6 ms·

VMware Workstation Shifting from Proprietary Code to Using Upstream KVM

52 points by neitsab 2y ago

cebert 2y ago
I wonder if they’ll stop trying to fleece their remaining customers as much.
- mcflubbins 2y ago
  This looks like a cost saving maneuver to me. Why do the heavy innovation lifting on your own proprietary virtualization technology when you can have the community do it for you, for free? You can layoff several high-cost developers and stop innovating while extracting as much money from your current customers as possible.
  - simfree 2y ago
    If it's good enough for every cloud but Microsoft Azure, why pay to have your own bespoke virtualization platform with its own errata?
    - mcflubbins 2y ago
      I think monocultures in technology are dangerous and stifle innovation and its how we end up with the situations like nearly every browser is now built on Chromium.
walterbell 2y ago
VMware Workstation wasn't part of the end-user computing division spinoff to KKR? https://www.sdxcentral.com/articles/news/broadcom-unloads-vmwares-end-user-computing-group-for-4b/2024/02/ https://www.sdxcentral.com/articles/news/broadcom-unloads-vm... > Boadcom is selling VMware’s End-User Computing (EUC) Division to KKR for $4 billion... This includes its Horizon desktop and application virtualization platform, and Workspace One unified endpoint management platform.
jsheard 2y ago
AIUI they already had to do something similar on Windows. Enabling certain features causes Windows to boot itself inside Hyper-V, and VMwares own hypervisor can't run nested under the Hyper-V hypervisor, so VMware gives up and runs its guests directly on Hyper-V instead.
- patmorgan23 2y ago
  Windows basically always runs inside a hyper-v VM these days.
  - naikrovek 2y ago
    Only if Hyper-V is enabled and/or WSL2 is installed. And Hyper-V is a prerequisite for WSL2. If hyper-V is not enabled, then you’re running on metal. You may notice a longer than normal reboot time when enabling or disabling Hyper-V compared to a normal reboot, and this is why; you’re moving from running on silicon to running in a privileged management VM or vice versa.
    - terinjokes 2y ago
      Virtualization (Hyper-V) can also be enabled, without enabling the Hyper-V Manager or WSL2 Windows Components, if the "Core Isolation" security setting is enabled.
    - NikkiA 2y ago
      The biggest telltale for me is that hyper-v and wsl breaks anything that uses the ethernet mac as part of a host-id, and mobaxterm is unable to run it's X11 server because something about the hyper-v virtual ethernet screws it
    - pjmlp 2y ago
      Or enabled the security features anyone should be running in first place, thus yeah since Windows 11, it is for all practical purposes. Same applies to XBox Windows flavour.
TowerTall 2y ago
off topic, but has anyone succesfully registered their Workstation Pro single user license with broadcom? I followed the instructions they send to my email like a month ago, but it still says on the broadcom portal that i am not eligible to download latest version despite me having a valid license. context: Broadcom has made Pro free for private users but you still need to register with them to download it.
- ipython 2y ago
  Sign up on their portal with a new burner email account and use that to request the license. Their site is totally broken for existing users and you’ll just end up going in circles with their support.
- guiambros 2y ago
  Broadcom licensing site is a disaster. The usability is terrible; took me an hour going in circles, but eventually I was able to find where to click. It was something completely unintuitive. But it works. Maybe. Sometimes.
- sturadnidge 2y ago
  I didn't have any trouble, although I have owned full versions of Workstation and Fusion in the past. Having said that, their licensing portal is awful and i wouldnt be surprised at all if things were getting lost somewhere in the back end.
CommanderData 2y ago
Having used Workstation, the graphic performance inside its GUI is really nice, it's better than anything else on the market by a far margin. It performs better than virt-manager/qemu on Linux. Could this move require VMWare/BC to release source code that could improve qemu/virt-manager? KVM is GPL if not mistaken.
- lmz 2y ago
  Wouldn't KVM be part of the kernel interface to userspace? The emulated devices aren't really part of KVM, are they?
  - CommanderData 2y ago
    I was thinking due to modified code and copyleft/GPL it could force copyleft on Workstation, but I may have misunderstood how it works.
    - bityard 2y ago
      Yes, you probably misunderstand. KVM is part of the Linux kernel, which is GPL licensed. The GPL only prohibits derivations of a GPL'd projects from using a difference license. (Actually, copyright law prohibits this.) Using one piece of software alongside another does not count as a derivation. It has always been possible to run proprietary software on the Linux kernel, for example. This is no different.
- yjftsjthsd-h 2y ago
