In 2007, top Linux contributor Christoph Hellwig accused VMware of using Linux as the basis for the VMware ESX bare-metal hypervisor, an essential part of VMware’s cloud offerings.
Years went by and the Software Freedom Conservancy, a non-profit organization that promotes open-source software, claims to have negotiated with VMware for the company to release ESX’s code, and its successor ESXi. That way, argued the Software Freedom Conservancy, these programs would legally comply with Linux’s Gnu General Public License version 2 (GPLv2). VMware refused in 2014.
Now, Hellweg and the Software Freedom Conservancy are suing VMware in the district court of Hamburg in Hamburg, Germany.