Re: [Xen-devel] Is anyone working on HVM Paravirt drivers for windows?

[Pasi Kärkkäinen <pasik@xxxxxx>]

On Wed, Nov 01, 2006 at 12:08:02PM -0500, Vessey, Bruce A wrote:
> It would be nice if somebody releases HVM paravirt drivers for Windows as 
> open source, but I'm not holding my breath.
> Why? Because of the Microsoft DDK license.  There's no requirement that a 
> Windows device driver developer use the
> Microsoft DDK, but in my experience most do.  The typical methodology for a 
> Windows driver developer is to take 
> the sample code from the DDK as a starting point, and build the driver from 
> there.  But the DDK has some interesting
> licensing restrictions that, to me, don't look compatible with open source.  
> The Microsoft DDK license is available at
> http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/devtools/ddk/ServerSP1DDKEULA.mspx  Sections 3 
> & 4 look particularly problematic.
> 
> Maybe somebody out there is developing (or has developed) Windows drivers 
> without any encumbrances from the Windows DDK.
> I think that's the only way we'll see open source Windows drivers.
>

Thanks for pointing this out. 

How about XenSource/RedHat/Novell guys.. any comments? 
 
-- Pasi

>            - Bruce
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: xen-devel-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx 
> [mailto:xen-devel-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Ben Thomas
> Sent: Monday, October 30, 2006 2:07 PM
> To: Daniel P. Berrange
> Cc: xen-devel@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx; Dave Cameron
> Subject: Re: [Xen-devel] Is anyone working on HVM Paravirt drivers for 
> windows?
> 
> Hi,
> 
> Our current PV on HVM drivers are based upon work that was submitted to 
> xen-devel back in April.  As you might recall, our focus has been concurrent 
> support of 32 and 64 bit fully virtualized domains, and all of our work 
> supports this.  I'm sure that the concepts of what we've done, and what was 
> placed into the open source project starting in July, are quite similar. 
> However, given the time frames involved, and the base work not being included 
> back in April, I also have no doubts that the interfaces aren't identical.
> 
> As noted, we have these drivers running and performing extremely well at our 
> beta customers.  We support concurrent usage for both 32 and
> 64 bit user domains.  The Linux code was released a short while back, and is 
> open source and available for download on our website.
> 
> The Windows drivers were completely developed in-house, and there are 
> currently internal discussions about whether or not we will release them as 
> open source.
> 
> -b
> 
> 
> Daniel P. Berrange wrote:
> > Are they compatible with the current xen-unstable or 3.0.3 releases, 
> > or do they have a dependnacy on the other hypervisor changes in the 
> > VirtualIron codepath posted a few weeks back ?
> > 
> > Regards,
> > Dan.
> > 
> > On Fri, Oct 27, 2006 at 07:37:36AM -0400, Ben Thomas wrote:
> > 
> >>Yes; we have.
> >>
> >>On 10/27/06, Pasi Kärkkäinen <pasik@xxxxxx> wrote:
> >>
> >>>
> >>>OK.
> >>>
> >>>How about people from XenSource, VirtualIron, Intel, IBM, Fujitsu.. 
> >>>are you writing windows PV drivers?
> >>>
> >>>-- Pasi
> >>>
> >>>
> 
> --
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Ben Thomas                                         Virtual Iron Software
> bthomas@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx                            Tower 1, Floor 2
> 978-849-1214                                       900 Chelmsford Street
>                                                     Lowell, MA 01851
> 

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