to improve. It improves faster if I'm not the only one contributing.

    On the other hand, something I've really noticed since I switched to linux a year and a half ago... in general, open source/free software/freedomware already does what I want it to pretty well, and I infrequently find myself wanting to fix it. Closed source software(particularly Netscape, simply because that is the main closed source software I still use) constantly seems to be bugging me with changes I want to make or bugs I want to fix, but can't. The more people that use the opensource/free software/freedomware programs I'm using, the more likely one of them has already suggested/implemented the feature I want, or has already reported/fixed the bug I might have encountered.

    P.S. Yes, I know about Mozilla, but last I checked it wasn't usable enough for me. I don't have time right now to spend more time developing my webbrowser than webrowsing. Maybe by M4 or something Mozilla will be usable, and then I'll start using it and contributing.

    --
    --LeBleu

    If you're reading this you're part of the mass hallucination that is Kevin the Blue.

  206. Ummm......... Linux? by blaize · · Score: 1

    Pardon me if I'm wrong, but I'd have to say that Linux is a rather succesful product. And seeing as it is mostly based on older commercial UNIX systems, I'd say it falls in the category of "follwer".
    blaize

  207. Hmmm by kijiki · · Score: 1

    How odd. Researching your facts before posting helps avoid mistakes like this. SCO has had a program called MERGE for at least a year, and possibly more that virtualizes an x86 on an x86 running SCO unix. And it runs win95, so it isn't just a vm86 trick.

  208. Hmmm by kijiki · · Score: 1

    VMwares patent will be worthless because of prior art in the form of SCO's MERGE. VMWare is simply a linux clone of merge. The new features that VMWare has over merge are not at all revolutionary.

  209. GPL still the most popular license? by linuchristo · · Score: 2

    Linux kernel gets headlines and it's GPL.

  210. double edge sword? by Tardigrade · · Score: 1

    They're just being Gatesian about it. No big deal.

  211. I dunno by Onnix13 · · Score: 1

    maybe people want to work on it simpley because of the fact that people find it interesting.. why do you want people to work on the GUI so much instead of this project? youd make a great coordinator considering you know whats best and what projects people should work for.

    --
    >
  212. Survival of the fittest (law of the jungle) by rakjr · · Score: 2

    Open or closed, it doesn't matter. The religious will make their choice based on beliefs. The uniformed will follow the media maggets. But in the end, choices will be made based on function where it matters. Office Star may be free, but it is a hog which blows up. The price is right, but it has not been more stable than Word. Look at what took place between Lotus, Quattro, and Excel. OR better yet, look what happened with MS's Hotmail. Sooner or later either a good product wins out or the media crowns its own king.

    Novell is not still around because of their advertising and neither is Linux. They are products which have proven to be more stable in many respects.

    --
    In a place beyond time and space, in a land far better than this, look for me there...
  213. crap by MikeTurk · · Score: 1
    Selfishness is always bad.

    This is wrong. Isn't selfishness the impetus behind the Open Source movement in general?

    "This software doesn't work the way I want it to. I should fix it for my needs, so it does what I want."

    The reason that this software spreads is that anyone can modify it for his/her needs, not for yours.

    Mike
    --

    --

    Mike
    --
    "Wi nøt trei a høliday in Sweden this yër?"

  214. it won't be easy to beat/equal vmware by Yperion · · Score: 1

    I think he shoud have a go at it. VMware is really very good so I would be suprised to see BOCHS would really surpass it. On the other hand if he can, VMWare will surely respond by improving their product too. Also, I don't believe we'll see a true VMWare clone in less than a year.

    As for the price and usefullness, VMWare is too expensive since it costs more than the OS it is supposed to run, on the other hand, I'm sure thousends of Linux users are waiting for a 100% emulation of Win NT or Win'95 (wine and DosEmu are such long-running projects and are still not really a reliable solution if you compare them with Vmware. Maybe Bochs ought to give some of his expertise to them, on the other hand an emulator is not the same thing as a virtual machine)

    --
    core dumped.
  215. Bah humbug by blkwolf · · Score: 2

    Not only do I have a job, I'm currently testing VMWare at work to run Win98 under Linux.

