The Palo Alto, California-based virtualization software vendor said all non-experimental kernel modules and user applications that it has developed are being released under the Open Virtual Machine Tools project, while it is encouraging third-party developers to do the same.
The tools are used to improve performance and management of VMware virtual machines, and are being released under a variety of licenses depending on their usage type. The Linux kernel modules are being released under the GPL v2, while most of the user level components are being released under the LGPL v2.1.
The SVGA and mouse drivers were already available under the X11 license, while there are also certain third-party components released under BSD style licenses. All the code is now available at the SourceForge hosted Open Virtual Machine Tools site.
VMware said it expects the project to improve interoperability with Linux distributions, enable porting new a larger number of operating systems, and increase user involvement in the development process.
The company said it is already working with Red Hat, Novell, and Ubuntu to integrate the Open Virtual Machine Tools with their respective Linux distributions.
