That's awesome. Thank you, Citrix guys. On Tue, Jun 25, 2013 at 11:41 AM, Mike McClurg <mike.mccl...@citrix.com>wrote:
> Hi xen-api, > > Today Citrix has made a few big announcements. One is that there is a new > version of XenServer available, version 6.2. Another is that this version > of XenServer is available for use completely free -- all the features of > XenServer that used to be available only in the Platinum edition (or in > XCP) are now available without applying a product license, and without > paying Citrix money. And the biggest announcement that Citrix made is that > we are now committed to making XenServer fully open source. > > You are probably aware of Citrix's "interesting" relationship with > open-source software, particularly with the peculiarities of the > relationship between XCP and XenServer. These issues stemmed from the > original way in which XenServer was open sourced. We open sourced most of > the XenServer code base with no intention of forming a development > community around it, but instead to create a new thing, called XCP, which > would function as the vehicle to showcase this newly open sourced code. It > would start out as a de-branded XenServer, but the hopes were that it would > truly become a broader, open source virtualisation platform for cloud > computing. That never really happened, and XCP was left as a strange twin > brother to XenServer, one that Citrix as a business never really > acknowledged the existence of. > > We would like to change that. Citrix as a business is happy with how > CloudStack's Apache foundation move has gone, and would like to see a > similar thing happen with XenServer. XenServer Engineering is committed to > making XenServer a proper open source product, and is working right now to > figure out how to change our development model to be more open source. We > are putting BSD or GPL licenses on all but a few of our source > repositories, and we are in the process of setting up public mirrors to > those repositories, along with mailing lists to accept code contributions. > > We aren't planning on XenServer becoming a true open source project > overnight, but we are laying the foundations for this change to happen. As > a result of this move to open source, a number of changes will be happening > to XenServer and XCP: > > - XenServer will be completely free to use. We will still charge for > support, but we are no longer restricting any features* in the free > edition. There will also no longer be a need to "activate" the free > edition. Essentially the XenServer you download from Citrix will function > the same as the XCP you downloaded from xen.org. (* The only thing that > can be done with a paid-for XenServer is apply hotfixes via XenCenter. > Hotfixes will still be applicable via the CLI.) > > - Notable software that we are open sourcing is our windows PV drivers, > XenCenter, and HA. We will not be open sourcing the v6 license daemon > (links to closed-source binary), our build system code (we're moving away > from our current build system, and we don't have the resources to support > external users) nor any of the closed source third-party driver tools we > ship with XenServer, for which we have no control over. > > - XenServer's installer will have an option to install only open source > components. This option will be enabled by default when upgrading from XCP. > The compoenents that won't be installed include closed-source storage > drivers, the v6d licensing daemon, and the HA daemon. (Unfortunately, we > don't own the copyright to the HA daemon code, and weren't able to get > approval from the owner to release the code as GPL in time for the > XenServer 6.2 release. We have since received permission to release this > code as GPLv2, and we will be doing so shortly.) > > - The latest version of XenServer will be able to upgrade from XCP 1.6. If > someone upgrades from XCP 1.6 to XenServer 6.2, they will have the > pure-open source configuration. If you do not want this, then we recommend > you do a fresh install. > > - We are fixing the components that make up XenServer so that they are > buildable and installable on third-party Linux distros. We started this > effort with project Kronos, and we're picking it up again in response to > CentOS's Xen initiative. We're committing to becoming a proper upstream > software producer from which other Linux distros can package our software. > > - We will no longer build a thing called XCP. Because XenServer is free to > use in both the gratis and libre sense, there is no longer a need to > produce a different build of XenServer that is debranded and slightly > hobbled. The complexity of producing XCP over the years has been too high, > and the benefits of doing so from an open source perspective have > disappeared in light of the changes that we're making to both XenServer > itself, and the XenServer development model. I really want to emphasise > here that XCP users will be getting a better deal than they had before. No > more delays to XCP releases, timely hotfixes that can be easily installed, > and a product that's even more open than it was before. > > - XCP users who upgrade or switch to using XenServer will have a number of > benefits. XenCenter will work much better with XenServer than it ever did > with XCP. Hotfixes will be applicable as soon as they are created, without > the need to convert them to be applicable on XCP. HA will be available. And > no more waiting for months for a new version of XCP to be built after a > XenServer release. > > I'm really excited about these changes to XenServer. I want to really > emphasise that the XCP community will be getting so much more out of the > new XenServer than they did out of XCP, both in terms of features, and open > source software. Please go visit the new XenServer.org [2] website, and > follow the download links to try XenServer 6.2. If you're interested in the > souce code itself, check out the XenServer organisation on Github [3]. As > we announced last week, the Xapi Toolstack code is not at > github.com/xapi-project [4]. > > Mike > > [1] http://www.xenserver.org/**index.php?option=com_content&** > amp;view=article&id=79<http://www.xenserver.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=79> > [2] http://www.xenserver.org > [3] http://github.com/xenserver > [4] http://github.com/xapi-project > > PS: I'll personally mail some free Xen Project swag to the first person > who can get XenCenter > (https://github.com/xenserver/**xenadmin<https://github.com/xenserver/xenadmin>) > compiling on Linux or OSX with mono ;) > > ______________________________**_________________ > Xen-api mailing list > Xen-api@lists.xen.org > http://lists.xen.org/cgi-bin/**mailman/listinfo/xen-api<http://lists.xen.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/xen-api> >
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