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vmware
open-vm-tools
C2018–2020
vmware / open-vm-tools

open-vm-tools

Official repository of VMware open-vm-tools project

Explore on GitHubRead Hacker News discussions
3Distinct people
3Mentions
0Explicit recommenders
2.7KGitHub stars
REPOSITORY AT A GLANCE

What to know before exploring

What it is

Official repository of VMware open-vm-tools project

GitHub

Where it is used

No documented product use has been verified yet.

What people are saying

No recommendation phrase was found in the indexed comments.

No classified warning is attached to this page. Read the discussions before treating silence as approval.

Also in these discussions

No other repository is repeatedly linked in the same discussions.

This week on Hacker News

Nov 7–Nov 14 UTC · Direct repository links and separately labeled related project stories. Indexed through 11/14/2026, 1:49:46 PM UTC.

No direct repository links were found in the indexed HN discussions over the past seven days. Older discussions are available below.

Mentions over time

HN mentions by month3 dated mentions

Observed mentions: 2018-07-31 19:33:02 UTC to 2020-11-01 01:35:21 UTC.

012018-07-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2018-08-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 1 mentions; 0 submissions, 1 commentsJul 20182018-08-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2018-09-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 0 mentions; 0 submissions, 0 comments2018-09-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2018-10-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 0 mentions; 0 submissions, 0 comments2018-10-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2018-11-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 0 mentions; 0 submissions, 0 comments2018-11-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2018-12-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 0 mentions; 0 submissions, 0 comments2018-12-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2019-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 0 mentions; 0 submissions, 0 comments2019-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2019-02-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 0 mentions; 0 submissions, 0 comments2019-02-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2019-03-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 0 mentions; 0 submissions, 0 comments2019-03-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2019-04-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 0 mentions; 0 submissions, 0 comments2019-04-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2019-05-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 0 mentions; 0 submissions, 0 comments2019-05-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2019-06-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 0 mentions; 0 submissions, 0 comments2019-06-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2019-07-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 0 mentions; 0 submissions, 0 comments2019-07-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2019-08-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 0 mentions; 0 submissions, 0 comments2019-08-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2019-09-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 0 mentions; 0 submissions, 0 comments2019-09-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2019-10-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 0 mentions; 0 submissions, 0 commentsSep 20192019-10-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2019-11-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 0 mentions; 0 submissions, 0 comments2019-11-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2019-12-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 0 mentions; 0 submissions, 0 comments2019-12-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2020-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 0 mentions; 0 submissions, 0 comments2020-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2020-02-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 0 mentions; 0 submissions, 0 comments2020-02-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2020-03-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 0 mentions; 0 submissions, 0 comments2020-03-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2020-04-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 0 mentions; 0 submissions, 0 comments2020-04-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2020-05-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 0 mentions; 0 submissions, 0 comments2020-05-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2020-06-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 0 mentions; 0 submissions, 0 comments2020-06-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2020-07-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 0 mentions; 0 submissions, 0 comments2020-07-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2020-08-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 0 mentions; 0 submissions, 0 comments2020-08-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2020-09-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 1 mentions; 0 submissions, 1 comments2020-09-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2020-10-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 0 mentions; 0 submissions, 0 comments2020-10-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2020-11-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 0 mentions; 0 submissions, 0 comments2020-11-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2020-12-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 1 mentions; 0 submissions, 1 commentsNov 2020

Counts come from the repository’s dated source evidence. Index cutoff: 2026-11-02 08:16:59 UTC.

