Any future for VirtualBox (Oracle acquired Virtual Iron)

[AntiMatter]

Hi,

Sorry if the topic is in the wrong section. Just read the news today that Oracle has acquired Virtual Iron. If any of you is familiar with Oracle strategy about its virtualization platform, I would appreciate to read your comments. In particular, I would like to know what would happen to VirtualBox.

[fsr3791]

Yeah, so do we. What on earth is Oracle doing ? Can't say i fully understand this acquisition. Some urls:

http://www.virtualization.info/2009/05/ ... n-now.html

Looks like RedHat is also developing a new solution based on KVM

http://www.virtualization.info/2009/03/ ... s-new.html

@ AntiMatter, an original post on this subject here (sort of)

http://forums.virtualbox.org/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=16757

How about an OFFICIAL position on what the future of VirtualBox will be ?

[Perryg]

I see this as a cart before the horse issue. We need to wait until we find out what is truly going to happen. From what I see it is possible that these other profiles could be merged into a better set of functions and of course lets not forget that buyouts are also used to reduce competition as well.

[fsr3791]

Reduce competition, no doubt about that, but will it be better for end-user ? Check also what EMC CEO is saying about it
http://www.virtualization.info/2009/05/ ... -time.html

[AntiMatter]

an original post on this subject here (sort of)
http://forums.virtualbox.org/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=16757
How about an OFFICIAL position on what the future of VirtualBox will be ?

Thanks, I know about this post. It talked about a pretty "old" context. Now with Oracle acquiring Virtual Iron, the new context shifts significantly away from a desktop / workstation type of hypervisor. VirtualBox looks quite out of pattern in the line of Oracle's virtualization portfolio. Personally, I am afraid that the future for VirtualBox is pretty grim.

[sej7278]

I'd say VirtualBox is more of a consumer-level virtualisation project that has nothing to fear from the acquisitions.

All of the Oracle acquisitions are for enterprise-grade virtualisation systems - Sun's XVM Server, their RedHat rebrand and Virtual Iron are all Xen-based type-1 hypervisor systems.

Its a bit like VMWare's Fusion/Workstation/Server vs. ESX/ESXi, you always need a consumer-grade version to get people used to things personally so they'll use you in a professional context too. Not sure how that will work with Oracle though as VBox is nothing like Xen.

[abcuser]

Hi,
one more interesting article about possible killing of VirtualBox product by Oracle, just like Virtual Iron was...
Sun's VirtualBox Revs, Perhaps fot the last time

At the end I think there is totally wrong assumption: "VirtualBox user, however have one advantage that Virtual Iron users did not: Virtual OSE, an open source edition. If users are committed to keeping VirtualBox going..."

I wrote a comment at article web site:
"Look into release notes and you will see that in version 3.1 there was only 1 community contribution and that is for Mini Toolbar, totally unimportant GUI feature, that most of the users hate in the first place (read the forums).

The fact that this product is open-sourced (actually it is classic open-core product where some features are open-sourced and advanced features are closed-sourced) it does not mean it can survive without base company developers. It doesn't."
Regards

[mpack]

At the end I think there is totally wrong assumption: "VirtualBox user, however have one advantage that Virtual Iron users did not: Virtual OSE, an open source edition. If users are committed to keeping VirtualBox going..."

I think you are being too pessimistic. Navigating the OSE code is not an easy task, and at the moment there is very little incentive for busy programmers with the necessary skills to spend a lot of time trying to understand the VBox architecture, as it's already being maintained quite adequately by its current devteam. Hence the lack of significant user contributions.

However, if Oracle were to drop the VBox product then the situation would change completely: there would be incentive for someone to climb the learning curve, and I am confident that the small number of closed source features could be reproduced in a matter of months at most.

[crhylove]

I agree 100% with mpack. Moreover, I'd like to see Vbox fully open sourced right away, and then watch it outfox (as in firefox) all the other VM architectures. I think having a crippled OSE one is stupid. I think Vbox is the best VM engine around at present. There are several prominent tech journalists who agree. Now we just need to go the last mile and get ALL the devs working on the same version: The fully Open Sourced version. This half-ass FOSS strategy is silly, and condescending. Just go FOSS all the way and bury your competitors.