    I've been trying very hard to get bring Linux into the company as a viable solution for many applications over the past year, and while I've managed to get it setup as a couple DNS servers, print servers and my desktop OS, it's still pretty slow going.

    For them to accept Linux I have to "prove" its a viable OS on all counts. Stability, speed, inter-communications with other OS's and networks etc.

    One problem I've been facing is that against my better advice they've decided to implement Micrsoft Exchange as their internal and internet mail system with Outlook on all the clients.

    While this works great for the Windows NT networked workstations, it's practically left out our dos-Novell clients, X-stations running off Unix servers etc and my Linux workstation.

    Luckily basic email is covered by standard POP3 and SMTP (though trying to log into exchange with a pop3 client is just plain weird, whoever heard of Domain name/Domain User name/Mailbox Name as a login name to a pop3 host, glad we dont expect users to setup their own email software), but now they've decided to move all calendaring and scheduling functions to Outlook and Exchange as well.

    This wouldn't be a problem either except that they are also currently afraid to setup the web interface to the exchange server (I guess showing them how instable NT is compared to other NOS's backfired on me in this case)

    For me to continue to be allowed to run Linux as my desktop in a Windows based company I have to show that I can be compatible with everyone else. They aren't going to issue me another computer and I dont have the desk space for one anyways. That either leaves me with the choice of moving back to Windows alltogether which for me is out of the question if at all possible, dual booting between Linux and Winx duable but a pain the butt just to check email and my calendar, or running an app like VMWare with a virtual 95 machine, which so far has worked with flying colors.

    Granted on my AMD K6 -200 the 95 machine is a bit slow itself but it's still workable, and after installing 128MB ram on the system by keeping VMWare running in the background it doesn't effect my Linux applications hardly at all.

    Now I just have to bring up the virtual machine to check and adjust the calendar and then minimize it to get back to my real work, and since I like windows based Pegasus email software better than another other email client around it still lets me run that as my client of choice.

    Also it allows me to quickly manage the NT servers and users from the Win95 session, somthing thats kind of hard to do with the smb software currently available for Linux.

    So software like this most definetly has it's uses, and can also be a great tool to bring Linux into areas that are reluctant to even try it out, even more so when they come out with an NT version that you can run virtual Linux machines on. In this case you can safly show off the benefits of Linux safely in NT only company's allowing them to test it out first hand without having to dedicate a computer to it. That might not be an issue for users who find 3-500 dollar computers, but I've yet to work for a big company that will even consider such a thing. Instead they've all "standardized" on the latest models of Compaq, Dell and Gateway who can easily run into the $1500 to $5000 dollar range. In these cases purchasing an extra computer for what is to them an untested OS would be out of the question.

  216. Always seem to be catching up by Surak · · Score: 1

    Playing catch-up with commercial software is where open source software CAME FROM.

    Open source software traces its roots to GNU, remember? GNU is a project to create an open-source version of Unix. GNU, and by extension OSes that use GNU tools like Linux, doesn't do anything revolutionary. It simply duplicates existing functionality.

    Very few open source programs do anything totally original. KDE and Gnome and designed to provide functionality that exists in operating systems like Windows and OS/2 in the Unix environment. Emacs, although unique in the number of things that it can do, still is designed to duplicate functionality that exists in other programmable text editors (i.e., Brief or Epsilon). The GIMP duplicates functionality found in Photoshop and other popular image editing programs.

    The only truly pioneering open source programs are probably Mosaic (which isn't truly open source, but its descendant, Mozilla, is), sendmail, Apache, fetchmail, TeX/LaTeX, and perl. There are probably more, but I can't think of them right now... Much of the other open source stuff is designed to duplicate exisiting functionality found in commercial software.

    There is nothing bad about this at all. It just reflects open source software's roots. There will undoubtedly be more pioneering stuff. It just takes one programmer to get an itch...

