Adding open-vm-tools to core group

[Ravindra Kumar]

(Batching a bunch of replies)

> Install and uninstall looks a bit weird to me; what could be
> done is to make the package conditionally whether it's running
> in a VMware VM or not, much like it happens now for the EFI
> packages (only installed on an EFI system) or the spice agent
> (IIRC) if it's installed in libvirt/kvm or RHEV/ovirt.

Thanks Simone. I will look into this.

> Wouldn't the opposite make more sense?

Yes, that is more logical. But, I have considered how Anaconda
installs packages from CD and yum etc. Conditionally excluding
it during different types of installation methods will probably
require lots of changes in different pieces of install framework.
E.g. including/excluding a package from CD, including/excluding
a package from yum etc.

> > How does this work together with VMwares hint, to remove
> > open-vm-tools distributed by linux distributions at all?
> > http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=1013096
> >
> Yeah.   This is quite confusing.  VMWare folks are pushing
> for better integration but unless VMWare stops putting out
> conflicting messages, I am not sure anyone benefits.

I don't really see what is conflicting in the KB article.
There are two things to note here.

1. This KB article is not discouraging usage of open-vm-tools
as such but it just describes a solution to install VMware
Tools when open-vm-tools are already installed. Currently,
it is not advised to have both packages installed together
(this is changing, please see my note below). VMware Tools
are more feature rich than open-vm-tools, so there are cases
where VMware Tools are needed and therefore open-vm-tools have
to be replaced with VMware Tools to get the desired functionality.
2. Our current plan is to support open-vm-tools in multiple
ways, e.g. allow VMware Tools to co-exist with open-vm-tools,
and fill the feature gaps in open-vm-tools. We are working on
it and we will update the relevant KB articles as we make
progress.

Hope this clarifies a bit.

Thanks,
Ravindra