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Oracle launches "a better alternative to CentOS"

linux.oracle.com

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Re: Oracle launches "a better alternative to CentOS"

#61

Post by ominous_prime »

SwellJoe wrote: post #26

I'm pleased to see that evil deeds have consequences, though I'd like to see Oracle suffer a little (OK, a lot) more before getting over the hump. People don't use Oracle Linux because the Open Source community doesn't trust Oracle (and they shouldn't; that mistrust has been well-earned over a couple of decades). There's a lot of reasons not to use Oracle Linux, most of them non-technical. Oracle is simply not an eth…

Unfortunately, I don't think SL holds up in a in all cases. CentOS (and Oracle) strive for binary compatibility. I've had cases where I needed to run vendor supplied binaries which were sometimes buggy on a non-centos EL system. Yeah, it sucks that the vendor only supplies binaries, and only tests against specific RHEL release points, but that's life sometimes.

Don't get me wrong, Scientific Linux is great, but it's not for everyone.

Re: Oracle launches "a better alternative to CentOS"

#62

Post by debacle »

bsphil wrote: post #49

Why all the vitriol towards Oracle? Not that I care either way, I don't have any stake in the matter. I just don't have much experience with them outside of limited usage of Java.

1. Their database software is overpriced and bloated.

2. They participate in strong lobbying to get governments all over the world to purchase their overpriced products.

3. And support.

4. They recently sued Google over seven lines of code for billions of dollars.

5. They've let some technologies purchased from Sun languish, and have contributed to the fracturing of the OSS communities around these technologies.

6. Larry Ellison bribed his way out of a billion dollar insider trading deal.

In short, Oracle is the poster child for why OSS users need to be vigilant and why government contracting needs serious reform.

Re: Oracle launches "a better alternative to CentOS"

#63

Post by wdaher »

andrewcooke wrote: post #44
davidw wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's quite possible, that, being a huge company, they do a lot of bad crap (they are not high on my list), but there are some good people there trying to do good things.

so when centos is dead and buried and oracle turns round and shafts us we should say "well, there were some good people there...."?

Given that Red Hat still can't get some people to move off RHEL 3, I'm amused that you think this could actually kill CentOS :)

And in the unlikely event that it were to happen, you could just switch to Scientific Linux, or whatever new RHEL clone would crop up in the wake of the news.

Re: Oracle launches "a better alternative to CentOS"

#64

Post by pgeorgi »

nembleton wrote: post #48
pgeorgi wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because RHEL compatibility is an important selling point, at least in the US Linux market.

You got a very good point here. Look like the big names, it's good for image. Especially when you have a terrible image like oracle starts to have. ( or did it have it since a few years already? )

It goes further than that: There's a certain set of people and corporations that started out with Red Hat Linux, and prefer to stay in that ecosystem (known tools, available work force).

By claiming you're RHEL compatible, you "merely" compete against Red Hat, Cent OS and some other clones that some might not even have heard of (eg. Scientific Linux).

You automatically exclude Ubuntu, Debian, Suse and so on, but while reasserting that RHEL compat is somehow important, you push them to the defenses, not yourself (except from the point of view of Ubuntu, Debian, Suse, ... fans, but you won't convince them anyway, so why bother?).

That might be a reason why Red Hat doesn't bother too much about the clones: they make the RHEL ecosystem stronger, provides incentives for RHEL certifications, and RH can still try to upsell Oracle Linux users for the "original".

Re: Oracle launches "a better alternative to CentOS"

#65

Post by ajays »

skittles wrote: post #35
jasonlingx wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Still no good answer... why is Oracle doing this? I don't see how this story doesn't end with a whole bunch of people having to convert back to CentOS when someone at Oracle questions the value in offering this distribution for free.

If you switch to Oracle Linux and if you have some major problem you can't fix, then the next logical step is to pay for support. It would be a simple step to take since you're already running the official version.

I'm not an Oracle hater (I just dislike them a little). But if this is true, then they have an economic incentive to _not_ issue free fixes in a timely manner. Or, (not to sound to tinfoil-hattish) to release _slightly_ broken things that don't impact an individual installation, but impact clusters.

Again, I'm not saying that they _will_ do the above; just that there is economic incentive for them to bring users into paying for support, and as long as they give it away for free, no one will bite.

There's an old wives saying (used in a different context), that says "why would a guy buy a cow, if he can get the milk for free?"

Re: Oracle launches "a better alternative to CentOS"

#66

Post by vtanase »

SwellJoe wrote: post #26

I'm pleased to see that evil deeds have consequences, though I'd like to see Oracle suffer a little (OK, a lot) more before getting over the hump. People don't use Oracle Linux because the Open Source community doesn't trust Oracle (and they shouldn't; that mistrust has been well-earned over a couple of decades). There's a lot of reasons not to use Oracle Linux, most of them non-technical. Oracle is simply not an eth…

This is the exact same feeling that I'm getting from this announcement. To me this just feels like a publicity stunt, where Oracle is aiming to get a slice of the CentOS/RHEL market with very little investment.