  I believe (IANAL) the implementation of KVM is GPL because it's part of Linux, but that's not viral into user space.
  - CommanderData 2y ago
    I'm no expert on licensing but I seem to remember GPL requires making available source if using and if the GPL project is modified, though I could be entirely mistaken.
RachelF 2y ago
I wonder how this will work on Windows Workstation hosts?
arunc 2y ago
Wouldn't that violate GPL?
- bpye 2y ago
  It looks like they are upstreaming the kernel side changes, I don't see why the usermode side couldn't be proprietary?
- anonymousiam 2y ago
  Maybe not, but they do have a history of poor behavior: https://www.zdnet.com/article/linux-developer-abandons-vmware-lawsuit/ https://www.zdnet.com/article/linux-developer-abandons-vmwar...
tw04 2y ago
>I'm not sure I ever envisioned VMware abandoning their proprietary virtualization code in favor of leveraging upstream KVM but in any event it's a terrific success story for the upstream KVM community. I can pretty much guarantee this move was because they want to can all of the people maintaining the proprietary virtualization code. The odds of Broadcom making any significant upstream contributions, beyond the small bit of code they need for workstation to function, is almost 0. I guess you can call it a "win" in that there's one less competing product in the market, but I don't see it boosting KVM functionality or quality in any meaningful way.
- jchw 2y ago
  Probably true, although I do still count it as a win. It's less out-of-tree kernel modules to deal with. Presumably, this also means you can use KVM/libvirt virtual machines alongside VMWare virtual machines in the future. Now we just need Oracle to decide not to want to maintain the Virtualbox kernel modules. Seeing as someone already did most of the work of porting it, they don't even need to do a lot of work to make it happen.
  - AndrewDavis 2y ago
    > Now we just need Oracle to decide not to want to maintain the Virtualbox kernel modules If I remember correctly you can already select KVM as the backend in Virtualbox. And in Windows you can use HyperV as your backend. Not sure about MacOS land.
    - Nullabillity 2y ago
      As far as I can tell, VirtualBox supports KVM and Hyper-V personalities for its paravirtualization, presumably to be able to reuse virtio/hyperv guest drivers. The host side still seems to require their custom kernel module.
      - jchw 2y ago
        Yep. That said, Virtualbox still has some advantages mostly not related to the actual hypervisor and more related to the UI and other emulation details, so I use this patch to use Virtualbox on top of KVM on my machine. https://github.com/cyberus-technology/virtualbox-kvm https://github.com/cyberus-technology/virtualbox-kvm From my PoV, it mainly is just missing support for more networking options. It's said that it isn't tested much on AMD, but I'm using it on multiple different AMD boxen with no issues.
nobody9999 2y ago
I think this is great, at least on a personal level. I've been running esxi to host my home infrastructure for many years. But Broadcom took that away. As such, I've been looking around for a replacement, and if KVM can now support VMWare VMs natively, that will make my migration process a lot simpler. Or am I missing something important?
- nineteen999 2y ago
  Its worth noting that Workstation and ESXi formats are essentially different anyway, traditionally you needed to use VMware converter to convert between the formats. Pretty sure KVM has supported the VMware disk formats forever so you probably can already migrate the VM's without too much work (just installing a few drivers inside the guest OS etc).
musicale 2y ago
Seems like everyone is switching from vmware to kvm - including vmware.
burnt-resistor 2y ago
VMware Workstation/Fusion team has always been underfunded and understaffed. Every year, they release a reskinned version with a few minor features to justify the cost to buyers. They really don't have the cycles to maintain a competitive product that would include major changes or large feature advancements. (Fusion is basically a dead product because it can't do performant x86_64 emu/v12n on arm Macs. The closest replacement is UTM, based on QEMU, but it's really slow.) The problem this introduces is it probably won't work with existing customer tooling built for W/F, won't work with open-vm-tools, and will be incompatible with existing VMs. IOW, this will likely have a net negative impact on users. Sad.
- stuaxo 2y ago
  Made the mistake of UTM on my dev machine in a job up to about a year ago. It might be better now, but it wasn't ready at that point, I'll probably check it out again in a few years time. The speed for Arm Linux on a MacOS host was OK, but the hard locks I was hitting multiple times a day, not so much.
- belthesar 2y ago
  Ironically, x86 performance of Win applications on UTM is faster when using Windows' ARM to x86 translation rather than using QEMU virtualization, because it can do Rosetta 2 like translation of only the specific application code and not the dependent libraries.

