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

Re: Oracle launches "a better alternative to CentOS"

#151

Post by jgeorge » Wed, Jul 18, 2012, 5:58 PM UTC

wdaher wrote: post #142

phaylon wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 op…

I compliment you on your enthusiasm, wish you success in bringing Oracle better reputation in the Linux community, and respectfully submit that I am distrustful of Oracle based on past behavior - specific to my experiences, not altruistically to the community in general.

And for zealotry analytics, Oracle:bad Google:bad Microsoft:bad Apple:bad. Just because I use an OS (or several) doesn't mean I completely trust the intents of the companies supplying that OS (or several).

Re: Oracle launches "a better alternative to CentOS"

#152

Post by cinch » Wed, Jul 18, 2012, 6:04 PM UTC

wdaher wrote: post #120

davidmr wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm trying very hard to be as neutral as possible (as opposed to "Oracle bad. Raaaaar!"), but I've been part of the HPC community for a long time, and Oracle has done their best to tell us that we don't matter at all to them (Grid Engine, Lustre, etc.). I understand that the margins on HPC aren't great, so I don't necessarily fault them, but it leaves a very bad taste. That's just one community of many who feel like…

There's a ton to talk about in the "Why Oracle Linux and not RHEL" department, but I'm not trying to sell you anything, so I want to set that aside for now. (I have to say, though, even the "big price tag" is significantly smaller than RHEL's). Instead, I want to look at the following case: you're a sysadmin running CentOS. You don't pay anyone for support, and you have no intention of ever doing so. There, I think t…

I dont get why your QA is better than red hats. They have a much longer experience with their product.

Re: Oracle launches "a better alternative to CentOS"

#153

Post by moe » Wed, Jul 18, 2012, 6:09 PM UTC

wdaher wrote: post #129

Spearchucker wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Useful it may be, but after more than 10 years of having to work with Oracle products and consultants, the first thing that jumped at me was ...doesn't Oracle Linux cost money? A: Oracle Linux support costs money That "support" word, right there, is the thing that makes me stay as far from Oracle as I can. It's like "Dude, here's the software. Have it, it's cheap/free." When things go wrong you get stung for exorbita…

I'm totally with you on fear of lockin, but for what it's worth, this particular case is basically the opposite of lock-in. You can, at any time, switch away to CentOS, Scientific Linux, or Red Hat (if you're willing to write the check) and not have to totally reinvent your stack from scratch, since they're all binary-compatible.

Then why mess with Oracle to begin with?

There are so many mature linux distros to choose from and plenty have trustworthy, battle-tested, commercial support-options if that's what you need.

I can't come up with a plausible reason why anyone would even consider Oracle.

Re: Oracle launches "a better alternative to CentOS"

#154

Post by gaius » Wed, Jul 18, 2012, 6:14 PM UTC

skorgu wrote: post #114

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…

Look, with all due respect we're not blind to it. I'm sure Oracle Linux is a fine piece of software, I bet it's just as good as RHEL and I'll even spot you that your support team is equally good as Red Hat's. We do not have technical objections to the work you've done. We simply don't trust your employer to behave with anything even approaching good faith in any interaction. What happened to Solaris alone is a huge w…

What has happened to Solaris?

Re: Oracle launches "a better alternative to CentOS"

#155

Post by gaius » Wed, Jul 18, 2012, 6:16 PM UTC

Spearchucker wrote: post #94

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…

Useful it may be, but after more than 10 years of having to work with Oracle products and consultants, the first thing that jumped at me was ...doesn't Oracle Linux cost money? A: Oracle Linux support costs money That "support" word, right there, is the thing that makes me stay as far from Oracle as I can. It's like "Dude, here's the software. Have it, it's cheap/free." When things go wrong you get stung for exorbita…

Uhh, you know RHEL costs money too? A lot of money.