    --
    My journal has hot /. gossip.
  217. OpenSource != OpenWarefare on Private Enterprise by LL · · Score: 1

    Is there need to call for OpenSource Jihad against every commercial company? If a group of people have invested time and talent into developing a product, should they not enjoy some return on their efforts? If there is serious need to create GPL versions, then it should be a 'simple' matter to ask for enough donations to 'buy out' the company (ie discounted sum of future revenues) and make the software completely free. This is a straight-forward money for time tradeoff, afterall you are asking people to volunteer their precious time.

    One has to keep in mind what the civic outcomes of OpenSource project observed as being currently successful are
    1) educational/intellectual curiosity (unis)
    2) common standards (e.g. w3c)
    3) not-for-profit utilities or public awareness

    Software development is a complex and expensive business. Effectively by releasing an OpenSource version, you are undermining the value of the commercial alternative. This serves a long-term purpose of continually raising the quality bar and forcing companies to keep on innovating but it should not be viewed as a call to arms to duplicate everything in sight. OpenSource can play a role in keeping in check outright exploitation but it should be applied with some awareness as to the consequences.

    LL

  218. crap by Gerard+Motola · · Score: 1

    But free software is not about money... It's about freedom!

  219. crap by Gerard+Motola · · Score: 1

    Commercial software is not the problem, _Proprietary_ is.

  220. crap by lokai · · Score: 1

    This is the very reason WHY linux will never gain the market acceptance it needs to become a major player for the desktop market. No one wants to touch it because shit like this happens. Someone comes up with a good idea, then some jerkoff whines and cries that its not opensource, then forms a team and writes a clone.

    It seems like these developers are shooting their own feet. This is a stupid thing to do. For the kind of technology that VMWare has, i don't think Free beta's, or paying $70 is a big deal.

    If you can't afford to buy something that doesn't cost a whole lot in the first place, don't ruin the company because you're cheap or don't have a job.

    This is the EXACT reason why people aren't coming behind linux as one would think they should.

    Yes, its a far superior OS.. FAR superior. But, what good is it if someone can't be creative and support themselves from it? Absolutely none. As much as some of you goofs that read this stuff hate to hear it, the world revolves around money. You kill the cash flow of enough companies and it'll come around to bite you in the butt later.

    --
    --- lokai
  221. Always seem to be catching up by Phill+Hugo · · Score: 1

    It doesn't matter who has the idea for a project. So what is a company did. They made the mistake of keeping it closed. If they opened it in the first place your comment wouldn't be made.

    Your should re-examine your point. I think you'll notice your problem isn't OSS having to trail CSS but that closed source exists at all.

    Would you have a problem who came up with the idea if it was GPL? I wouldn't.

    Phill

  222. Always seem to be catching up by Phill+Hugo · · Score: 2

    This is one of the good things about Free Software. You don't have mistakes that noone needs. The GIMP worked becuase Adobe already proved it would. VMWare and IBM have done the hard work with VM monitors and now the open source commty can invest programmers knowing that it is a fair cause.

    Once the initial project is underway it doesn't take long before the open project excells the closed one.

    Finally, stop complaining about this. If you think the free software world lags then shut up about that, learn to code and write some new programs. I think we'd all prefer that to a moaner who do little else?

    Phill

  223. Good luck.. by kennylives · · Score: 1

    I don't think the patent issue is that big a deal, long-term; there's enough prior art for this to work.

    What I first thought of here was the similarity in names - VMware, freemware (say it out loud). As I understand it, this would be a trademark violation, no?



    --

    Where the value of X-Mailer: is the true measure of a man...

  224. Yes, humbug, but useful humbug nonetheless . . . by himi · · Score: 1

    You do sound like you have a bad attitude.

    However, you have a point. VMware sounds like a wonderful idea, until you read the fine print (ie, you need a hefty system to be able to run it, it doesn't do lots of things, it doesn't run things very fast, all that sort of thing). In reality VMware is probably only useful to a minority of people.

