Maybe the Xen FUD can be dropped now an MS takeover doesn’t look imminent?

Why Douglas Brown and John C. Dvorak are 100% wrong about Microsoft buying Citrix

“Last week Douglas Brown shook things up with this article claiming Microsoft was days away from acquiring Citrix. Of course this rumor has been ongoing for 10+ years, and it resurfaced in a big way this past January, but it’s been pretty quiet since then.”

http://www.brianmadden.com/blog/BrianMadden/Why-Douglas-Brown-and-John-C-Dvorak-are-100-wrong-about-Microsoft-buying-Citrix

I wouldn’t want Microsoft or partners guiding the direction of the project.

If they bought Citrix they would be buying a seat at the table, much like the way Microsoft are involved in ODF TC. They aren’t buying leadership, nor could they: everyone else can happily ignore them.

I think you’re looking for problems where none exist, to be honest.

http://blogs.the451group.com/opensource/2008/09/11/choosing-virtualization-sides/

“…It’s interesting to see Novell so vigorously supporting Microsoft’s Hyper-V, and this may be part of what accompanies the partnership with Microsoft and its purchase of SUSE Linux coupons…”

Roy also continues to link back to articles that were disproven as “evidence” to support his new FUD attack articles and to the average reader who doesn’t follow all the [1][2][3][4]… links, they assume that the evidence supports the claims, however most of the time this is not true.

Let’s also not forget that just because someone doesn’t disprove a claim made in an article written by Roy doesn’t mean that it must be true, all it means is that no one bothered to refute it.

It’s not harmless discussion if it hurts real people who are not guilty of the “crime” they are being accused of.

More important than what makes it to this site for the first time is what survives (morphed or intact) after discussion. You introduce (ie, RS introduces) and then you (we all) debate and analyze beyond Roy’s initial write-up.

This site is great because of the conversation it wants to have and everything that is gathered. That the initial write-ups are not always perfect doesn’t take away from this. I think enough people believed from information that surfaced early on that Novell was up to “no good”. BN is one place where we talk about it.

Forking could be important in this case, my bad. It’s not an issue in terms of copyrights ownership, but, as I said, I wouldn’t want Microsoft or partners guiding the direction of the project.

So for leadership purposes, I imagine it would be important. In other words, it’s important who determines what gets in and what does not.

When you asked: “If Microsoft bought Citrix/XenSource, do you know how much of Xen would be left if you removed the material that they didn’t have copyright over?”, I actually thought you meant the opposite, that Xen owns most of it.

>> you took a while, but you got there eventually

what do you mean?

Who owns the copyrights? If it’s distributed then this was not much of any issue anyway. In which case, the forking is not applicable to the Xen project.

This is precisely why I asked if you’d looked at the source code. If you look, you’ll see that the copyright is mostly owned by the likes of Intel, HP, IBM, Red Hat, and of course the various contributors to Linux.

There is no need to fork, no danger to Xen, and the whole thing is just a load of FUD thrown up by this site.

http://blogs.computerworld.com/that_microsoft_buying_citrix_rumor_pops_up_again

‘Citrix did not reply to a request for comment. Microsoft’s no-comment comment? “Microsoft and Citrix have been partners for 18 years and the partnership has proven to be valuable to us, customers and the channel. We won’t comment on rumors or speculation,” wrote Patrick O’Rourke, group product manager for core infrastructure marketing in Microsoft’s server & tools business.’

[...]

‘Actually, and here’s the second point, Microsoft had a stake in Citrix going way back. Between 1991 and 1995, Microsoft put in a total of $2.4 million in Citrix, taking 6% to 7% of the company. ‘

I have not looked at the source code. Are you saying that a fork is not a reasonable action because there would be little to gain.. little for the code to be developed further?

>> If Microsoft bought Citrix/XenSource, do you know how much of Xen would be left if you removed the material that they didn’t have copyright over?

I wasn’t suggesting removing anything. Though over time I suppose old code would get rewritten.

Say Microsoft decided to keep a public project but took it in direction X, then we’d move in direction Y (if move anywhere). Note that you don’t have to try and make Y different from X. If the branches are maintained separately and independently this should happen automatically.

>> Do you realise that Xen is a Linux patch, albeit a large one?

So Citrix, an excellent Microsoft partner, appears to find significant value in being able to manage Linux through Xen?

Yup, I’d stay away from Novell’s Linux. The lines seem to be converging near where Microsoft attempts to become the top Linux reseller. At least the lines are near enough to there to keep one’s guard up.

I would not consider Opensuse until some time after it had forked. Other people might, but I don’t like to contribute 3 mL (or more) to giving Microsoft any sort of added advantage [1 or 2 is OK].

