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VMware version 1.0 released
SkyHigH wrote in, along with quite a few others, to alert everyone to the fact, that yes, VM Ware v1.0 has been released-and it's Saturday, so the congestion should be lower.
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Note that on Microsoft OSes, it is sometimes Microsoft itself that go and copies (see Netscape, Real Networks).
Im not against paying for linux software at all. I still buy all my copies of linux instead of dloading them so i can help out the various organizations. What really pisses me off though is that someone is going to release a warezed copy of this product, which happens to e a damn fine piece of software.
Well the reality is more complex than that. Kevin Lawton has been trying to make an x86 emulator for longer than the Vmware start-up existed (and I actually booted Linux kernel one year ago with Bochs), so this is on the plus side for him. On the other hand he is attempting to basically kill Vmware business (by providing a free clone), while trying to keep his own business alive (x86 emulation with dynamic compilation), which is a lot less cool. Maybe you should consider that this is like "Netscape releasing source code of Mozilla to compete Microsoft", or "Microsoft releasing IE for free to compete with Netscape", depending on your point of view.
Freemware has certainly not an ideal as pure as the FSF or Linus, but it's not exactly a "reverse-engineer, and rip-off" effort.
Coincidentally, today my girlfriend purchased a GMAT study CD that only runs under Windoze. So I decided to try out VMWare. Needless to say I am very impressed. The GMAT study CD runs great (save for sound) as does every other windows app that is not DirectX. Performance is quite zippy for everything except processor/memory intentsive operations. For instance, MSVC came up fine and was very responsive for editing, working, etc. However compiles took a very long time (30 seconds native Windows 98 vs. 4 minutes under vm ware). :) You can reboot Windows under Linux.
BTW I am using an AMD K6-333 with 128 mb of ram running under RH 5.2 with KDE.
Installation was a snap!
I really like this product. Hopefully they will support direct x and game ports in a future release to satisfy the gamer in me, but for an introductory cost of $75 this product is a steal. I would never pay money for a Virtual95 like product because Bill G gets my $$, but with VMWare that does not happen.
Overall, I recommend VMWare for everyone except hardcore gamers and developers. Anyone else (like Quicken, or Office users) should take notice and purchase this product. Just imagine, never reboot your machine under Windows again
I hope VMWare gets direct x working sometime in the future and there is not too big a speed hit. However this company has done an incredible job already and should be commended for cutting down many office's barrier to entry: no MS office on Linux.
Posted by Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters:
Don't steal any IDEAS!? The word steal tries to bias the thing, but even so the comment is strange.
Not that I agree with the possibility of software patents anyway, but let's just assume we are talking about ideas that are not subject to patents (prior art, insufficient originality, etc.). Taking ideas from products in the same area is one of the major inspirations for making any product better. It is not about "stealing code", but just about doing what winds up working well.
Just a trivial example. I think that the idea of creating a real-time markup spell-check flags in a word-processor is a pretty good idea. It can be implemented better or worse, of course; but it is sometimes useful to see an unobtrusive mark (like a special color underline) by words that are possible misspellings. Sad to say, the first product that I know of that did this was MS-Word (There may well be a prior example that I am not familiar with). It is hardly WRONG for WordPerfect (which I actually use, and is better than MS-Word in many ways, including its implementation of this feature) to implement this same useful feature. Corel may well even have gotten the idea from MS's implementation of it.
Further, it would not be wrong for me to add this feature to an Open Source editor that I wanted to contribute to. If the idea is a good one, more power to whomever wants to implement it. That leads to software innovation, and generally improving products.
Freemware will serve as an education tool. With the source code available people can learn more about virtualisation. It's not a matter of someone wanting to go out and drive every commercial project out of business people enjoy writing code and VMware is good and writing it will be an interesting experience for those involved and would look great on a CV ;)
Also it will have these advantages:
1) If someone wants to port it to an unsupported OS (e.g. FreeBSD) they can as they have the code. With VMware you need to use Linux or NT (well NT is going to be supported) as the host OS. No code means you can't change that.
2) As with all open source projects bugs tend to get fixed faster.
3) It is competition for VMware. VMware will have to continue to deliver a cutting edge quality product as Freemware improves. If no competition then VMware may never improve (it's good now but not perfect).
I support VMware and Freemware. I believe it's the right of any company to charge for their product. I'll probably buy it. I'm not against proprietry software and I encourage it on the Linux paltform. However having an open source solution will help a lot of people.
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http://www.vmware.com/products/linuxpricing.html
For those who want to buy the product before 14 July 1999 they've got a special price of $75.00 instead of $99 for non-commercial use. Download the evaluation license, try it out for 30 days and if you're happy order the product and if it's a huge success at this discounted price then they masy make that the permanent price.
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I don't think there is any justification for creating a monopoly here, thank you very much.
If a thing is not diminished by being shared, it is not rightly owned if it is only owned & not shared. S. Augustine
I'm far from against people creating software for free but what is going to drive comapnies to release software for linux if someone just goes out and copies what they are doing? Im not against paying for linux software at all. I still buy all my copies of linux instead of dloading them so i can help out the various organizations. What really pisses me off though is that someone is going to release a warezed copy of this product, which happens to e a damn fine piece of software.
"Fighting the underpants gnomes since 1998!" "Bruce Schneier knows the state of schroedinger's cat"
If you're interested in helping out with an
open source vmware clone project, check
out the freemware project at:
http://www.freemware.org
news://news.redhat.com/redhat.projects.freemware
Discussion on implementation is under way.
Thanks,
Kevin Lawton
http://www.bochs.com