Mike D’s Blog

Just this morning, VMware announced that it will be opening the source code for the VMware View Client to anyone that wants it. The move is targeted to allow partners to more easily share advances in hosted desktop clients based on the most pervasive hosted desktop system out there – VMware View. The client is licensed under LGPL v 2.1. Some details from the press release:

VMware View Open Client is available under the GNU Lesser General Public License version 2.1 (LGPL v 2.1) and is accessible from  http://code.google.com/p/vmware-view-open-client/. Some of the features included in this release support secure tunneling using SSL, two factor authentication with RSA SecurID, Novell SLETC Add-On RPM package and a full command line interface. Support for the source code distribution is available through the VMware View Open Client community at: http://code.google.com/p/vmware-view-open-client/.

This is an incredible leadership move by VMware to give a kickstart to the true universal client. Just judging by the numerous joint quotes from partners in the press release everyone is really excited about this. Now partners can freely develop on and embed the client into all sorts of devices from cell phones to set top boxes to PCs and laptops. It will be interesting to see how much development takes off in this exciting space. But enough about my excitement. What do you think?

UPDATE (February 3, 2009): I updated the links to the code. It appears it got moved and the press release was wrong. Should work now.