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Citrix Gets XenSource, But What About The Xen Source?

How much does $500 million actually buy? Though it may be enough for Citrix to buy XenSource, the lead commercial entity behind the Xen open source hypervisor, it doesn’t actually buy the community behind it. Or does it? After a $500 million dollar announcement, you’d expect some chatter. But in the open source world of […]

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SMK

Sean Michael Kerner

Aug 17, 2007

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How much does $500 million actually buy? Though it may be enough for Citrix to buy XenSource, the lead commercial entity behind the Xen open source
hypervisor, it doesn’t actually buy the community behind it. Or does it?

After a $500 million dollar announcement, you’d expect some chatter. But in
the open source world of the Xen virtualization hypervisor today is just
another day. Vendors in the open source Xen ecosystem such as AMD, Intel and
Novell don’t expect anything to change much.

The half a billion dollar
move by Citrix may well serve to make Xen even more open than it was before.

Virtual Iron is one such Xen ecosystem player that expects no impact to its
operations as a result of Citrix’s acquisition of XenSource. Among its
offerings, Virtual Iron offers its own management tools and platform on top of the Xen
hypervisor.

XenSource has a similar type of approach, offering its XenEnterprise products, which provide functionality and management
features beyond the core open source Xen hypervisor.

“With the acquisition, it appears that the Xen open source project will
become more independent and autonomous with expanded governance by other
community members,” Tim Walsh, director of Product Marketing at Virtual Iron,
told Internetnews.com.

“This should bring additional transparency to
the project, which has been a major source of criticism for XenSource and
how it has managed the project and controlled the trademarks.”

Walsh argued that the acquisition will now invite more active participation
in the project from the community. As part of the acquisition-day press
conference, XenSource CEO Peter Levine noted that a new foundation would be
created to govern and manage the open source project.

“We believe the XenSource acquisition may in fact move the project into a
more traditional open source project and finally realize the full potential
of its vision,” Walsh said.

Xen project leader and founder Ian Pratt noted that there are over 20 major
corporations, as well as plenty more individuals and smaller companies, that regularly contribute to the Xen open source software
project. Pratt
also noted that successful open source communities require transparency and
good technical leadership.

“I’m proud of the Xen team’s record in delivering this impartial leadership,
and grateful that XenSource management has never pressured developers to do
otherwise,” Pratt told Internetnews.com.

With the creation of the Xen Foundation, the importance of community
leadership independence will continue, even with Citrix at the helm of
XenSource.

“Creating the Xen Foundation allows for even greater transparency and
leadership independence than we have today, and will provide an organized
forum for enabling the community of vendors and users that are building Xen
into their businesses to influence the project roadmap,” Pratt said.

Pratt is expected to serve as the first chairman of the Xen Foundation.

This article was first published on InternetNews.com. To read the full article, click here.