Subject: Re: [vserver] vserver git server and misc. thoughts
From: Herbert Poetzl <herbert@13thfloor.at>
Date: Wed, 13 Aug 2008 23:56:46 +0200

On Wed, Aug 13, 2008 at 10:17:30PM +0200, Gildas wrote:
> 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?

once the Linux-VServer functionality is completely
covered by mainline kernels my job is done, and
Linux-VServer will only remain as userspace tools
(most likely util-vserver) maintained by Daniel or
somebody else ....

I have no problem with that whatsoever! :)

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