IBM open source rHype:  Back in Feb 05, IBM released an open source (GPL) virtualization engine called rHype, for 'research hypervisor'. (Updates are posted through July 05).   It is a paravirtualizer, so most O/S need modification before running.  It runs on several hardware platforms (Power, Sony Cell, x86), and has emulators for others (Mambo, QEMU).  "In addition to the rHype project, IBM has a commercial hypervisor running on machines that use its Power processors. Because rHype uses the same interfaces as the commercial hypervisor, Linux doesn't have to be modified to run on an rHype-Power foundation. With rHype on x86 chips, Linux must be modified to work. "  rHype is expected to help Xen authors advance their platform.  Charles King, principal analyst of Pund-IT Research, notes a trend I'm watching:  "Juggling numerous tasks has long been a useful ability for corporate computing centers. Now such abilities are increasingly useful at home as computer networks get more complex and useful, King said.   "It's fascinating to me that something that's been seen as a benefit for enterprise data centers is percolating its way down into the set-top box," King said. "  8:48:23 AM