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A Story of O(racle)

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Re: A Story of O(racle)

#11

Post by maukdaddy »

TY wrote: post #8
bad_user wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having an engineering culture and fostering developer mindshare ... hasn't been a bad business choice for companies like Google or Apple or Microsoft (at least in their early days). And last time I checked, all 3 companies mentioned are bigger in market cap then Oracle. What strikes me is ... how the fuck did Jonathan Schwartz allow the selling of Sun to a company who's culture is so different?

To the question of why it was sold to a company with such a vastly different culture. Because it does not matter to the shareholders what kind of culture Oracle has. The only metric that mattered was how much money Oracle was willing to pay for Sun vs another bidder. Using any other criteria would just launch a nasty shareholder lawsuit against Sun's soon to be departed management...

^ More hackers need to understand this. When you go pubic with an IPO, the shareholders are in charge. The Board and CEO are elected on behalf of those shareholders. The Board and CEO's function is to maximize shareholder value. If a CEO doesn't consider an extremely generous bid then he is breaking his fiduciary duty to those shareholders, and will be out of a job.

Re: A Story of O(racle)

#12

Post by DanielRibeiro »

protomyth wrote: post #2

> The central relationship between Oracle and its customers is a business relationship ... The concerns of developers are just not material at the level of that conversation Sadly, this is why Oracle could buy Sun and not the other way around.

Oracle is a watefallish and conservative enterprise product company. The only surprise is that anyone is surprised by what Oracle does and how.

"Do no evil" is some other company's motto. That is actually being sued by Oracle.

Re: A Story of O(racle)

#13

Post by rmorrison »

If you have experience with your startup partnering (or trying to partner) with Oracle, could you please contact me? Particularly, if Oracle added your product to their price lists (or if you were trying to make this happen).

Thank you very much.

Re: A Story of O(racle)

#14

Post by j_baker »

Much as I dislike this as a developer, this is a smart business strategy for Oracle. Let's face it: at the companies that use Oracle, the developers aren't the one making the call as to what database to use. That's the call of much higher-ups.

About the only solution I can suggest is to avoid working for such companies, but I'm be preaching to the choir to say that.

Re: A Story of O(racle)

#15

Post by etherael »

abeppu wrote: post #10
TrevorBramble wrote: post #3

Some might miss the significance of the post title: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Story_of_O

Is there an allusion or metaphor implicit here that I'm not getting?

I'd wager it has something to do with slavery. And I'd wager the development community is not on the dominant side of the analogous relationship.

Re: A Story of O(racle)

#16

Post by Estragon »

abeppu wrote: post #10
TrevorBramble wrote: post #3

Some might miss the significance of the post title: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Story_of_O

Is there an allusion or metaphor implicit here that I'm not getting?

Google propaganda suggesting (perhaps fairly) that a developer's relationship with Oracle is unavoidably abusive?

Re: A Story of O(racle)

#17

Post by TrevorBramble »

abeppu wrote: post #10
TrevorBramble wrote: post #3

Some might miss the significance of the post title: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Story_of_O

Is there an allusion or metaphor implicit here that I'm not getting?

Bluntly, I assume he's implying it's an appropriate parallel to the relationship between Oracle and its customers, as described in the post. (I may be reading into it too much.)

Re: A Story of O(racle)

#18

Post by jrockway »

maukdaddy wrote: post #11
TY wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To the question of why it was sold to a company with such a vastly different culture. Because it does not matter to the shareholders what kind of culture Oracle has. The only metric that mattered was how much money Oracle was willing to pay for Sun vs another bidder. Using any other criteria would just launch a nasty shareholder lawsuit against Sun's soon to be departed management...

^ More hackers need to understand this. When you go pubic with an IPO, the shareholders are in charge. The Board and CEO are elected on behalf of those shareholders. The Board and CEO's function is to maximize shareholder value. If a CEO doesn't consider an extremely generous bid then he is breaking his fiduciary duty to those shareholders, and will be out of a job.

How did Oracle maximize their value by buying Sun? Sun has Solaris, Java, and VirtualBox. All are free. When Oracle took over, everyone that worked for Sun quit.

So Oracle paid a lot of money for a bunch of free stuff. Why?

Re: A Story of O(racle)

#19

Post by jrockway »

j_baker wrote: post #14

Much as I dislike this as a developer, this is a smart business strategy for Oracle. Let's face it: at the companies that use Oracle, the developers aren't the one making the call as to what database to use. That's the call of much higher-ups. About the only solution I can suggest is to avoid working for such companies, but I'm be preaching to the choir to say that.

That's true. The higher-ups can say which database to use and hire a bunch of people to set it up. But if the developers ignore them, they have no way of actually determining this. (Which is what's so great about mandates from Higher Up.)

Re: A Story of O(racle)

#20

Post by Jun8 »

abeppu wrote: post #10
TrevorBramble wrote: post #3

Some might miss the significance of the post title: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Story_of_O

Is there an allusion or metaphor implicit here that I'm not getting?

On a tangential note, if you think The Story of O is about an abusive relationship, I'd say you haven't read the book or watched the movie: (i) O willingly enters the relationship (ordeal may be a better word here) and (ii) it's not your usual S&M or Belle de Jour story either, because she also gains power over her lover, e.g. see the last scene in the movie.

So, the analogy may be more apt than the crude master-slave relationship that people have commented here: many companies willingly choose Oracle, knowing full well its tactics and that they will be locked in.

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