You are right that free and open is good. But that's exactly why I don't think GPL is the right choice in this case. Look at Apache for example... just because the Apache license doesn't contain the GPL "viral" clause and other restrictions doesn't mean people don't release their modules for free. The point is, that if they need to keep certain bits closed for security reasons, or they write some extra functionality based upon it that they want to try to sell, they are free to do so. No-one's going to suddenly close the source of the main project and if anyone does make some commercial closed source addons then good luck to them, all it means is that they're got paying customers who will now expect things to work, and if there are any bugs in the core they'll have to fix them and its in their best interests to submit them to the core project anyway rather than maintain diffs and having to switch their solution for someone elses later... Give people full freedom and they'll often choose to contribute. Prescribe to them what they can and cannot do with their own work, and they'll often choose a different base for their projects (such as libvirt in this case).
What XAPI is lacking right now is a really nice, clean, free and open GUI framework that people can chop and change to their needs, whether they want a simple web access for starting VMs on their home server or want to incorporate it into their commercial cloud platform offerings with their custom metering and billing. There are loads of commercial cloud platforms and VM management solutions out there, but there's no real standard, because no-one has made a non-proprietary, non-GPL, truly open base system that can be moulded to suit the needs of each geek's particular hardware setup and user base. That's the niche I think. If it's going to be just another out-of-the-box vSphere client clone then there's XenCenter and OpenXenManager already... On 12 February 2012 13:34, Wannes De Smet <[email protected]> wrote: > On 12 Feb 2012, at 13:36, [email protected] wrote: > > This looks nice although I am not really sure I understand the angle > you're coming from here... > > You're announcing a GUI, but the site is just a wiki with text and a bit > of bashing vmware and windows but no screenshots of nice GUI designs or > explanations of how yours will be better… > > > I should've noted that this was merely an announcement to let everyone > know we're alive and to give it a shot, we're not even close to a 1.0 > release. However your point is valid and we've added it on our TODO list. > > In my view, XAPI already has a decent Windows GUI in the form of > XenCenter, the bit we're missing is a really good cross-platform and fully > open gui base. Java isn't a great choice for that due to the anti-java > feelings around the community and GPL is also not a great choice given its > viral nature. > > > You seem to have a misunderstanding of the GPL in your wiki too when you > say "the GPLv3 requires that everyone who improves our project, makes his > work available publicly". It doesn't - not if people just use it in house. > People can make their own improvements all they like without releasing it. > > What the GPL actually means for anyone who wants to make a rebranded > release of it for their clients or customers though, is that they will have > to maintain a full archive of all the source going back all the versions, > including all their little service-specific tweaks and then make it readily > available to whoever wants it on request. > > > Thanks for pointing that out. > > In my view that just adds a lot of extra work and security considerations > to any project that wants to use it. It also means no-one can add anything > clever with it that gives them a competitive edge without releasing the > source, so in that case they'll probably choose to build a GUI from scratch > rather than contribute anything. > > > Here's the thing: we don't want people to not release the source. This > might make sense from a money perspective, but we're true believers in the > open source way. You can be competitive as a service provider on many other > levels; after all, we're just one piece of the machine. Our main ambition > is to make this a single implementation that is the best anyone can get, > instead of some scattered implementations only to give a competitive edge. > > If we want a free, uncustomised proprietary windows GUI like VSphere > Client then XenCenter does a great job. If we want a fully open, cross > platform GUI that we can rebrand and customised for our own service > offerings then we should be looking at something AJAX based with a BSD/MIT > style license. > > The rebranding part sounds rather odd to me: you could stick another logo > on top, sure, but we want to know about people's customizations. At this > moment we're happy we can boot an HVM domain but in the long term we'd like > to see this grow to being the best (FOSS) management tool for XCP. > To achieve that goal we need every contribution we can get (especially > from those running this in production). This way the GPL makes a bit more > sense, as you said people need to maintain their modifications on file, so > they might just as well be good open source citizens and contribute them. > > Just my 10 cents ;) > > > Appreciated, > W > > PS: I didn't CC xen-users, I don't want to crosspost too much. > > > On 11 February 2012 19:14, Wannes De Smet <[email protected]> wrote: > >> *We're happy to announce XenMaster, which has the ambitious goal to >> become the de facto frontend for Xen with XCP. >> >> We've had the opportunity to present our project to some of the Xen/XCP >> developers and now it's time to announce the project to a larger public. >> XenMaster, in short, is a HTML5 frontend coupled to a Java backend >> delivering a rich UI for Xen, targeted at end users. >> At the moment, one is able to successfully add NFS ISO repositories and >> iSCSI/NFS storage repositories (iSCSI currently only works on XenServer >> 5.6), create a HVM VM and control it via a VNC shell. >> >> Development thus far has been carried out by Jorgen Evens, frontend lead >> and Wannes De Smet, project lead and backend developer. Of course, we now >> would like to welcome you in becoming a tester and/or contributor! >> You can find more information at xen-master.org, to install and >> configure XenMaster <http://wiki.xen-master.org/wiki/Installing>. If >> you'd like to help and have experience in developing Java and/or >> Javascript, load the source in your favorite IDE and have at it! >> >> If you have any questions at all, we'll be happy to answer them here or >> through GitHub. >> >> We hope to welcome you in using XenMaster! >> Jorgen Evens >> Wannes De Smet >> XenMaster * >> >> _______________________________________________ >> xen-api mailing list >> [email protected] >> http://lists.xensource.com/mailman/listinfo/xen-api >> >> > >
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