    But, and this is a big but, it is VERY useful for those people. I'm running linux exclusively, having changed from a dual boot system when I realised that I hadn't booted into windows for several months. The problem is, I have lots of backups of windows stuff, which I have difficulty transferring over to linux (things like word files, excel files, etcetera). I recently trashed my system, and the only backups that I had of a few very important things were old ones in windows formats. It would be almost impossible for me to access them if it wasn't for the fact that I have VMware.

    This is just an example, and I know it is caused by my nonexistent backup regime, but it makes a point; sometimes there are things that can only be done using a different os to the one that you have installed. What VMware does is it allows you to choose linux, and not have to go back on it if and when you find that there is something you absolutely have to do, but can't do with linux. And what that means is that the existence of VMware or something like it will allow people to choose linux, who might otherwise not have been able to. That will have a more significant impact on the future of linux than if the few people who use their programming skils on a free alternative to VMware were to switch over to GNOME.

    I don't know what the original idea behind VMware was, but it's effect is to give people more choices than they had, and to reduce the risks inherent in those choices. In practice it has it's problems, but the choices that it gives you outwiegh those problems, IMNSHO.

    himi

    --

    My very own DeCSS mirror.
  225. What about a virtualizable CPU? by rana · · Score: 1

    Would a virtualizable X86 CPU be feasible? (Yes, I know that other CPUs
    are fully virtualizable). I don't know that much about
    CPU's, but it seems like one way to do it would be to add a virtual mode
    that acts just like a real 4/5/686, add a few instructions for switching
    modes, and the MMU unit would have to handle an additional level of
    indirection. Maybe Transmeta's CPU will be able to be reprogrammed to do
    this?

    It seems like there would be lots of potential uses for a more fully
    virtualizable X86, like real time applications, failure (crash) recovery,
    and, of course, sharing the CPU between different operating systems.

    I realize that the chip couldn't handle everything, there would also have
    to be software to handle virtual disks, virtual screens, I/O, etc. But
    the performance hit for that stuff shouldn't be worse than that of a
    microkernel.

    If this IS feasible, why hasn't it been done? Phone call from Redmond?

  226. Bochs/vmware by MrKeys · · Score: 1

    from looking at his web site i understand this will involve two concurrent developments shareware opensource aka bochs for all platforms and freevmware GPLd or something this means he can incorporate the freelabor inbochs for sale on non x86linux interesting isn't it, normaly i would say nuthing of this but the motivation for the whole prodject seem poor. I probably won't buy vmware i might buy bochs if he gets the net stuff working and stable vmware is very high end targeted compared to bochs i doubt the this prodject should takeoff if i was a programmer i would be helping gnome or the kernel program but i am not but i will help test software and provide positive feedback for authors.

  227. Always seem to be catching up by angio · · Score: 1

    It's not too surprising in the case of VMWare,
    considering its origins. It's important to distinguish between something like a word processor (which today is an engineering and design effort) and VMWare, which comes out of modern research at Stanford (
    the Disco project).
    Except where fed by research projects, it's fairly unlikely that the OSS community is going to engage in a lot of potentially fruitless work to develop new technologies. Most OSS tends towards the "build a better mousetrap" line, because it yields more predictable - and often more useful - results. For every project like Disco which results in something neat like VMWare, there are many which go *plop*.

  228. All software should be free ... hmm ?! by chekko · · Score: 1

    Someone probably asked this before (I hope) ... but then again as stated before not all software hasn't been released before ...
    So here's my question :
    If all software should be free ... how do you think that the guys who put their work into it should be paid ? If their compagnies aren't _allowed_ to charge the consumer for the product, where do they get the money to pay their programmers ?
    Basically what I hear in many of these posts is : I don't want to pay for software, cause I shouldn't ... Okay, but then I also would like to get your products, your services, ... it doesn't matter what you do ... also for free.
    This absolutely doesn't mean I like to pay for software, heck, I think I only once really bought an app (luckely I could refund it since my laptop doesn't need to run wintendo). What I mean is : How could you convince a manager, leading a good software-firm, to start giving away his products ? What reasons could you give him, or better what alternatives could you give him ?