Open Virtual Machine Tools
News FAQ Download Contribute! About Open VM Tools
- What is this about?
VMware is announcing the release of large portions of VMware Tools for Linux, Solaris and FreeBSD guests under GPL and GPL-compatible licenses. VMware is also announcing the creation of the Open Virtual Machine Tools ("open-vm-tools") project on Sourceforge.net. This will become the home for ongoing development.
- What is being released?
All of the non-experimental kernel modules and user level applications that have been developed solely by VMware are being released. Certain experimental drivers are planned for future release. VMware will encourage 3rd parties to release their contributions under the GPL.
- Can you provide more details on the actual code being released?
The following components have been released as OSS:
  • Drivers for devices and filesystems access
  • Memory ballooning
  • Shared folders
  • Drag and Drop, Text and File Copy/Paste
  • Clipboard sharing
  • Disk wiping and shrinking
  • Time synchronization
  • Automatic guest screen resolution resizing
  • GuestInfo (provides statistics about guest environment)
  • Guest SDK (provides information about the VM)
  • Soft power operations
  • Multiple monitor support
  • GTK Toolbox UI
- When will the source code be made available?
The source code is available now as a tarball. You can download it from here. VMware plans to migrate our main development branch to Sourceforge's subversion repository. We expect to make progress in the months ahead.
- Will there continue to be a commercial version as well?
Yes. VMware Tools will continue to be available under a commercial license. Partners will continue to have flexibility in deciding between providing commercial or open source implementations of their solutions.
- Does this open-vm-tools relate to other open source virtualization projects?
We are not aware of any other open source projects that currently implement the kind of technology we are releasing. That said, we are always looking for opportunities to collaborate and work with the community to build best in class, open source drivers, applications and utilities that will improve the overall user experience of guest operating systems running in a virtualized environment.
- How does this benefit other open source projects?
Under the terms of the GPL, open source community members will be able to use the open-vm-tools code to develop their own applications, extend it and contribute to the community. They can also incorporate some or all of the code into their projects, provided they comply with the terms of the GPL.