Date: Sat, 11 Jan 2020 12:28:02 +0900 (JST) From: Hiroki Sato <hrs@FreeBSD.org> To: jpaetzel@FreeBSD.org Cc: freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org Subject: Re: open-vm-tools in base Message-ID: <20200111.122802.721369381057911241.hrs@allbsd.org> In-Reply-To: <46480be7-b1a1-4da8-97ea-c4b97b0b997c@www.fastmail.com> References: <46480be7-b1a1-4da8-97ea-c4b97b0b997c@www.fastmail.com>
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----Security_Multipart(Sat_Jan_11_12_28_02_2020_889)-- Content-Type: Text/Plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit "Josh Paetzel" <jpaetzel@FreeBSD.org> wrote in <46480be7-b1a1-4da8-97ea-c4b97b0b997c@www.fastmail.com>: jp> I've socialized putting emulators/open-vm-tools-nox11 in base to a jp> small group of developers and gotten positive feedback, so I'm jp> widening the audience. jp> jp> Proposal: Put emulators/open-vm-tools-nox11 in the base system of jp> FreeBSD jp> jp> This port contains kernel modules and a binary to ease running FreeBSD jp> as a VM in a VMware virtualized environment. VMware supports this jp> port by directly maintaining the code for it, however they do not jp> include the FreeBSD version of the tools in the hypervisors jp> anymore. (You can't just click "install guest tools" from the VMware jp> management interface) jp> jp> Because these kernel modules are out of tree they are broken with some jp> regularity by changes to HEAD. By putting a version of them in tree jp> changes to HEAD that broke the drivers and kernel modules would be jp> more obvious to developers. jp> jp> I have never heard of a drawback or reason why you wouldn't want to jp> run these tools. The main reason I see them not installed is due to jp> people not knowing about them or forgetting to install them, or jp> running VMs in environments where installing 3rd party software that jp> needs an internet link is problematic. jp> jp> I'd continue to proxy changes back upstream as I've been doing for jp> some time now. jp> jp> There is some precedent for this. Driver(s?) that were once a part of jp> the tools have been moved to base already. The VMXNET3 driver is an jp> example of this. Also, the RC scripts that load the tools and start jp> the userland daemons run a VMware included binary to check if the jp> platform is supported by the tools, and just don't start them if it's jp> an unsupported platform, so there's no danger to just trying to start jp> them blindly across the default installs. if_vmx was one ported from OpenBSD, not from open-vm-tools. VMXNET3 driver of open-vm-tools was maintained separately and removed recently. jp> Since emulators/open-vm-tools (the master port to jp> emulators/open-vm-tools-nox11) depends on X11 and is not a candidate jp> to include in the base system, I'd like to keep the ability to install jp> the package/port for both open-vm-tools and open-vm-tools-nox11 and jp> let the user select which one is started. I personally love to see open-vm-tools in the base system because it improves user's out-of-the-box experience. As long as it is possible to install emulators/open-vm-tools to override the stock version, I see no harmful effect for both users who do not use VMware and ones who want to use the latest version of open-vm-tools for some reason. However, one thing I want to point out is that open-vm-tools is not under BSDL. LGPL for the userland utilities and libraries, and GPL for the kernel modules. More specifically, the vmmemctl driver for FreeBSD is GPL'd, and vmblock is under 2-clause BSDL. Do we accept GPL'd kernel modules? Interestingly, modules for Solaris are under CDDL. When FreeBSD Foundation visited VMware a while ago, they said GPL (or LGPL) was chosen for compatibility with Linux kernel and they might be able to release pre-GPL version of the source code under BSDL because they wanted vendors/developer communities to maintain open-vm-tools together. I am not sure if this is still relevant because it was several years ago, but if we seriously think importing the kernel drivers and maintaining them actively, asking it again might be worth doing. -- Hiroki ----Security_Multipart(Sat_Jan_11_12_28_02_2020_889)-- Content-Type: application/pgp-signature Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- iMkEABMKAC4WIQRsDSNTJ8+Ax5Ae/dLbsH3Gbx9zfwUCXhlAwhAcaHJzQGZyZWVi c2Qub3JnAAoJENuwfcZvH3N/1g0CBA1IOoAcqYw23K70CI0gqQf9FuN0dlwiymCv MFKv/AkgH/PhXQ+aTwzaTTJELlSBRTzFqE4s4DEf/pzfbjUDMw8qAgkBboLp2TSk PmRis4YzlG3G7rW8nrn+cdeXK/xALAhGHPjEf3Lwbg04qekg3bdaB2tDsKDa8B/w dzVjPXojvrwGqvY= =PSVo -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- ----Security_Multipart(Sat_Jan_11_12_28_02_2020_889)----
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