<acronym title="complete, corresponding source">CCS</acronym>

    release as part of our GPL enforcement efforts described above.</p>

    <p>Conservancy's preliminary investigation indicated that the operating

    system kernel of VMware ESXi product consists of three key components:

        <ul>

          <li> the proprietary component &ldquo;vmkernel&rdquo;, which is

            released in binary form only,</li>

            <li>the kernel module &ldquo;vmklinux&rdquo;, which contains modified Linux

Code, and for which (at least some) source code for which is provided.

            <li>other kernel modules with device drivers, most of which are

            modified Linux drivers, and for which (at least some) source code

              is provided.</li>

        </ul>

    <p>Conservancy examined the incomplete CCS alongside the

           binary “vmkernel” component.  Such examination indicates that function

           in “vmkernel” do make function calls to Linux's kernel code

      in the usual way for a single program written in C.</p></dd>

    <dt>Doesn't VMware's &ldquo;shim layer&rdquo; insulate them from GPL

    obligations and allow them to keep certain code in their kernel

    proprietary?</dt>

    <p>Many in the media have talked about the possibility that VMware might

    use some so-called “shim layer” between Linux code and

    VMware's proprietary code.  While, for decades, there has been much talk of

    various mechanisms of GPL obligation avoidance, Conservancy believes that

    merely modifying technical details of a combination's construction

    does not typically influence the legal analysis in a combined or

    derivative work scenario.</p>

    <p>Furthermore, the technical details of VMware's alleged GPL violation

    do not even mirror the typical scenarios that have usually been called

    “shim layers”.  Conservancy's analysis of VMware's ESXi

    product, in fact, indicates that VMware rather flagrantly combined Linux

    code in their own kernel, and evidence seems to indicate the work as a

    whole was developed by modifying Linux code in tandem with

    modifications to &ldquo;vmkernel&rdquo; in a tightly coupled manner.</p>

    <dt>Can you give a <em>specific</em> example, with code, showing how

    VMware combined Linux source code with their binary-only components?</dt>

     <dd><p>There are numerous examples available that show this.  The

       details of alleged infringement specifically relating to Hellwig's

       contributions to Linux are of course the main matter of the

       allegations in the litigation, and Conservancy

       released <a href="#diagram">the diagram above</a> to exemplify that

       issue.  Conservancy continues to <a href="#court-documents">hope VMware will

       agree to make public all court documents</a> as a matter of public

       good, since the court documents discuss the specifics of alleged

         infringement on Hellwig's copyrights.</p>

       <p>However, Conservancy examined VMware's ESXi 5.5 product in detail

       even before Hellwig's enforcement action began.  Below is one example

       among many where VMware's CCS was incomplete per GPLv2§2(c) and

       GPLv2§3(a).  (One can verify these results by

       <a href="#verify">downloading and installing the binary and source

       packages for VMware's ESXi 5.5 Update 2</a>.)  Note that this

       example below is not necessarily regarding

       Hellwig's copyrights; VMware incorporated Linux code copyrighted by

       many others as well into their kernel.</p>

       <h4>Example of &ldquo;vmkernel&rdquo;'s combination with Linux code</h4>

the ISO (mentioned above), but the <code>vmtar</code> command itself is only

available when logged into an ESXi system. <code>vmtar</code> can be found

at <code>bin/vmtar</code> inside

<code>sb.v00</code> on the ISO, but one needs <code>vmtar</code> to open

<code>sb.v00</code>, similar to <code>misc_dri.v00</code> above.</li>

</ol>

</p>

  <p>Note that VMware may present you with <acronym title="End User Licensing Agreement">EULA</acronym>s and <acronym title="Terms of Service">ToS</acronym> when you download

  software from VMware's website.  Conservancy strongly suggests that you review these

  terms in great detail with the assistance of your own legal counsel before

  downloading the software and/or engaging in the process that Conservancy

  discusses above.</p>

  <dt>Have others issued statements of support about this action?</dt>

  <dd>Various individuals and groups have publicly stated their support for

    Conservancy's and Hellwig's actions in this matter.  They include:

    <ul>

        <li><a href="http://www.april.org/en/statement-support-software-freedom-conservancy-and-christoph-hellwig-gpl-enforcement-lawsuit">APRIL</a></li>

        <li><a href="https://fsf.org/news/conservancy-and-christoph-hellwig-gpl-enforcement-lawsuit">Free

            Software Foundation</a></li>

        <li><a href="https://samba.org/samba/news/announcements/2015-03-06_vmware_lawsuit.html">The

            Samba Team</a></li>

        <li><a href="https://plus.google.com/104877287288155269055/posts/cHgyreA76yY">Dave Airlie, Linux Developer</a></li>

        <li><a href="https://twitter.com/mjg59/status/573530001758294016">Matthew Garrett, Linux Developer</a></li>

        <li><a href="/news/2015/mar/05/vmware-lawsuit/#glikely">Grant Likely, Linux Kernel Engineer</a></li>

        <li><a href="http://mina86.com/2015/03/11/the-time-has-come-to-stand-up-for-the-gpl/">Michal Nazarewicz, Linux Developer</a></li>

        <li><a href="http://lwn.net/Articles/635624/">Luis R. Rodriguez (aka mcgrof), Linux Developer</a></li>

        <li><a href="http://lwn.net/Articles/635855/">Wolfram Sang, Linux Developer</a></li>

        <li><a href="https://twitter.com/josh_triplett/status/573543072929198083">Josh

        Triplett, Linux Developer</a></li>

        <li><a href="https://lwn.net/Articles/635617/">Rik van Riel, Linux Developer</a></li>

    </ul>

  </dd>

<dt>I

see <a href="https://fsf.org/news/conservancy-and-christoph-hellwig-gpl-enforcement-lawsuit">FSF's

statement of support</a>, but why

isn't <a href="https://www.fsf.org/licensing/compliance">FSF enforcing</a> in

this case?</dt>

<dd>While FSF are the authors and license steward of the GNU GPL, it's up to

the copyright holder to enforce GPL.  VMware created an operating system by

combining parts of the kernel named Linux with their own proprietary code,

and then added BusyBox to provide the userspace operating system components.

As such, ESXi is not

a <a href="https://www.gnu.org/gnu/linux-and-gnu.html">traditional GNU/Linux