Re: [Xen-users] Does it legal to analysize XEN source code and write a book about it ?

[Chris Dukes <pakrat+xen-users@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Fri, Sep 14, 2007 at 02:17:01PM +0800, Tim Post wrote:
> 
> No its not. XenEnt is not GPL. It does not contain GPL code. It is not a
> community 
> developed product. How are they pushing anything? Xen (GPL) and Xen
> (ENT) are two
> completely different code bases from my understanding, or you would get
> source code
> with XenEnt. XenSource does _NOT_ own the entire code base to Xen (GPL)
> and thus can
> not dual license it.

That's a partially misleading statement given the current
xenserver whitepaper and a quick perusal of the XenExpress downloads.

XenExpress appears to be a free proprietary product on a
free open source platform.  That open source platform is bundled
with the product.  This model is similar to the one used with
VMWare ESX.
Source is available for the free opensource platform for XenEnt,
although there were some issues (since resolved) obtaining the 
source when XenEnt 4 was released.
I apologize for my comment that Xensource was not following
the intent of GPLv2 as it was based off of my experience 
when there were some website and distribution issues.

But it's a bit of a mouthful to say "XenEnt is a closed source
product that is bundled with a free open source platform.
XenSource provides the required source for that free open source
platform."

> 
> > Windows paravirtualization drivers are released in closed source.  That 
> > alone is fishy at best.
> 
> They are under no obligation to release those drivers GPL. I think they
> were talking about it once, not sure what happened. If I'm correct,
> those drivers would need a bit of hacking to get into place anyway.

The current trend appears more beneficial for a company
to provide those drivers and specs openly.  However, such
behavior now could currently increase support costs for Xensource/Citrix.
> 
> So did MySQL. Please, I don't know how to make it more clear, Xen (GPL)
> and XenEnt are different things totally. It seems like you have a
> misconception that XenEnt is a polished
> up version of the GPL version of Xen, it is not, it could not be, or
> XenSource violates its own license and has been for years. I _SINCERELY_
> doubt that :)

However, XenEnt does ship as a polished bundle of the closed source parts
with the free opensource parts.  This situation can be confusing as 
the purpose of the closed source parts is to reduce the need to look
at the open source parts.
It does not help that the versioning scheme has lead the less curious
public to believe that the product is bundled with non-publicly released
versions of the free open source platform.
I have no magic cure for that as XenSource must sell to management
that expects version bloat... perhaps have the next version number be
of the format YYYYMM :-).

-- 
Chris Dukes
< elfick> willg: you can't use dell to beat people, it wouldn't stand up
to the strain... much like attacking a tank with a wiffle bat

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