Virtualization Makes For Strange Bedfellows
- Shane Coyle
- 2009-02-27 22:23:14 UTC
- Modified: 2009-02-27 22:23:18 UTC
Which companies haven't made virtualization announcements this year?
Not to be left out of the coverage of the recent virtualization collaboration announcements, which seem to be all the rage these days,
Novell and VMware have announced an agreement which will allow for independent software vendors to create fully supported custom virtual appliances built with Suse Linux Enterprise.
Novell also announced today a broad collaboration agreement with VMware to deliver SUSE€® Linux Enterprise Server (SLES) as a fully-supported and optimised guest operating system running on VMware ESX, the industry-leading hypervisor. The two companies have signed a cooperative support agreement that enables Novell to provide enhanced support for customers running SUSE Linux Enterprise Server as a guest on VMware ESX. In addition to Novell’s customary virtualisation-friendly subscription model, Novell is offering a limited time pricing promotion that gives an additional financial incentive to customers seeking to benefit from the companies' collaboration.
Ala RedHat⁄Microsoft, there wasn't any mention of any monetary or patent exchanges, nor was there any mention if Novell had to say they were sorry for trying to
team up with Microsoft to "come after" VMware in an "open source way" a few years ago:
[emphasis mine]
Web services, that’s the proprietary aspects, making active directory and eDirectory work together- enterprise customers want to see that, virtualization is very very key, customers want to utilize Linux as either a host operating system with Microsoft as a guest operating system, or vice versa, and yes wea re going to support the XEN technology there, the XEN hypervisor technology, Microsoft is going to support it too. Yes, there is a competitive angle there, yes we’re coming at VMware yes yes yes we are, ok thats part of it because but we’re doing it in an open source way, so were going to support the XEN technologies in our server platforms and togther collaborate and ensure it works properly, supported properly, etc
Now as far as thats concerned, thats the technology aspects of it, now its broad from a Linux perspective, they’re essentially saying that anyone who is an OpenSUSE contributor is covered under the covenant. the covenant essentially is a patent agreement between Novell and Microsoft that says if you participate in the OpenSUSE distribution… as long as its not for commercial gain, that you are covered by this covenant, that they will not exercise what they believe is their patent rights…