View mention counts and date ranges
UTC ranges include their start and exclude their end. Select a period to filter the source evidence.
PeriodStart (UTC)End (exclusive, UTC)MentionsSubmissionsComments
Jul 20182018-07-01 00:00:00 UTC2018-08-01 00:00:00 UTC101
Aug 20182018-08-01 00:00:00 UTC2018-09-01 00:00:00 UTC000
Sep 20182018-09-01 00:00:00 UTC2018-10-01 00:00:00 UTC000
Oct 20182018-10-01 00:00:00 UTC2018-11-01 00:00:00 UTC000
Nov 20182018-11-01 00:00:00 UTC2018-12-01 00:00:00 UTC000
Dec 20182018-12-01 00:00:00 UTC2019-01-01 00:00:00 UTC000
Jan 20192019-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2019-02-01 00:00:00 UTC000
Feb 20192019-02-01 00:00:00 UTC2019-03-01 00:00:00 UTC000
Mar 20192019-03-01 00:00:00 UTC2019-04-01 00:00:00 UTC000
Apr 20192019-04-01 00:00:00 UTC2019-05-01 00:00:00 UTC000
May 20192019-05-01 00:00:00 UTC2019-06-01 00:00:00 UTC000
Jun 20192019-06-01 00:00:00 UTC2019-07-01 00:00:00 UTC000
Jul 20192019-07-01 00:00:00 UTC2019-08-01 00:00:00 UTC000
Aug 20192019-08-01 00:00:00 UTC2019-09-01 00:00:00 UTC000
Sep 20192019-09-01 00:00:00 UTC2019-10-01 00:00:00 UTC000
Oct 20192019-10-01 00:00:00 UTC2019-11-01 00:00:00 UTC000
Nov 20192019-11-01 00:00:00 UTC2019-12-01 00:00:00 UTC000
Dec 20192019-12-01 00:00:00 UTC2020-01-01 00:00:00 UTC000
Jan 20202020-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2020-02-01 00:00:00 UTC000
Feb 20202020-02-01 00:00:00 UTC2020-03-01 00:00:00 UTC000
Mar 20202020-03-01 00:00:00 UTC2020-04-01 00:00:00 UTC000
Apr 20202020-04-01 00:00:00 UTC2020-05-01 00:00:00 UTC000
May 20202020-05-01 00:00:00 UTC2020-06-01 00:00:00 UTC000
Jun 20202020-06-01 00:00:00 UTC2020-07-01 00:00:00 UTC000
Jul 20202020-07-01 00:00:00 UTC2020-08-01 00:00:00 UTC000
Aug 20202020-08-01 00:00:00 UTC2020-09-01 00:00:00 UTC101
Sep 20202020-09-01 00:00:00 UTC2020-10-01 00:00:00 UTC000
Oct 20202020-10-01 00:00:00 UTC2020-11-01 00:00:00 UTC000
Nov 20202020-11-01 00:00:00 UTC2020-12-01 00:00:00 UTC101

What Hacker News says

3 sources
jlgaddis·Nov 1, 2020
> Most proponents of Open Source licenses would consider this a feature, ... Indeed ... > ... maintainers of major projects (including GNU, IIRC) frequently require copyright assignment as a requirement for copyrightable contributions. ... and many folks, including myself, refuse to agree to any such agreements. Personally, I'd prefer BSD, MIT, or similar anyways but... if a project is GPL, one of the best ways to ensure that it remains GPL is for individual contributors to retain their copyright on any contributions. Take those paragons of open source, VMware [0] and the "open-vm-tools" [1] project, for example. For a variety of reasons, various components are under different licenses: > The code is being released under GPL v2 and GPL v2 compatible licenses. To be more specific, the Linux kernel modules are being released under the GPL v
Read the rest
2, while almost all of the user level components are being released under the LGPL v2.1. The SVGA and mouse drivers have been available under the X11 license for quite some time. There are certain third party components released under BSD style licenses, to which VMware has in some cases contributed, and will continue to distribute with open-vm-tools. Okay, so it sounds like it's all open source and should remain that way so I shouldn't have any concerns about contributing bugfixes, enhancements, patches, etc., right? Wait for it... > Do I need to sign something before making a contribution? > Yes. We have a standard contribution agreement that covers all contributions made to the project. It gives VMware and you joint copyright interests in the code you are contributing. The agreement also gives VMware flexibility with licensing and also helps avoid any copyright/licensing related issues that may arise in the future. There it is. Nice choice of wording, by the way: it gives VMware "flexibility" with licensing and "helps avoid any copyright/licensing related issues". VMware certainly is fond of "flexibility with licensing"' as history has shown. -- Besides all of the other arguments, I think it's completely absurd that an individual should be required to enter into a one-sided legal agreement with a large corporation just to contribute some code -- even just two or three lines -- that they've already written and just want to give away. -- [0]: That's sarcasm, just to be clear! [1]: https://github.com/vmware/open-vm-tools
In Octotree – Proprietary Firefox extension contains AGPL-licensed code

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