FUD or Reality Around VirtualBox
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This feels like an attempt at FUD to make people panic around VirtualBox. Phoronix asks if VirtualBox has a future. This doesn't seem legit to me. The author makes a point of comparing VBox to completely different products like KVM as if KVM was a competitor in any way. KVM is a type 1 hypervisor like you use for servers, VirtualBox is a type 2 like you use on your desktop. Very different target audiences and technologies.
Furthermore, VirtualBox is still the leader of the [small and unexciting] type 2 pack. KVM is the fourth place in the enterprise type 1 space (after ESXi, HyperV and Xen.) KVM has a bright future, it would appear. But the comparisons feel contrived and the unsubstantiated report of VirtualBox having no developers seems like grasping at straws.
VirtualBox is not redefining the industry, now. But it is a very viable product for a very needed space. I have no idea why this article was written. Am I wrong? Or does this feel like someone with an agenda?
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It does seem like an article written out of writers block or scraping the bottom of the barrel.
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I get the feeling is that the author wants some feature (though they don't list missing features) and this is their way of poking at Oracle to see if development is still going.
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VBox works a treat for me, that's all I know
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VBox is still great. I wonder what innovations he was specifically looking to see happening?
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That reminds me, I should probably get it downloaded for my new laptop.
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Another terrible article from Phoronix. He doesn't explain his point; what exactly does he think VirtualBox needs to be adding? He needs to take a course in critical thinking.
VirtualBox seems to do everything you would need on a desktop virtual environment. I can't think of a single thing that's missing. USB device pass-through works great. It does accelerated graphics, shared folders from the host, configurable guest networking, snapshots. If you need additional features (e.g. performance monitoring, backups, HA) you probably should be using a server platform.
I always take his stuff with a grain of salt, especially his performance measurements. There's been many times he does a performance comparison but doesn't update one of the systems with the latest version (e.g. his Xen vs KVM article a few years ago; read the comments for details .. there was another article where he did the same thing with Ubuntu vs Fedora or something)
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Yes, Phoronix has made a reputation for providing faked or obviously skewed performance numbers to try to make KVM look good (tuned KVM versus clearly crippled Xen and only barely winning under those conditions.) Phoronix might as well be renamed Moronix.
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