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I think there's some confusion

To my knowledge, we have never used a patent to go after any company, only in a defensive manner when we were sued over patents first. We don't use patents to withhold technologies from other companies. I have heard this rumor about patents and snapshots before, but nobody has shown me a link yet to prove this.

This feature is similar to Coherence, but improved (at least over their 2.x version.. I don't personally know how 3.0 works yet). In Coherence, all the windows are on one layer. Imagine just removing the VM window chrome and making the background transparent. This prevents such things as proper window stacking and Expose from working correctly.

We've gone a step further and implemented this such that the windows themselves are pulled out into the host. This allows Expose to work, fixes window stackings, etc. It also gives us more opportunities for future improvements and integration.

Hope this answers any questions and clears up any confusion!

@ ChipX86

Thank you for your reply. Let me ask you, do you work/represent VMware?

You have to excuse me because I'm a bit hostile to patents like the ones that were awarded to VMware.

Like I as saying, in VMware you are able to create a disk which is sort of the reference and always reboot with the same one, so that any changes made to it on the fly are not retained. You’re also able to use a single disk and then branch from it other virtual machines where only the changes to that reference disk are maintained separately.

It is interesting (read strange) that that feature isn’t in Parallels nor in Virtual PC. Microsoft has a cloning notion, but not all this fancy stuff.

Well maybe in the next versions? No, it never comes out. Why? Well, we all remember seeing a long list of patent numbers over the VMware site and the 'About' box.

Doing a little bit of research we can easily find out that VMware is happy to patent a LOT of stuff, most of it is just engineering.

Look at this, filed back in October of ’98 is a Patent 6397242, which is titled “Virtualization System Including a Virtual Machine Monitor for a Computer with a Segmented Architecture.” Which sort of sounds like a generic description of virtual machine technology.

And as you get down, you get to Patent 6795966, filed on February 4th of 2000, and that was issued on September 21st of 2004. Get this: “Mechanism for Restoring, Porting, Replicating, and Checkpointing"...

And the abstract of the patent says: “A computer system is interrupted and its entire state information is extracted as one or more checkpoints at one or more respective points during operation of the system. The checkpoint may be restored into the system at any later time, even multiple times. And it may also even be loaded into one or more other systems. All systems loaded with the same checkpoint will then execute from the same checkpointed state. The state extraction mechanism is preferably a virtual machine monitor on which one or more virtual machines are installed, each virtual machine constituting an encapsulated, virtualized computer system whose states can be checkpointed under control of the virtual machine monitor. Checkpoints may be stored on a portable memory device or transmitted as a batch or dynamically over a network, so that even virtual machines installed at different sites may execute from the same state.”

And that’s a patent!

Sounds like VMware has locked that down. That’s why you’re not seeing it in other programs... and that really bugs me because this is pure mathematics, you can't patent mathematics, its the "natural flow" of nature if you wish, you shouldn't be allowed to patent something as 'trivial' as this.

Now, would you say that if Parallels or Microsoft would come out with something similar, VMware would NOT enforce the patents?

PS: I'm not criticizing VMware, they have done a SUPERB job over the years, I'm criticizing the way patents are awarded and the enforcement of ridiculous patents such as these, which is just a lawyers game, they will always be the winners, not really the users (my wife is a lawyer so I can speak honestly and freely about this).

Edited 2007-06-06 23:21

> “Mechanism for Restoring, Porting, Replicating, and Checkpointing"...
Wow, now that's a great advancement in CS field...
Except that about any emulator has a "dump" hotkey and a restore from state dump option, I'd just cite xEuphoric as prior art:
http://www.teaser.fr/~amajorel/xeuphoric/xeuphoric.1.html
Automatic save is not new either, even Microsoft word does it
The only addition would be naming each dump differently to allow for multiple checkpoints, but my guess is it's not new either. (I'd have done that with a one-line shell script running alongside the emu if I'd really need to).

Disclaimer: I do work for VMware.