52 points by neitsab 2y ago

cebert 2y ago

I wonder if they’ll stop trying to fleece their remaining customers as much.

mcflubbins 2y ago
This looks like a cost saving maneuver to me. Why do the heavy innovation lifting on your own proprietary virtualization technology when you can have the community do it for you, for free? You can layoff several high-cost developers and stop innovating while extracting as much money from your current customers as possible.
- simfree 2y ago
  If it's good enough for every cloud but Microsoft Azure, why pay to have your own bespoke virtualization platform with its own errata?
  - mcflubbins 2y ago
    I think monocultures in technology are dangerous and stifle innovation and its how we end up with the situations like nearly every browser is now built on Chromium.

walterbell 2y ago

VMware Workstation wasn't part of the end-user computing division spinoff to KKR? https://www.sdxcentral.com/articles/news/broadcom-unloads-vmwares-end-user-computing-group-for-4b/2024/02/ https://www.sdxcentral.com/articles/news/broadcom-unloads-vm... > Boadcom is selling VMware’s End-User Computing (EUC) Division to KKR for $4 billion... This includes its Horizon desktop and application virtualization platform, and Workspace One unified endpoint management platform.

jsheard 2y ago

AIUI they already had to do something similar on Windows. Enabling certain features causes Windows to boot itself inside Hyper-V, and VMwares own hypervisor can't run nested under the Hyper-V hypervisor, so VMware gives up and runs its guests directly on Hyper-V instead.

patmorgan23 2y ago
Windows basically always runs inside a hyper-v VM these days.
- naikrovek 2y ago
  Only if Hyper-V is enabled and/or WSL2 is installed. And Hyper-V is a prerequisite for WSL2. If hyper-V is not enabled, then you’re running on metal. You may notice a longer than normal reboot time when enabling or disabling Hyper-V compared to a normal reboot, and this is why; you’re moving from running on silicon to running in a privileged management VM or vice versa.
  - terinjokes 2y ago
    Virtualization (Hyper-V) can also be enabled, without enabling the Hyper-V Manager or WSL2 Windows Components, if the "Core Isolation" security setting is enabled.
  - NikkiA 2y ago
    The biggest telltale for me is that hyper-v and wsl breaks anything that uses the ethernet mac as part of a host-id, and mobaxterm is unable to run it's X11 server because something about the hyper-v virtual ethernet screws it
  - pjmlp 2y ago
    Or enabled the security features anyone should be running in first place, thus yeah since Windows 11, it is for all practical purposes. Same applies to XBox Windows flavour.

TowerTall 2y ago

off topic, but has anyone succesfully registered their Workstation Pro single user license with broadcom? I followed the instructions they send to my email like a month ago, but it still says on the broadcom portal that i am not eligible to download latest version despite me having a valid license. context: Broadcom has made Pro free for private users but you still need to register with them to download it.

ipython 2y ago
Sign up on their portal with a new burner email account and use that to request the license. Their site is totally broken for existing users and you’ll just end up going in circles with their support.
guiambros 2y ago
Broadcom licensing site is a disaster. The usability is terrible; took me an hour going in circles, but eventually I was able to find where to click. It was something completely unintuitive. But it works. Maybe. Sometimes.
sturadnidge 2y ago
I didn't have any trouble, although I have owned full versions of Workstation and Fusion in the past. Having said that, their licensing portal is awful and i wouldnt be surprised at all if things were getting lost somewhere in the back end.

CommanderData 2y ago

Having used Workstation, the graphic performance inside its GUI is really nice, it's better than anything else on the market by a far margin. It performs better than virt-manager/qemu on Linux. Could this move require VMWare/BC to release source code that could improve qemu/virt-manager? KVM is GPL if not mistaken.

lmz 2y ago
Wouldn't KVM be part of the kernel interface to userspace? The emulated devices aren't really part of KVM, are they?
- CommanderData 2y ago
  I was thinking due to modified code and copyleft/GPL it could force copyleft on Workstation, but I may have misunderstood how it works.
  - bityard 2y ago
    Yes, you probably misunderstand. KVM is part of the Linux kernel, which is GPL licensed. The GPL only prohibits derivations of a GPL'd projects from using a difference license. (Actually, copyright law prohibits this.) Using one piece of software alongside another does not count as a derivation. It has always been possible to run proprietary software on the Linux kernel, for example. This is no different.
yjftsjthsd-h 2y ago
I believe (IANAL) the implementation of KVM is GPL because it's part of Linux, but that's not viral into user space.
- CommanderData 2y ago
  I'm no expert on licensing but I seem to remember GPL requires making available source if using and if the GPL project is modified, though I could be entirely mistaken.

