Subject: Re: [vserver] vserver git server and misc. thoughts
From: Gildas <gildas.ml@gmail.com>
Date: Wed, 13 Aug 2008 22:17:30 +0200

2008/8/13 Thomas Weber <l_vserver@mail2news.4t2.com>:
> Am Dienstag, den 12.08.2008, 20:35 +0200 schrieb Herbert Poetzl:
>> On Tue, Aug 12, 2008 at 10:00:16AM -0500, Adam Majer wrote:
>> > Remigiusz Modrzejewski wrote:
>> > > But in the end, it would invariably mean a lot of work, swinging patches back
>> > > and forth and convincing people that you're right about this code. And it
>> > > would probably end up being accepted in less than 100%. Then, Herbert
>> > > explicitly stated that maintaining 80% in-tree and 20% out-tree is exactly
>> > > the thing he's trying to avoid...
>> > >
>> > > Anyways, you're welcome to try. And it would be a great thing if you
>> > > succeeded.
>> >
>> > 80% in-tree and 20% out-tree is much better than 100% out tree.
>
> I'd second this.
> With the growing interest in virtualization some project will sooner or
> later start pushing into the kernel tree. If it's not vserver it's
> openvz or something else. Anything that makes it into the main tree will
> probably make it much more difficult for the other projects to survive.
> People will just use what is 'in there' without patching.
> I myself am a happy vserver user for years, but with say openvz built
> into the kernel tree, i don't think i'd hesitate very long to switch.
> And i'm for sure not the only one.

Hi,

I can't resist to jump in the conversation at this point.

I've been a happy user of vserver for years now for my personnal use
(and even donated my old alpha workstation), but it seems to me that
something is missing from this thread: there is already one os
virtualisation/jail/zone/container/vps project included in the linux
kernel.

It's more or less called LXC (or "linux container" or "containers" or
cg or??), is based on the joined effort of the pre-existing projects
in the area and as far as I tell is the only way forward for the
inclusion mainstream.

I know that Herbert has been commenting/posting a little on their
mailing list (as time permits I guess, the other devs there being
payed full time to do it) and I seem to understand that there are
plans to rebase some of the vserver userspace tools to use some
containers features.

It seems to me that we are nearly in the same situation that existed
for ipsec not so long ago with freeswan being out-of-tree and
disappearing when some completely new code was written for ipsec
support in linux, with only part of the userspace code subsisting
along with raccoon/isakmpd and that kind of freaks me out.

My question is simple though maybe a bit harsh: what future is left to
vservers? Does it makes sense to keep it as a separate project? What
does vservers support that is missing (or will be missing/absent) from
the container solution? Can it be merged?

Hope this doesn't cause any ruffled feathers and won't wake up trolls,
this is far from being my intention.

Regards,
Gildas