> It is interesting (read strange) that that feature isn’t in Parallels

My understanding is that Parallels Desktop 3.0 (private beta) has multiple snapshots. I guess we can now conclude that this whole snapshot patent issue was just FUD. The only question is: whose intesrest is it to spread this FUD?

> Look at this, filed back in October of ’98 is a Patent 6397242, which
> is titled “Virtualization System Including a Virtual Machine Monitor
> for a Computer with a Segmented Architecture.” Which sort of
> sounds like a generic description of virtual machine technology.

The patent is very specific about using segmentation. It targets x86 processors, of course, for which virtualization did not exist before VMware invented it.

> And as you get down, you get to Patent 6795966, filed on February
> 4th of 2000, and that was issued on September 21st of 2004. Get
> this: “Mechanism for Restoring, Porting, Replicating, and
> Checkpointing"...

Snapshots are just about disk state. This patent is about the entire virtual machine state.

I agree with you the patent system is borken, but it is not VMware's job to fix it. VMware just does what it is best to defend its interests. Who would not?

I like VMWare as a product, and I have purchased Workstation, but this is just plain BS...

"It targets x86 processors, of course, for which virtualization did not exist before VMware invented it. "

Maybe you are new to computers, but by 97, a year before VMWare was even founded PC Virtualization was not only out there, but had been out for some time. PC-Task was already on version 3.1, and it was being included on magazine covers.

"The December 1997 issue represented a contradiction in the Amiga market. If it was dying, as many were saying, how could CU Amiga afford to increase the number of pages from 108 (where it had been since November 1996) to 116? Having expanded the Amiga in the past year, CU set its sights on running software on the improved processors. The December edition gave away the full version of PC Task 3.1, with MS DOS 3.3, allowing Amiga users to run 286 software."

The full article can be found here: http://www.amigahistory.co.uk/cuamiga5.html

And for Hardware Virtualization of the x86 there was the Emplant. A review of the system can be found in this newsletter from 1995:
http://www.cucug.org/sr/sr9510.html

In 1996 I saw Amiga WordWorth, Mac Word, and x86 Wordperfect all running side by side on a single computer. Well, actually top to bottom, as it was on an Amiga.

So, besides the fact that emulating yet another common processor is so obvious it is painful, VMware wasn't even close to the the first to 'Invent' x86 Virtualization.

Perhaps instead of trying to defend VMWares exploitation of the patent system, you could apologize for 'pirating' other peoples 'intellectual property'.

I'm talking about virtualization, not emulation.

I stand by my claim: VMware was the first company to virtualize the x86 processor.

VMware was the first company to virtualize the x86 processor.
Certainly not.
Windows 3.1 extended mode had the DOS box way before.
It wasn't fully virtualized, couldn't actually "boot" but it really virtualized some things like I/O calls.

It's not like anyone comes up with everything out of the box in CS. It's just a continuity from older stuff.

@ HPReg

QUOTE: "My understanding is that Parallels Desktop 3.0 (private beta) has multiple snapshots."

Yes they have, now the question is (and I asked this before) will VMware enforce any of the 13 (is that number correct?) software patents (specially Patent 6795966) against Parallels? I'm assuming they won't but I would like to get an insider opinion about this.

QUOTE: "I guess we can now conclude that this whole snapshot patent issue was just FUD. The only question is: whose intesrest is it to spread this FUD?"

Listen, if you work for VMware and think of starting pointing out legit questions as being FUD, then you won't make many friends along the road... I raised some legit questions based on facts. It is not FUD and I am not the boogey man.

@ Karrick

QUOTE: "(2) If you want to whine about the broken US Patent system, there are **plenty** of places to take your discord." AND "(4) Kudos to ChipX86 to stepping into OSNews to candidly answer a few questions. How often do we see that sort of developer<->user interaction in the commercial software industry?"

How can you praise developer<->user interation when you accuse people raising legit questions of being whining?