RachelF 2y ago

I wonder how this will work on Windows Workstation hosts?

arunc 2y ago

Wouldn't that violate GPL?

bpye 2y ago
It looks like they are upstreaming the kernel side changes, I don't see why the usermode side couldn't be proprietary?
anonymousiam 2y ago
Maybe not, but they do have a history of poor behavior: https://www.zdnet.com/article/linux-developer-abandons-vmware-lawsuit/ https://www.zdnet.com/article/linux-developer-abandons-vmwar...

tw04 2y ago

>I'm not sure I ever envisioned VMware abandoning their proprietary virtualization code in favor of leveraging upstream KVM but in any event it's a terrific success story for the upstream KVM community. I can pretty much guarantee this move was because they want to can all of the people maintaining the proprietary virtualization code. The odds of Broadcom making any significant upstream contributions, beyond the small bit of code they need for workstation to function, is almost 0. I guess you can call it a "win" in that there's one less competing product in the market, but I don't see it boosting KVM functionality or quality in any meaningful way.

jchw 2y ago
Probably true, although I do still count it as a win. It's less out-of-tree kernel modules to deal with. Presumably, this also means you can use KVM/libvirt virtual machines alongside VMWare virtual machines in the future. Now we just need Oracle to decide not to want to maintain the Virtualbox kernel modules. Seeing as someone already did most of the work of porting it, they don't even need to do a lot of work to make it happen.
- AndrewDavis 2y ago
  > Now we just need Oracle to decide not to want to maintain the Virtualbox kernel modules If I remember correctly you can already select KVM as the backend in Virtualbox. And in Windows you can use HyperV as your backend. Not sure about MacOS land.
  - Nullabillity 2y ago
    As far as I can tell, VirtualBox supports KVM and Hyper-V personalities for its paravirtualization, presumably to be able to reuse virtio/hyperv guest drivers. The host side still seems to require their custom kernel module.
    - jchw 2y ago
      Yep. That said, Virtualbox still has some advantages mostly not related to the actual hypervisor and more related to the UI and other emulation details, so I use this patch to use Virtualbox on top of KVM on my machine. https://github.com/cyberus-technology/virtualbox-kvm https://github.com/cyberus-technology/virtualbox-kvm From my PoV, it mainly is just missing support for more networking options. It's said that it isn't tested much on AMD, but I'm using it on multiple different AMD boxen with no issues.

nobody9999 2y ago

I think this is great, at least on a personal level. I've been running esxi to host my home infrastructure for many years. But Broadcom took that away. As such, I've been looking around for a replacement, and if KVM can now support VMWare VMs natively, that will make my migration process a lot simpler. Or am I missing something important?

nineteen999 2y ago
Its worth noting that Workstation and ESXi formats are essentially different anyway, traditionally you needed to use VMware converter to convert between the formats. Pretty sure KVM has supported the VMware disk formats forever so you probably can already migrate the VM's without too much work (just installing a few drivers inside the guest OS etc).

musicale 2y ago

Seems like everyone is switching from vmware to kvm - including vmware.

burnt-resistor 2y ago

VMware Workstation/Fusion team has always been underfunded and understaffed. Every year, they release a reskinned version with a few minor features to justify the cost to buyers. They really don't have the cycles to maintain a competitive product that would include major changes or large feature advancements. (Fusion is basically a dead product because it can't do performant x86_64 emu/v12n on arm Macs. The closest replacement is UTM, based on QEMU, but it's really slow.) The problem this introduces is it probably won't work with existing customer tooling built for W/F, won't work with open-vm-tools, and will be incompatible with existing VMs. IOW, this will likely have a net negative impact on users. Sad.

stuaxo 2y ago
Made the mistake of UTM on my dev machine in a job up to about a year ago. It might be better now, but it wasn't ready at that point, I'll probably check it out again in a few years time. The speed for Arm Linux on a MacOS host was OK, but the hard locks I was hitting multiple times a day, not so much.
belthesar 2y ago
Ironically, x86 performance of Win applications on UTM is faster when using Windows' ARM to x86 translation rather than using QEMU virtualization, because it can do Rosetta 2 like translation of only the specific application code and not the dependent libraries.