[mpack]

Well, thanks for agreeing with me, but I'm afraid I don't agree with you!

I don't hold the open source ideal in any great regard, so if Sun wants to hang onto a few key features then that's fine by me. Likewise with my own work I sometimes release open source, sometimes not - it's a commercial decision, not a religion for me. Enough of the VBox source is available that I think VBox could survive if the Sun commitment to VBox did not: and I don't see why revealing key features to competitors would help Sun "bury" those competitors. There could also be legitimate reasons why they can't release source code, for example because it is derived from closed source material licensed from a third party.

[crhylove]

It's no religious commitment for me. It's basic logic and reason. Open source is inevitably replacing and surpassing all closed source alternatives in every market. The handwriting is on the wall:

Firefox is just the beginning. I fully expect:

Open Office
VLC
Pidgin
Linux Mint

or some of their FOSS competitors to begin besting the commercial alternatives within the next 5 years. How can the closed source model compete? Over the long term, without their government backed monopolistic system, they cannot.

I say stop fighting a losing battle, and just begin the collaboration and embrace the future. Anything else is really foolish, short-sighted, and in the long term: A totally wasted effort.

[abcuser]

It's no religious commitment for me. It's basic logic and reason. Open source is inevitably replacing and surpassing all closed source alternatives in every market.

"Every market", I don't agree at all. If there is some huge company like Microsoft, IBM, Oracle etc having a 50000 employees it is hard to compete only with open-source model.

I don't agree Sun will benefit so much from open-sourcing whole product. There is no such healthy community around VirtualBox (programmers), just a few. But it is great community on forum, wikis, beta testing etc.

Sun employee wrote in http://forums.virtualbox.org/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=24644 "Our employees need to be paid too."
It is all about business model company has.

Firefox is just the beginning.

Sure, but business model is to get millions of $$$ from Google for being default search engine in search box. Business model is what makes open-source successful or not.

How can the closed source model compete?

With 300,000 employees.

Over the long term, without their government backed monopolistic system, they cannot.

Monopolistic system and closed-source is not the same. There can be also be competition with closed-source! For example washing machines all of them have closed-source software to operate washing machines and that doesn't have anything to do with monopolistic system. Monopolistic system is not dependent on open-source or closed-source. Open-source can also be monopolistic. Isn't Firefox monopolistic in open-source? There are tens of open-source browsers, but only one is dominant.

I say stop fighting a losing battle, and just begin the collaboration and embrace the future. Anything else is really foolish, short-sighted, and in the long term: A totally wasted effort.

Maybe. But Sun already has what it wants with VirtualBox. Community is here. It helps beta testing, it helps with wiki, forums etc. But it does not help much with coding, so what would Sun profit?

[abcuser]

Enough of the VBox source is available that I think VBox could survive if the Sun commitment to VBox...

There are plenty of other open source VM tools out there with strong community (with programmers) like Xen, KVM etc. so it is not necessary that VBox would survive in the hands not held by Sun.

What can be a problem in open-core products like VirtualBox is to community instead of trying to help to improve the product to write its own code for closed-source parts. So community could program USB support and compete with Sun.

[mpack]

It's no religious commitment for me.

You started off well, but then everything that followed was a statement of blinkered religious belief. I'm sure that Microsoft, Oracle, Google et al will be fascinated to hear how they are all about to lose out. Even your number one and only credible example, i.e. Firefox (which I'm using right now, so the following is not an expression of bias), will be facing stiff competition on Win7 platforms from Explorer 8.

[Technologov]

I disagree about VirtualBox becoming fully Open-Source; This is a commercial company, and should I become a shareholder/investor into this, I would *increase* the closed source portion of the enterprise-oriented features in VirtualBox.

Remember: the employees have families, children and the team must put food on the table, plus investors like to pocket some dividends off their shares. This is the reward for taking the risk.

-Technologov