VMware has rebuffed allegations that it violated Linux’s open source license with its hypervisor VMware ESXi.

Filings from the Free Software Conservancy (FSC) in Hamburg, Germany accused the company of failing to release the source code for the open source products that is included with ESXi, following a three-year dispute over the matter.

However VMware has declared the case to be “without merit”, and is “disappointed” that the FSC has taken legal action against them.

“VMware ESXi is an operating system that manages the hardware and software resources of the physical server,” a statement from the firm read. “At the core of the ESXi operating system is a kernel called ‘vmkernel’, that provides control over those resources.”

According to VMware, third parties can write drivers that interact with vmkernel using a proprietary VMK API, and also a Linux-compatible kernel module called vmklinux.

SOURCE: cbronline.com