@@ -33,13 +33,16 @@
<dt id="court-documents">Are the court documents released?</dt>
<dd>Not currently. Court proceedings are not public by default in Germany
(unlike in the USA). Conservancy will continue to update this FAQ with
information that Conservancy knows about the case. We would all also
welcome an agreement with VMware whereby both sides would agree to publish
all Court documents. </dd>
all Court documents. Unfortunately, VMware has explicitly asked for the
filings not to be published. Accordingly, Conservancy itself has not
even been able to review VMware's statement of defense nor Christoph's
response to that statement of defense.</dd>
<dt>Who's funding this lawsuit?</dt>
<dd>Conservancy has engaged in a grant agreement with Christoph Hellwig for
the purposes of pursuing this specific legal action in Germany.
Conservancy is funding this legal action specifically as part of
@@ -110,12 +113,43 @@
<p>Simply put, Conservancy and Christoph fully exhausted every possible
non-litigation strategy and tactic to convince VMware to do the right thing
before filing this litigation.</p>
</dd>
<dt>What are VMware's primary defenses for their alleged copyright
infringement?</dt>
<dd>With the guidance of counsel, Christoph was able to provide Conservancy
with a high-level summary of VMware's statement of defense, which we share
in this FAQ. Specifically, VMware's statement of defense primarily focuses
on two issues. First, VMware questions Christoph's copyright interest in
the Linux kernel and his right to bring this action. Second, VMware claims
vmklinux is an “interoperability module” which communicates
through a stable interface called VMK API.</dd>
<dt>How did Christoph respond to VMware's statement of defense?</dt>
<dd>Christoph's response discusses his extensive contributions to the Linux
kernel and disputes the technical merits of VMware's assertions. The
response points out that vmklinux is <strong>not</strong> an
interoperability module, but rather an arbitrary separation of the Linux
derived module from vmkernel. Specifically, vmklinux is nonfunctional
with any non-ESX OS, and vmklinux is tied intimately to a specific version
of ESXi. Vmklinux does not allow reuse of unmodified Linux drivers in
binary or source form. Christoph further points out that if the Court
allows proprietarization of an arbitrary split portion of GPL'd computer
programs, it could allow redistributors to trivially bypass the strong
copyleft terms found in the GPL. Finally, the response explains that
vmkernel and vmklinux don't “communicate over an interface”,
rather they run in the same process as a single computer program. Thus,
VMK API, as used by vmklinux, is not an “interface” as set
forth in
the <a href="http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/HTML/?uri=CELEX:32009L0024&from=EN">EU
Directive 2009/24/EC</a>.</dd>
<dt>Can you explain further how VMware incorporated code from Linux into
their kernel?</dt>
<dd>
<p id="diagram">
Conservancy prepared this diagram to show the technical situation as we
@@ -438,13 +472,18 @@ static struct pci_driver tg3_driver = {
<dd><p>The binary and source packages mentioned above are available
on VMware's website. These packages contain the
previously-mentioned <code>linux_pci.c</code>,
<code>vmkapi_pci_incompat.h</code>, and <code>k.b00</code> files, as well as
<code>vmklinux_9</code> and the source code that builds the latter.</p>
<p>To obtain the source components, follow these steps (no login is required):</p>
<p>To speed up the process, Conservancy has provided
a <a href="https://git.sfconservancy.org/?p=vmkdrivers;a=summary">Git
repository that we built that includes the source components that VMware
released</a>, and which are discussed above in our examples. However, one
can also obtain the source components directly from VMware, by following
these steps (no login is required):</p>
<ol>
<li>Visit <a href="https://my.vmware.com/web/vmware/details?downloadGroup=ESXI55U2_OSS&productId=353">https://my.vmware.com/web/vmware/details?downloadGroup=ESXI55U2_OSS&productId=353</a>.</li>
<li>Click the “Download” button beside the text that reads
“Open Source Code for VMware vSphere ESXi 5.5 Update 2”.</li>