One of the creators of the Linux kernel has filed a suit against VMWare accusing it of failing to live up to its copyright commitments when it comes to open-source programming.
Christoph Hellwig, who owns the copyright to certain parts of the Linux kernel, accuses VMware of combining proprietary source code with open-source code in its ESXi product line without releasing it publicly thus breaking the General Public License version 2 (GPLv2).
Case is without merit, says VMware
The case, which has been filed against VMware in the district court of Hamburg, has been funded by the Software Freedom Conservancy and a long blog post from the foundation explained that it first found VMware was flouting the rules back in 2011 and has been investigating since then.
For its part VMware claims that the lawsuit is without merit and added that they "will prevail on all issues through the judicial process in Germany" and that in mind it's expected that this case will roll along for some time yet.
Via: PC World