Re: Paravirtualisation or not?

[Javier Guerra <javier@guerrag.com>]

Pantelis Koukousoulas wrote:
> On Tue, May 5, 2009 at 11:37 AM, Stefan Hajnoczi <stefanha@gmail.com> wrote:
> Sure, closed-source virtio-net drivers exist (in fact there is a newer
> version than the one
> you linked. I think it is 12/2008 distributed as an iso). The point
> (and the advantage
> of Xen in this area) is that Xen provides the source too under GPL.

XenSource drivers are not only closed source, but tied to their distribution of Xen.  OpenSource Xen doesn't have any windows drivers.

you must be talking about the GPLPV drivers, which is the work of an independent third party: James Harper.  I haven't tried them,  their performance is quite good but far from trouble-free.

> It is harder for a third party to do this job because you would have to make the
> decision to either use the Windows DDK and samples (which means you can't
> release under GPL and thus you can't reuse or even look at the current virtio
> implementations) or use GPL and the current linux virtio code as a base but
> in this case you can forget DDK and the samples (at least that is my
> understanding).

that's what had to happen (very recently) for Xen, since neither XenSource nor Novell (which also has a set of closed source, distro-tied drivers) wanted to open theirs.

-- 
Javier