> If so, what if the bug had nothing whatsoever to do with VMWARE,
> but was in fact a legit kernel bug? Is there not a way to tell at
> all?
>
>Without source code to VMWARE's kernel modules, we cannot
>know what it does, nor can we fix the problem even if we
>wanted to. So therefore it is a big question mark every
>time we get a report when VMWARE is being used, and most
>of the time we are just going to tell people to go to
>them about the problem. They offer support with their
>product right?
David, I respect your opinion, however you are mistaken about
something and may have spoken too soon by accident. If so, no
biggie - we've all done so...
VMWARE's kernel modules come WITH the source code, and have done
so from day one. I just wanted to make this out in the open so
that people don't start bashing them over it.
The code is not GPL, or at least doesn't appear so, however it is
certainly there, and can be recompiled for whatever kernel you
are using. I've done so myself in the past no problem.
>This is the price you pay for proprietary software, you've put
>a black box into your kernel which no-one but them can help you
>fix problems with.
Well again, that is not entirely true. It is not a black box,
but rather an open-source box for all to see. The userland
application "vmware", etc.. is a black box, but then that isn't
in kernel anyways.
So, now that everyone knows that VMWARE comes with full source
code for ALL of it's kernel modules, can we at least get someone
very knowledgeable such as yourself to gander at the source long
enough at least to determine if there might be a problem?
It is over my head to debug, but yourself, and many talented
others here certainly can look into it as long as nobody has a
chip on their shoulder about VMWARE releasing a userland product
as closed source.
Read my .sig - I'm a very big GPL advocate, etc.. as you are
probably aware of by seeing the intense heated debates about many
GPL violation issues that have come up in the last few years to
which I took a very active and adamant role against.
That doesn't mean that proprietary software isn't useful though.
I'd love to see a free equivalent, but as for now there is
nothing even light years away from VMWARE IMHO. Once you've used
VMWARE, and got it working properly, it is pretty difficult to
toss out...
If worse comes to worse, I'll just stop posting kernel bug
reports that I get - that is if that is what is wanted by
everyone maintaining stuff... I want to be helpful here, not the
opposite.
So please, if you can, take a look at the problem and ignore the
fact VMWARE is there, or else check out the vmware module source.
The modules are very small, and the source is very readable,
although I have no idea what it does as I haven't examined it
much.
For what it is worth, I have: vmnet, vmppuser, vmmon all loaded.
Thanks in advance for anything you can suggest to me, and any
help or debugging you might provide!
Take care!
TTYL
-- Mike A. Harris Linux advocate Computer Consultant GNU advocate Capslock Consulting Open Source advocate[insert witty random tagline or cool URL here]
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