The Software Freedom Conservancy filed a lawsuit against VMware in 2016, claiming that the 'vmkernel' component in VMware ESXi is built using Linux kernel code. However, the code for this component is proprietary, which violates the requirements of the GPLv2 license.
At that time, the court did not issue a ruling on the merits. The case was closed due to a lack of proper expertise and uncertainty regarding the property rights to the Linux kernel code.
Yesterday, the German Court of Appeals upheld the decision of the Hamburg District Court in the case against VMware for violating the GPL license and denied the appeal. VMware will remove the incompatible module.
Source: linux.org.ru
