Oracle launches "a better alternative to CentOS" • Hacker News Board

Re: Oracle launches "a better alternative to CentOS"

#131

Post by rch » Wed, Jul 18, 2012, 5:10 PM UTC

wdaher wrote: post #121

rch wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, my question is: What's the story on ZFS and DTrace? I realize I could answer my own question with a little searching, but the main reason I would consider an Oracle branded Linux distribution would be for a reasonably 'official' way of getting some of what made Open Solaris compelling. Whatever the story is, I think my curiosity is predictable and common enough to warrant a mention in your article. I should note…

My understanding is: There's a DTrace beta for Linux. There are no plans to port ZFS to Linux (but, Oracle is investing a lot in making btrfs kick ass). [1] https://blogs.oracle.com/linux/entry/dtrace_for_oracle_linux... [2] https://forums.oracle.com/forums/thread.jspa?threadID=234227...

I'm not looking for a 'kick ass' file system... ZFS does have some features I am interested in though, and I would appreciate having it made available to me somehow.

I was going to leave you alone about the 'messaging' aspects of your post, but now I'll point out that your reply exhibits a similar tone.

Re: Oracle launches "a better alternative to CentOS"

#132

Post by wdaher » Wed, Jul 18, 2012, 5:11 PM UTC

vtanase wrote: post #80

wdaher wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was trying to go for a "for linux nerds, by linux nerds" vibe, so I'm amused that your complaint is "This doesn't sound corporate enough". At the end of the day, my view here is that Oracle has actually produced something useful, but lots of people are blind to it, in no small part because of what ultimately boils down to zealotry (which doesn't seem like an awesome reason to me). Hence the point of trying to get t…

In all honesty I can understand where you're coming from. However, there is a discrepancy as far as I'm concerned between what you're selling and how you're selling it. In this case you are trying to sell quicker updates, better stability and performance to mostly enterprise customers, with a "we all like to geek around on linux" attitude. If you were trying to sell me on using Oracle Linux for my own development PC…

Honestly, my target audience with this page is precisely Linux enthusiasts.

Presumably the enterprise customers are all either running RHEL or are already buying Oracle Linux support contracts, and wouldn't be interested in "Oh, I could just run this CentOS-like thing for free".

Re: Oracle launches "a better alternative to CentOS"

#133

Post by timc3 » Wed, Jul 18, 2012, 5:14 PM UTC

debacle wrote: post #58

jasonlingx wrote: post #15

What's their track record with Java, MySQL etc?

Fantastic, actually. They've really embraced the OSS Java community and MySQL is stronger than it has ever been. The OpenSolaris community is also thriving, and Oracle's partnership with Google has helped move Android forward leaps and bounds.

Ha ha! Thanks for the best laugh I have had today

Re: Oracle launches "a better alternative to CentOS"

#134

Post by danbee » Wed, Jul 18, 2012, 5:20 PM UTC

rch wrote: post #109

wdaher wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was trying to go for a "for linux nerds, by linux nerds" vibe, so I'm amused that your complaint is "This doesn't sound corporate enough". At the end of the day, my view here is that Oracle has actually produced something useful, but lots of people are blind to it, in no small part because of what ultimately boils down to zealotry (which doesn't seem like an awesome reason to me). Hence the point of trying to get t…

So, my question is: What's the story on ZFS and DTrace? I realize I could answer my own question with a little searching, but the main reason I would consider an Oracle branded Linux distribution would be for a reasonably 'official' way of getting some of what made Open Solaris compelling. Whatever the story is, I think my curiosity is predictable and common enough to warrant a mention in your article. I should note…

The ZFS on Linux release candidates are pretty solid, http://zfsonlinux.org/

Re: Oracle launches "a better alternative to CentOS"

#135

Post by wdaher » Wed, Jul 18, 2012, 5:22 PM UTC

keithpeter wrote: post #54

wdaher wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An excellent question. Honestly, because the page was intended at people already running CentOS -- I thought people would be much more inclined to switch a system they already have than to reinstall a brand new one. Clearly I was mistaken :)

Would you expect those who tend servers to run a script that changes the update repositories and installs new packages as root on a production server without testing the operating system first? I take the point that the script and the reversion of the changes introduced by the script could be tested on a development box running CentOS. Disclaimer: I am not part of the target market for your product. Just a desktop RH…

> I take the point that the script and the reversion of the changes introduced by the script could be tested on a development box running CentOS.