This is no loss to me because there are so many other distros and many more to get developed. Contribute to distros you want to succeed and be tops rather than to those you don’t. Using is contributing. We have choice in Linuxland. Promote distro foundations that don’t give monopolies extra gain or traction.

I actually don’t worry much about distros nowadays because I expect to start cranking new distros (not by myself) through a system that hopefully will keep the distros related. This is hobby talk: something that I gain from just from attempting. It isn’t a pre-announcement of a product or anything that is likely to be of interest to most other people at this point in time. I mention it to give some more insight into the opinions I am sharing.

>> Do you realise that XenSource is one contributor amongst many (IBM, Red Hat, et. al.)?

This could speak well for the future development of the patch if the total contributions outside Xen are significant. Who owns the copyrights? If it’s distributed then this was not much of any issue anyway. In which case, the forking is not applicable to the Xen project.

BTW, I think you were suggesting through the earlier quoted text that Xen owns most of the code, right? In any case, new code copyrights don’t need to be donated to Microsoft or to its strong partners.

Whenever possible it’s good to keep a distance from Microsoft, as this makes it less likely that they can have their cake and eat it. They’d move to leverage their monopolies so as to be able to manage outsiders (do our job for us) while we couldn’t do theirs.. displace others while maintaining their unique indispensable position.

Xen is still in both Red Hat and Ubuntu, by the way. And it’s still free software.

If you don’t like it, fine. But please stop throwing your baseless FUD at it.

Linux does not need a large and inelegant patch when it has KVM merged in.

A branch (ie, fork) that diverged from the branch Microsoft would most likely be able to exploit is where I would put my focus. I don’t expect to follow Microsoft’s lead/influence neither through product use nor through contributions. The names involved (Xen, Citrix, …) is not the focus. Mud is irrelevant. The focus is the branch.

Have you actually looked at the Xen source code? If Microsoft bought Citrix/XenSource, do you know how much of Xen would be left if you removed the material that they didn’t have copyright over?

Do you realise that Xen is a Linux patch, albeit a large one? Do you realise that XenSource is one contributor amongst many (IBM, Red Hat, et. al.)?

The guy linked to us before, so I suppose he knows something that we don’t.

AlexH, free software is free software, agreed. A branch (ie, fork) that diverged from the branch Microsoft would most likely be able to exploit is where I would put my focus. I don’t expect to follow Microsoft’s lead/influence neither through product use nor through contributions. The names involved (Xen, Citrix, …) is not the focus. Mud is irrelevant. The focus is the branch. And all facts won’t ever be clear to everyone (so I suppose some mud might cloudy the picture after all).

>> In fact, all the more reason to encourage people to get involved with it to ensure that it continues and is successful

I would encourage contributions as above but not otherwise. Ie, I think it would be damaging to FOSS to have quality contributions go towards giving Microsoft any further advantage beyond what they already have.

Microsoft can make use of many things, but I draw the line of support where I expect that Microsoft will gain more than the rest of us.

>> Is anyone else sensing a pattern here? Roy seems unable to distinguish between rumor and fact.

Dan, RS brought to our attention a rumor that he argued has a decent chance of panning out. The reason he gave: the source’s apparent confidence and justifications, plus recent activities around virtualization involving key players.

The basic fact remains: Xen is *free software*.

The relationship between Microsoft and Citrix is much like that of a man who has been serially dating the same woman for 15 years, but never seems to be able to consummate the deal. He’s afraid of commitment, or perhaps like that old expression goes, why would he buy the cow when he can have the milk for free?

[...]

Flash forward one year later to September, 2008. Red Hat shocks many in the Open Source and virtualization communities with its $107 million dollar purchase of Qumranet, an Israeli start-up formed by one of XenSource’s founders. Qumranet brings to the table the open source KVM hypervisor, as well as a high-performance thin-client protocol that gives Citrix’s ICA a run for its money and then some, as well as a remote desktop provisioning platform that rivals both XenDesktop and VMWare VDI. Suddenly, Red Hat is poised to challenge both Citrix and VMWare in desktop virtualization. Now, guess who recently released a new high–performance bare metal hypervisor and has no desktop virtualization solution at all? Do you all see where this is leading?

To battle VMWare and Red Hat, Microsoft and Citrix need to finally consummate the marriage.

But still; it makes no difference. Xen is a very small part of what Citrix offer, and their other software is based on Microsoft-licensed code. Citrix buying Xen hasn’t caused Xen any problems – in fact, now it’s undergoing a major transition into paravirt ops, lead by VMware, so that mainstream Linux kernels will support it.

Microsoft buying Citrix would also have little effect on Xen. Maybe the Xen engineers employed by Citrix would be laid off or otherwise reassigned; it doesn’t matter – there are other people working on Xen.

All there is here is uncertainty. There is no need to fear this deal even if it does happen, because Xen is free software has no value for Microsoft.