[libvirt-users] [virt-tools-list] Is virsh supposed to work on Windows?

[Eric Blake]

On 09/06/2013 04:22 PM, Fernando Lozano wrote:
> Hi,

[I made several drafts before hitting send - I hope I am not stepping on
toes in trying to make my intended point]

> 
>>> On the other side, there should be an official place for people like
>>> me, who are interested in testing virsh and virt-viewer (and who
>>> knows, some day virt-manager) on Windows, to get test binaries.
>>> There should be some effort on continuing the porting, not stopping
>>> on remote-viewer.
>> I fully agree with that, and that effort is best done by people interested
>> in getting such a port ;) It's actually not very hard to get Windows builds
>> cross compiled on linux (at least from  Fedora), I can help you get started
>> with that if you want, but I unfortunately can't/don't want to spend a lot of
>> time on testing and debugging virsh Windows binaries :(
> Thanks for the offer, I'll take it, although without high expectations.
> It's a share there's so little interest from Red Hat.

While this list (these lists, since this is cross-posted) has several
contributors with Red Hat addresses, most of us here are engineers. and
NOT financial decision-makers.  Furthermore, libvirt is NOT exclusive to
Red Hat - our goal is to be a community project with contributions from
anyone interested (true, Red Hat employees make up a large percentage of
interested contributors, but we try hard not to make it a Red Hat
monopoly).  To really determine if Red Hat is interested in your
situation, you'd be better off talking with a Red Hat sales
representative.  The engineers here (including myself) have been taught
(and rightly so, I might add) that trying to make definitive statements
on public lists about what Red Hat will or won't support will almost
always get us in hot water, and that both potential and existing clients
can exercise much more leverage by going through the correct channels.

Red Hat may be entirely interested in supporting your use case as a
condition of gaining your business; and if you go through the proper
channels, it may indeed result in a higher frequency of windows-related
patches on these lists in reaction to what you are able to work out with
your sales rep.  There's also the possibility that you could consider
contracting with someone other than Red Hat to get the functionality you
want in virsh on windows.  But as _this_ mailing list is not a sales
channel, your comments about Red Hat's interest or dis-interest in your
situation feel a bit off-base, and aren't adding to the technical
conversation.  As with most open source projects, something will get
done as fast (or as slow) as it takes to find someone willing to scratch
their own itch (including scratching their itch by hiring someone else
to do the coding), all without needing to resort to off-topic comments
about who or why someone else should do the work.

[On a personal note, even if I were NOT sending mail from a redhat.com
address, I would _still_ hope that you are able to work something out
with a Red Hat sales rep, or with any other open source support vendor -
everyone wins when more people are able to use an open source solution]

-- 
Eric Blake   eblake redhat com    +1-919-301-3266
Libvirt virtualization library http://libvirt.org

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