New Lawsuit Targets “Shims” Between Linux and Proprietary Code

Posted by BernardSwiss on Mar 7, 2015 11:31 AM EDT
Tor Ekeland, P.C.; By Aaron Williamson 		Mail this story
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At the heart of ESXi (now called vSphere) is VMware’s proprietary kernel, called VMkernel, which interfaces between ESXi’s virtual machines and the physical hardware it’s installed on. Hellwig alleges that VMkernel is a derivative work of the Linux kernel, including his contributions (which are found in Linux’s SCSI subsystem and radix tree implementation), and that VMware must therefore provide the VMkernel source code to its customers according to the terms of the GNU GPL version 2. VMware apparently disagrees.

This case is interesting because it relates to one of the most contentious issues in interpreting the GPL: whether loadable kernel modules (LKMs) are derivative works of the Linux kernel...

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» Read more about: Story Type: Editorial, News Story; Groups: Community, Developer, Intellectual Property, Kernel, Linux, Standards, Virtualization

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