
VirtualBox 4.0 released (link to changelog) - phren0logy
http://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Changelog
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johnthedebs
It's great to see VirtualBox being actively developed, even after Oracle took
over control from Sun. This is a fantastic piece of software.

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JshWright
Not only is it actively being developed, but they're really working to make it
attractive to open source developers.

Moving the proprietary stuff out to a separate "extension pack" (that could
easy be replaced with a third party open-source version) is really a nice
step.

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Sephr
> _they're really working to make it attractive to open source developers_

How so? The separate proprietary and open source versions have been around
before the Oracle acquisition. Oracle hasn't done anything to make it more
attractive to open source developers.

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JshWright
There aren't separate versions anymore. There is one GPLv2 application, and
the 'extra' closed source functionality (USB 2.0, VRDP, and Intel PXE) has
been split out into a separate 'extension pack.' The extension pack
architecture makes it much easier for 3rd party developers to replace the
"missing" functionality (a fair amount of work has gone into the API
(especially for VRDP-related hooks) to make it much easier for 3rd party
developers to do this).

Rather than one binary blob, the extension pack uses a fairly well documented
set of interfaces.

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Sephr
Ah, thanks. That makes sense.

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scorchin
Worth stating that this update does not currently work with the virtualbox
gem, and thus is incompatible with vagrant.

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mitchellh
virtualbox gem and Vagrant dev here.

I took a quick look at the updated header files this morning and there is a
_ton_ of API changes in VirtualBox 4.0. That coupled with the release just
before the holidays start for me and a weeklong trip to Maui means that I
can't give a reliable timeframe for pushing in support for 4.0 and testing it
thoroughly.

The work is starting now, but I fear this is something which won't be
available to Vagrant users until early 2011.

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mdaniel
I hope this comes across in the genuinely inquizitive manner that I intend it:
isn't that what the four beta releases were designed to do: give integrators
and users the time to prepare for the impending release?

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mitchellh
Yes they are, and its my fault for not paying more attention to them. I was
pushing really hard to get libvirt support into Vagrant before 4.0 was out,
and didn't expect 4.0 to be out this soon. :-\

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inovica
I love VirtualBox. Its allowed me to test on various platforms all from my
Mac. Kudos also to Oracle for continuing with its development - I was
concerned that it wouldn't be, so I'm pleased to have been proved wrong!

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cookiecaper
I don't know that you should be so sure. I definitely expect Oracle to attempt
to monetize VBox to a greater extent, which to Oracle generally means not-
open-source, at least not open-source development processes. Sun is a large
acquisition to digest and I'm sure they still have more on the docket for
Sun's properties, including VBox. Just because they haven't destroyed it yet
doesn't mean they're not planning to. This may also be the logic of the
developers trying hard to drive external development, so that a fork can live
on after Oracle takes it closed.

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webXL
Where's the Mac OS guest additions love?

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joezydeco
Riiiiiiiiiight. Although it sure would be nice to see if Snow Leopard becomes
easier to hack into Vbox under 4.0.

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cookiecaper
OS X Server has been supported by VirtualBox for a short time now. I haven't
tried it myself, but acquaintances have told me they've got end-user OS X
working on VBox without jumping through any hoops.

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joezydeco
People I know (cough cough) had pretty good success installing Leopard Desktop
into vbox 3.x on intel, but for some reason 10.6 is a bit more elusive...

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asnyder
I hope that <http://code.google.com/p/phpvirtualbox/> will update their web
interface GUI accordingly.

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gourneau
I hope iTunes with sync to USB devices with a Windows XP vm now.

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bajsejohannes
Looks good. It ran my old virtualbox 3.2 guest machines without any problems.

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epynonymous
about time they added a gui for managing NAT port forwarding, you used to have
to use some arcane looking command line to get this which drove me to fusion,
but i'll have to check this out again.

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durbin
It still does not have symbolic link support for shared folders with a snow
leopard host. FAIL. I have to use vmware fusion instead.

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durbin
for the hater that downvoted me: <http://www.virtualbox.org/ticket/818>

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hubb
you were most likely downvoted due to your choice of vernacular (i didn't
downvote you).

