open-vm-tools is mainly about user space tools. Kernel drivers have been
either obsoleted, or are part of the current Linux kernel. The only kernel
module still needed from open-vm-tools is vmhgfs, which we plan to obsolete in
the future when we migrate to using FUSE. But vmhgfs could be distributed as a
separate package from open-vm-tools, and made optional.
I think the patch can be modified such that open-vm-tools will only be
installed if it is available.
About the non-transparent development process, please let me know what exactly
the concerns are. We do not use github as our primary repository for tools,
therefore each release it published in one huge commit. But I am sure the
process can be improved, if we know the concerns.