As far as I'm concerned this isn't even a valid attempt on their behalf to earn the trust of the Open Source Community. Taking something that already works and touting your own horn about how you can provide faster updates isn't really something that a big corporate player that wants to get into the open source market should be doing. I'm sure there are plenty of technologies at Oracle, that if open-sourced would have a much bigger impact, and would put them in a better relationship with the open source community.

Finally, when you are an enterprise/corporate player, and your press release for a new product is littered with "this is not a gimmick" there is definitely something wrong. In all honesty this just sounds like one of these "come with me kid I'll give you some candy! It's gonna be ok don't worry, just a little further". This is not something I would expect from such a big company.

Re: Oracle launches "a better alternative to CentOS"

#67

Post by azundo »

endersshadow wrote: post #36
nodata wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I know we all like to think that corporations are evil and the presence of corporate interests actually messes stuff up. But Oracle actually is evil . > But this really is one case where you want the oomph of bilion-dollar company making sure that you get your security updates in time. Don't be naive, Oracle wouldn't be doing this if they didn't see a substantial business advantage. > No one else is providing that.…

The guy you're replying to has implied he works for Oracle and helped bring this to fruition. Instead of asking what the advantage they see is or diving into it, you've accused him of lying and being a part of an evil organization. Oracle's a business--they make good products that many businesses rely on. While they've done some stuff that this crowd greatly disproves of (see: Java copyright/patents lawsuits), their…

Maybe so, but if I was Oracle I would take this as great feedback. My guess is that the majority of people running CentOS have a very similar attitude, so they should understand that this will be the reaction, whether it is fair or not.

It is up to Oracle to figure out how to build the required trust to market this, not up to consumers to accept it given Oracle's history. Millions of people are missing billions of opportunities every day (and you're probably one of them!) but you don't blame them for it, you figure out how to market a product more effectively instead.

Re: Oracle launches "a better alternative to CentOS"

#68

Post by SwellJoe »

ominous_prime wrote: post #61
SwellJoe wrote: post #26

I'm pleased to see that evil deeds have consequences, though I'd like to see Oracle suffer a little (OK, a lot) more before getting over the hump. People don't use Oracle Linux because the Open Source community doesn't trust Oracle (and they shouldn't; that mistrust has been well-earned over a couple of decades). There's a lot of reasons not to use Oracle Linux, most of them non-technical. Oracle is simply not an eth…

Unfortunately, I don't think SL holds up in a in all cases. CentOS (and Oracle) strive for binary compatibility. I've had cases where I needed to run vendor supplied binaries which were sometimes buggy on a non-centos EL system. Yeah, it sucks that the vendor only supplies binaries, and only tests against specific RHEL release points, but that's life sometimes. Don't get me wrong, Scientific Linux is great, but it's…

Yes, the priorities of SL are different from CentOS, and binary compatibility isn't quite as high on the list, from what I can tell.

But, so many people are only using Open Source software, and just want a really popular, really stable, really long lifecycle Linux distro for their servers. That's the boat I'm in. I don't currently run anything that I can't get in source form on our servers, so I don't have any concerns about binary compatibility.

That said, both of our products that specifically support SL and have binary packages in their repos (Virtualmin and Cloudmin) use the same yum repository of binaries across RHEL, CentOS, and Scientific Linux. We've never had any bug reports caused by that sharing of binaries. So, binary compatibility is pretty good in our admittedly limited experience (we only provide a handful of binaries).

Re: Oracle launches "a better alternative to CentOS"

#69

Post by [deleted] »

ominous_prime wrote: post #61
SwellJoe wrote: post #26

I'm pleased to see that evil deeds have consequences, though I'd like to see Oracle suffer a little (OK, a lot) more before getting over the hump. People don't use Oracle Linux because the Open Source community doesn't trust Oracle (and they shouldn't; that mistrust has been well-earned over a couple of decades). There's a lot of reasons not to use Oracle Linux, most of them non-technical. Oracle is simply not an eth…

Unfortunately, I don't think SL holds up in a in all cases. CentOS (and Oracle) strive for binary compatibility. I've had cases where I needed to run vendor supplied binaries which were sometimes buggy on a non-centos EL system. Yeah, it sucks that the vendor only supplies binaries, and only tests against specific RHEL release points, but that's life sometimes. Don't get me wrong, Scientific Linux is great, but it's…

[deleted]

Re: Oracle launches "a better alternative to CentOS"

#70

Post by wdaher »

justauser wrote: post #38
wdaher wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(Disclaimer: I had a hand in a lot of this) That's not quite the intent. Look, here's the deal: I know we all like to think that corporations are evil and the presence of corporate interests actually messes stuff up. But this really is one case where you want the oomph of bilion-dollar company making sure that you get your security updates in time. No one else is providing that. Oracle happens to be doing so, and we'…

Just an FYI but I'm fairly certain wdahher is Waseem Daher who is the cofounder of Ksplice. So if you're wanting to hear it directly from the "horse's mouth", this is probably a good place to ask some questions.

Yes, that's me!
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