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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"

#141

Post by bcantrill »

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'…

Anyone decrying Oracle as "evil" is falling into a trap that I have warned about[1]: they are making the mistake of anthropomorphizing Larry Ellison -- they are infusing Oracle with humanity that it does not in fact have. Oracle is, as another commenter put it, a corporate sociopath. The inability to empathize is fine for a monopolist (and indeed, it's a terrific asset -- and after five months of working there, I concluded that it's the only thing that I think Oracle has any real talent for), but it's terrible for a technology company. In particular, the inability for Oracle to see anyone other than themselves leads to decisions that don't just erode trust, they destroy it beyond all repair. What you are seeing here are the costs of Oracle's decisions: it's what Oracle did to Hudson, to MySQL, to Java and to OpenSolaris. If you honestly don't understand that -- if you truly believe in your heart that the dismissal of Oracle is somehow merely Occupy-esque anti-corporate sentiment -- then you yourself probably have an inability to empathize that should bode very well for your future career at Oracle.

[1] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-zRN7XLCRhc#t=33m0s

Re: Oracle launches "a better alternative to CentOS"

#142

Post by wdaher »

phaylon wrote: post #75
wdaher wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that's an accurate summary. And I think the point that you can always switch back to CentOS or Scientific Linux is an important one. Ultimately, this is a topic where a lot of people have religious devotion, so for me it's really a question of whether pragmatism outweighs zealotry.

I don't think labeling people who distrust Oracle as religious fanatics will turn the discussion into a constructive direction.

Yes, you're absolutely right, and that wasn't my intent. (If I could edit it, I'd tone it down a little.)

My goal is just to have people consider the case on its merits.

If you've thought about it and concluded "OK, I see what you're offering, but I'm distrustful of Oracle based on past behavior, and that outweighs your benefits", awesome. I might not agree, but at least we had a reasonable discussion about it.

As opposed to, e.g. "Oracle bad. Google good. Microsoft bad." (Which I'm totally guilty of myself, so I get where people are coming from.)

Re: Oracle launches "a better alternative to CentOS"

#143

Post by debacle »

wdaher wrote: post #139
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.

Contrary to what you might think, switching distros is not a decision that can be made overnight.

Re: Oracle launches "a better alternative to CentOS"

#144

Post by wdaher »

keithpeter wrote: post #71
sciurus wrote: post #33

The advantage of Oracle Linux that I see is the newer supported kernel version, On both Oracle Linux 5 and 6 you get 3.0, compared to 2.6.18 for RHEL5 and 2.6.32 for RHEL6.

So if one were to run the script mentioned on the landing page that we are discussing, the result would be a kernel change on a server? Disclaimer: I do not support servers, I just have an interest in CentOS/SL on the desktop.

Absolutely not!

(The confusion stems from the fact that Oracle also has the "Unbreakable Enterprise Kernel", which it also offers, but you need to explicitly install that with the "kernel-uek" package.)

Re: Oracle launches "a better alternative to CentOS"

#145

Post by nodata »

ChuckMcM wrote: post #81
jpalomaki wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I could imagine Oracle's long term goal would be to replace Red Hat's role as The Linux Distribution for commercial stuff. One way to do this would be to start this way. Without giving their stuff for free, they would never gain significant share of the total market.

This. I've tried to analyze this a dozen ways and so far the only one that makes sense is that Oracle has decided to kill RedHat. They want a billion dollar OS business and RedHat has that, but they can't just buy RedHat because with Linux the guys just quit and set up service as 'BlueHat' and continue on their merry way and the customers follow them. So. The only way to kill RedHat is to take all of their customers.…

You really need more upvotes :)

Re: Oracle launches "a better alternative to CentOS"

#146

Post by wdaher »

sciurus wrote: post #118
mmmooo wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you sure about this? the public repo seems to show 2.6.18/2.6.32.. This would actually be a dis-advantage in many cases, as a number of vendor utils (I'm looking at you HP) don't play nice w/ 3.x kernels.

They have the Unbreakable Enterprise Kernel (UEK), as well as a RHEL-compatible kernel. I'm not sure which is the default in new installs. https://blogs.oracle.com/linux/entry/oracle_unbreakable_ente...

From the release notes: "By default, both the Unbreakable Enterprise Kernel and the Red Hat Compatible Kernel are installed on the x86_64 (64 bit) platform, and the system boots the Unbreakable Enterprise Kernel by default. If needed, /etc/grub.conf can be modifed to make the system boot with the Red Hat Compatible Kernel by default."

https://oss.oracle.com/el6/docs/RELEASE-NOTES-GA-en.html

Re: Oracle launches "a better alternative to CentOS"

#147

Post by grogs »

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…

Yeah, Oracle's brand/goodwill is completely dead if we're talking about consumers. However, does this effect business decisions at all? Any paid thing is aimed at businesses, and the business doesn't care about open source/ethics issues in the same way.

Re: Oracle launches "a better alternative to CentOS"

#148

Post by re_todd »

phaylon wrote: post #75
wdaher wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that's an accurate summary. And I think the point that you can always switch back to CentOS or Scientific Linux is an important one. Ultimately, this is a topic where a lot of people have religious devotion, so for me it's really a question of whether pragmatism outweighs zealotry.

I don't think labeling people who distrust Oracle as religious fanatics will turn the discussion into a constructive direction.

He had some good points until that negative turn. Too bad I can't downvote him. He just made me dislike Oracle even more.

Re: Oracle launches "a better alternative to CentOS"

#149

Post by [deleted] »

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.

[deleted]

Re: Oracle launches "a better alternative to CentOS"

#150

Post by Buzaga »

wdaher wrote: post #140
druiid wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 :)

yeah, sure
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