@ dwave

QUOTE: "Software patents are not illegal in the EU - There just isn't a framework of laws yet to permit them."

Sorry but you are mistaken, software patents are illegal in the EU: Article 52 EPC excludes "programs for computers" from patentability (Art. 52(2)) to the extent that a patent application relates to a computer program "as such" (Art. 52(3))

http://www.european-patent-office.org/legal/epc/e/ar52.html

The usual workaround 52EPC is to patent it "as part of" a physical invention. Lawyers use every possible loophole to get through :^)

@ mmu_man

QUOTE: "The usual workaround 52EPC is to patent it "as part of" a physical invention. Lawyers use every possible loophole to get through :^)"

Bingo! You hit the sweet spot. You are absolutely right, that's exactly what they have been doing. :-)

(1) Improvements to VMWare Fusion are astounding. Incremental or not, they represent some solid technology. They *fix* | *improve upon* some of my frustrations with Parallels' otherwise outstanding product.

(2) If you want to whine about the broken US Patent system, there are **plenty** of places to take your discord. Let's not unload on ChipX86. He has nothing to do with lawyers churning up business for themselves by scaring great software companies into foolish mischief.

(3) I have been a Parallels user since it first came out, and just paid the $40 upgrade to version 3.0. I also own VMWare Workstation for Windows, and plan on purchasing VMWare Fusion for Mac when available. They each have their strong points. In fact, if VMWare hadn't stepped into the ring, I have no doubt that Parallels--as excellent as it is--would not have seen such dramatic upgrades in the past year or so. Competition is healthy and benefits users.

(4) Kudos to ChipX86 to stepping into OSNews to candidly answer a few questions. How often do we see that sort of developer<->user interaction in the commercial software industry?

(5) For the record, various types of hardware and software virtualization have been around significantly longer than VMWare's foray into this business nearly one decade ago (1999). I call to your attention the significant research done by IBM during the 1950s, and initial products introduced in the 1960s. IBM brought virtual technology *math* into real life by creating hardware that could perform virtual computing well. As the 1990s era x86 family of CPUs did not fully support hardware virtualization, VMWare identified a potential market and invented some cool technologies. Or perhaps better stated: VMWare was able to implement the virtualization math on a non-compatible CPU by some amazing software feats.

Edited 2007-06-07 04:39 UTC

> We don't use patents to withhold technologies from other companies.

Maybe not you, but it is a known fact that the (US specially) patent system has been twisted to that end by software companies. So it's become subject to suspicion on everyone currently.
Software patents are illegal in EU and I really hope it stays this way. Software = speech.

Software patents are not illegal in the EU - There just isn't a framework of laws yet to permit them.
But, lo and behold, you wouldn't be in Europe if there wouldn't be a complex system of commonly known loopholes. Thus you can patent virtually everything in Europe with a good lawyer. The EPA in Munich has already granted about 30.000 of those de facto software patents. Among those are some quite phony and absolutely trivial things.

The European public doesn't seem to know/care about this - But they hardly seem to care what is going on in the EU anyway as long as they feel good showing off their holier-than-thou-attitude to the world.

The question in Europe is not patents yes/no - unfortunately, it is already too late for that. The current debate is about basing the common used practice on actual laws.

They do are illegal. Just because they are granted doesn't make them legal.
http://ffii.org/Frequently_Asked_Questions_about_software_patents#h...
The EU parliament rejected the bill about sw patents last time, but the council is trying to push it through the back door.
Some of us do care. Not enough I'm afraid.

Great. So does this mean Linux users will nolonger have to resort to RDP hacks to achieve a seamless Windows setup on Linux?

It's not for linux yet...
Actually I'm wondering how they do it... possibly using some RDP hooks in windows.
Just snooping the framebuffer and using clipping info isn't enough to show all windows entirely like is required for things like Exposé... Either they hook in before and get the full windows content from USER/GDI or they just create a huge framebuffer and force windows to not overlap, but that might have some odd side effects.