[rrdharan]

I'm very biased, since I worked at VMware for nine years.

Nonetheless I disagree with you. I think it's worth actually pursuing this and settling the VMware situation clearly. Uncertainty is rarely a good thing for anyone in these kind of situations, and so I'm disappointed that there still hasn't been a real ruling on the merits of the case.

Personally I remain convinced that the vmklinux/shim usage pattern is ok by the letter of the license, but I can understand Harald Welte and Christopher Hellwig's viewpoint.

[mikekchar]

As much as I agree with you, I think it is unlikely to be cleared up to any great extent. In my mind, the main question of whether or not VMware is in violation of the GPL rests pretty squarely on whether or not it is a derived work. That definition, in a legal sense (AFAICT -- I'm not a lawyer) is intentionally vague. Potential violations in this sense will almost certainly have to be tested on a case by case basis. Which is frustrating for everyone.

Like you, I hope for a speedy resolution of the VMware situation, but I'm not so confident that such a resolution will shine much light on similar issues in the future.

[yuhong]

The entire fiasco started with Linux Foundation pulling funding to SFLC.