Re: Oracle launches "a better alternative to CentOS"

#156

Post by moe » Wed, Jul 18, 2012, 6:16 PM UTC

mistermumble wrote: post #99

wdaher wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

About half of this is accurate. We didn't discontinue support for CentOS; our legacy customers can continue to get access to Ksplice for all the distros we used to support. We did stop accepting new customers for anything other than Oracle Linux, though. The same source code that Ksplice made available at http://ksplice.com/software is also now currently at https://oss.oracle.com/ksplice/software/

The bottom line is that CentOS is now a second-class citizen with regard to support from KSplice, compared to Ubuntu and Fedora. See the KSplice download page at http://www.ksplice.com/uptrack/download in which CentOS is missing. Regarding the source code, yes the original code was GPLed is still available. But are you saying that Oracle/KSplice will continue to make available ongoing versions of KSplice? The link yo…

Sounds like the classic bait and switch. Down the road there surely will be more interesting features (virtualization comes to mind) that can unfortunately not be supported in the free version of Oracle linux. But hey, special deal, just $999/yr and you won't have to migrate to a different distro for that one feature!

Plus included with the price you get our awesome support-plan which you never call, but when you do it will only take weeks before they return a canned response designed to make you buy more products instead of actually solving your problem!

Personally I don't regret sticking with deb-based distros. They have problems of their own, but at least none of this extortion-bullshit.

Re: Oracle launches "a better alternative to CentOS"

#157

Post by keithpeter » Wed, Jul 18, 2012, 6:20 PM UTC

acabal wrote: post #122

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…

I came here to say I wouldn't touch any Oracle product with a 10-foot pole, but you put it so much better.

This isn't an Oracle product. It is a Red Hat product repackaged by Oracle.

Re: Oracle launches "a better alternative to CentOS"

#158

Post by awakeasleep » Wed, Jul 18, 2012, 6:20 PM UTC

wdaher wrote: post #77

mistermumble wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The "guy you're replying to" is Waseem Daher, who was COO and co-founder of KSplice, a startup acquired by Oracle. KSplice provides a mechanism for streaming updates to Linux Kernel and used to support CentOS, Ubuntu and Fedora. After Oracle acquired KSplice, they discontinued support for CentOS while continuing to support the other distros. Oracle also no longer makes available the formerly GPLed code of KSplice. lx…

About half of this is accurate. We didn't discontinue support for CentOS; our legacy customers can continue to get access to Ksplice for all the distros we used to support. We did stop accepting new customers for anything other than Oracle Linux, though. The same source code that Ksplice made available at http://ksplice.com/software is also now currently at https://oss.oracle.com/ksplice/software/

As long as we're noticing how you guys sold out, I'd like to bring up the Ksplice blog.

It used to have some really interesting stuff on there, but after the move to Oracle, the interesting posts disappeared.

I'm talking specifically about 'Coffee shop internet access'. Man that was a cool post and it taught my brother and I a LOT. Then it disappeared, along with most mirrors of it. I was able to find one left, here: http://www.getoto.net/noise/2011/01/18/coffee-shop-internet-...

after around a full 60 minutes of searching-- and it doesn't have the images from the original.

I emailed you guys, and J was kind enough to send me the text of the post, but again no images. She said she hoped the coffee shop post would make it to the oracle blog, but this was about 6 months ago so I don't think that'll happen. Anyway, I hope you're able to do good at Oracle, and I hope that you're still trying to, and I hope that you don't get taken advantage of.

Re: Oracle launches "a better alternative to CentOS"

#159

Post by swa14 » Wed, Jul 18, 2012, 6:26 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.

>>Oracle is just a business.

It's just that it's the kind of business that makes me glad kitten stomping doesn't have an appreciable ROI .

Re: Oracle launches "a better alternative to CentOS"

#160

Post by phaylon » Wed, Jul 18, 2012, 6:30 PM UTC

wdaher wrote: post #142

phaylon wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 op…

Well, in people's minds it's not only "past" behavior, but also the quite current Android/Oracle/Java argument. These things (just like the Microsoft UEFI topic) are discussions about very fundamental issues that could have impact on the freedoms and livelihoods of people here.

I'm not sure how much success you'll have getting people to separate their issues with the larger entity from considering your project. After all, when it comes to business decisions it is understandable that people would want to take these issues into account.

What I could imagine to happen is your project building its own separate (and good) track record from Oracle. I think some people asking for a reverse-to-original option/script might have come off as insincere, but I think it would be a crucial part. If you can say "try it, use it, and if you don't like it or anything happens, there's an up-to-date and tested way of returning to the original", it could alleviate peoples fears for lock-ins.

But it'll be hard to work against things like peoples fears that one of the reasons is an attack on RedHat. The only way to deal with that will be time and good behavior (not doubting that you'll do that, but you came out of a perceived lions cage. So the gazelles will watch you for a while to make sure you aren't a lion after all).