Yes, that was my thinking here. That you'd spin up a CentOS VM or run it on a test system, see if you were happy, and then you'd run it for a while. Once you were happy, you'd then run the script everywhere.

Re: Oracle launches "a better alternative to CentOS"

#136

Post by jgeorge » Wed, Jul 18, 2012, 5:23 PM UTC

wdaher wrote: post #16

cagenut wrote: post #12

I've run 200+ server environments on centos4, a 40+ server cluster on centos5, and now run a 50+ server cluster on rhel6. I'm pretty much dead on their target audience here. This seems almost mean. Its a billion dollar company calling out a volunteer group of a couple of guys for being slower than them. Part of the reason I switched to rhel was exactly this graph, I didn't have a lot of faith in centos as a going con…

(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'…

wdaher, I don't question for a moment your intent and your altruism for this project, and please don't take my criticism of Oracle as anything personal.

I agree with you that corporations are not inherently evil. However, I am of the opinion that Oracle is inherently evil, and it's their business practices, pricing practices, and licensing practices that are ruining their reputation in the industry.

I form this opinion from personal experience dealing with Oracle over hardware, database, middleware, support, and operating system issues with my current employer. Oracle here is not well loved and the concept of converting CentOS instances to Oracle Linux is greeted with peals of laughter at the very suggestion.

I wish you luck in your endeavors, but in your enthusiasm please also keep in mind that Oracle is not known as the most trustworthy company on the block and people are righly justified in being wary of Oracle's intent in providing a "free" product or service.

Re: Oracle launches "a better alternative to CentOS"

#137

Post by wdaher » Wed, Jul 18, 2012, 5:24 PM UTC

zcvosdfdgj wrote: post #92

SoftwareMaven wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd be interested in hearing what you are referring to about Ksplice.

ksplice was supported in rhel.. when oracle purchased it, they announced they were going to drop rhel, and then turned it into a 30-day free trial-- after the 30-days, you must switch to oracle linux to continue using ksplice.

Everyone we sold Ksplice to on RHEL is still running Ksplice on RHEL. So it's more accurate to say that we closed the door on new subscriptions for anything other than Oracle Linux, but all existing subscriptions remain unaffected (and those customers can even add new systems, if they'd like to.)

Re: Oracle launches "a better alternative to CentOS"

#138

Post by blindhippo » Wed, Jul 18, 2012, 5:24 PM UTC

bdunbar wrote: post #79

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.…

But Oracle actually is evil. Evil is stomping a kitten to death. Evil is the gulag, the concentration camp, the cultural revolution. Oracle is just a business.

Businesses are sociopathic - especially since corporations claim the rights of a "person" under law.

Current North American society appears to deem sociopathic behavoir as being evil - so it's not much of a stretch to claim businesses are evil.

Not saying they can't act good or do good in society though as many obviously do. It's also worth noting that good/evil are not objective binary things - so your definition of evil is likely different then the GP's.

Re: Oracle launches "a better alternative to CentOS"

#139

Post by wdaher » Wed, Jul 18, 2012, 5:25 PM UTC

debacle wrote: post #53

Oracle launches Oracle Linux -> People port over from CentOS -> CentOS community dies -> Oracle stops updating Oracle Linux for people without support contracts I'd call anyone claiming this strategy a looney if it weren't for the fact that the company doing this is Oracle and I'd put nothing below them as far as a business strategy.

The issue with that strategy is that it's totally untenable. As soon as Step 4 happens, someone else makes a new CentOS that everyone switches to.

Fundamentally, there is a market need for something to fill the niche of CentOS. I happen to think that free-Oracle-Linux can be a better CentOS than CentOS, but if they were both to suddenly go away, something new would come to fill the obvious void.

Re: Oracle launches "a better alternative to CentOS"

#140

Post by wdaher » Wed, Jul 18, 2012, 5:33 PM UTC

druiid wrote: post #104

wdaher wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed. And I think "lock-in" is an unfair characterization. It's not like you can't switch back to CentOS or Scientific Linux.

How so? You guys are providing a script to switch from CentOS to OL, but I don't see a comparable script to switch back to CentOS. Where is the script to easily switch back when Oracle decides to screw everyone over as many have already brought up?

druiid: If that happens, I will personally help you switch back any systems you switched over this way :) My email address is in my profile.

As for everyone else, yeah, a '--reverse' was somewhere in our set of desired features for the script, but ultimately this became about some combination of "Launch early, launch often" and "MVP", two topics I know we all love here :)