[Date Prev][Date Next] [Thread Prev][Thread Next] [Date Index] [Thread Index]

Re: Hurd on VMware ?



On Fri, Mar 03, 2000 at 01:48:43PM +0200, Norbert Nemec wrote:
> > On Thu, Mar 02, 2000 at 09:41:53AM -0500, Cowboy wrote:
> > > 
> > >  I hadn't thought about VMWare, but it has several advantages.
> > 
> > Just for the record, it has also the disadvantage of being
> > proprietary software (read: non-free).
> 
> True, that is a disadvantage - but as long as we do not get dependent on it 
> in any way - why not make use of it? For the moment it is just a matter of 
> comfort: Some people buy two computers to create a network for the hurd, 
> why should not others buy a second "virtual" computer for the same 
> purpose?

I don't want to start a philosophical discussion, but working with and free
software is only barely related to convenience for me.

> > >  For me, the ability to make a SCSI disk appear to be an IDE disk,
> > >  has temporarily solved several problems.
> > 
> > We would still like to solve the real problem, though ;)
> 
> As soon as we have solved this problem and many others like the hurd 
> console and the X-Servers under hurd, there will be no reason to use 
> VMware any more (except for people who do real work on the kernel and 
> have plenty of crashes every day...)

I think that there will always be people who will pull the convenience
argument. "Just this little piece of non-free software until there is a free
replacement". There is always a further little piece of convenient non-free
software out there that might be desireable to some.

However, I really don't care very much if you use some non-free software or
not. I just wanted to point it out to those who might wonder why VMWare is
not widely advocated if it is such a cool thing.

Thanks,
Marcus

-- 
`Rhubarb is no Egyptian god.' Debian http://www.debian.org Check Key server 
Marcus Brinkmann              GNU    http://www.gnu.org    for public PGP Key 
Marcus.Brinkmann@ruhr-uni-bochum.de,     marcus@gnu.org    PGP Key ID 36E7CD09
http://homepage.ruhr-uni-bochum.de/Marcus.Brinkmann/       brinkmd@debian.org


Reply to: