From owner-freebsd-emulation@FreeBSD.ORG Mon Oct 11 17:08:32 2010 Return-Path: Delivered-To: emulation@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 734E6106566B for ; Mon, 11 Oct 2010 17:08:32 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from oberman@es.net) Received: from mailgw.es.net (mail1.es.net [IPv6:2001:400:201:1::2]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 5F43E8FC08 for ; Mon, 11 Oct 2010 17:08:32 +0000 (UTC) Received: from ptavv.es.net (ptavv.es.net [IPv6:2001:400:910::29]) by mailgw.es.net (8.14.3/8.14.3) with ESMTP id o9BH8VCg026086 (version=TLSv1/SSLv3 cipher=DHE-RSA-AES256-SHA bits=256 verify=NOT); Mon, 11 Oct 2010 10:08:31 -0700 Received: from ptavv.es.net (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by ptavv.es.net (Tachyon Server) with ESMTP id B03301CC3E; Mon, 11 Oct 2010 10:08:31 -0700 (PDT) To: "Sam Fourman Jr." In-reply-to: Your message of "Mon, 11 Oct 2010 11:55:00 CDT." Date: Mon, 11 Oct 2010 10:08:31 -0700 From: "Kevin Oberman" Message-Id: <20101011170831.B03301CC3E@ptavv.es.net> Cc: emulation@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Hope for USB support? X-BeenThere: freebsd-emulation@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: Development of Emulators of other operating systems List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Mon, 11 Oct 2010 17:08:32 -0000 > Date: Mon, 11 Oct 2010 11:55:00 -0500 > From: "Sam Fourman Jr." > > On Mon, Oct 11, 2010 at 11:29 AM, Kevin Oberman wrote: > > I know that it is a long shot, especially with Oracle at the helm VB on > > the corporate side, but USB support for VirtualBox is the one piece I am > > missing that forces me to keep a bootable Windows system around. > > > > Is there any hope of seeing USB on VB with FreeBSD as the host and > > Windows as the guest OS? > > I could use this as well, and I know of at least 2 others. > > I guess a good starting point would be to ask, what is the scope of > work that needs to be done to add USB support to Virtual box in > FreeBSD I probably should explain that this is both a legal and technical issue. VB USB support contains third-party proprietary code. This is the reason that USB support is only available on the binary version of VB. It is clearly listed as part of Closed-source distributions. I was told some time ago that Sun was attempting to get licensing for this code to allow it to be open-sourced, but it was obviously not a trivial hurdle for them and I suspect Oracle has a bit less committent to open-source. The bottom line is that this is NOT a trivial issue in any way and will be difficult to get unless those who have access to the proprietary code can provide the FreeBSD bits and distribute a CSE distribution for FreeBSD. -- R. Kevin Oberman, Network Engineer Energy Sciences Network (ESnet) Ernest O. Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) E-mail: oberman@es.net Phone: +1 510 486-8634 Key fingerprint:059B 2DDF 031C 9BA3 14A4 EADA 927D EBB3 987B 3751