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Oracle Buys Ksplice

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Re: Oracle Buys Ksplice

#11

Post by VanL »

Given Oracle's recent activities, I would guess that Ksplice's patent applications are the real prize. There are two that are published:

The first is "Method of finding a safe time to modify code of a running computer program": http://bit.ly/ksplice-1

The second is "Method of determining which computer program functions are changed by an arbitrary source code modification": http://bit.ly/ksplice-2

These are just applications for now, so there is no telling exactly what the claims will look like when they finally leave the patent office. Nevertheless, you can assume that Oracle will keep these alive so that they can address every possible way in which these can be applied to patching running programs.

Re: Oracle Buys Ksplice

#13

Post by Dobbs »

tzs wrote: post #10

The old Unix hacker in me likes Ksplice, from a hacker point of view. However, I wouldn't use it, except in exceptional circumstances (e.g., there is a patch we have to apply now but we can't do scheduled down time). I want to reboot after an update--even an update that does not technically require it--because I want to know my system is in a state that can boot. It is very annoying to do some update, not reboot, and…

This is why I can't stand Gentoo. We had a dude who was the Sysadmin before me who loved it. He upgraded the kernel deleted the old one and didn't reboot. Several months later the server had to be shutdown and didn't come backup. I spent several hours fighting to get the machine to a point where I could rebuild a working kernel.

Within a week I prepared and migrated the system to something more reasonable.

Re: Oracle Buys Ksplice

#14

Post by 6ren »

VanL wrote: post #11

Given Oracle's recent activities, I would guess that Ksplice's patent applications are the real prize. There are two that are published: The first is "Method of finding a safe time to modify code of a running computer program": http://bit.ly/ksplice-1 The second is "Method of determining which computer program functions are changed by an arbitrary source code modification": http://bit.ly/ksplice-2 These are just appl…

> Given Oracle's recent activities

What do you mean? Sure, Oracle is an aggressive company, but they are clearly doing business, and not a non-practicing patent troll. Even in suing Google over Java in Android, they not only use Java but are the center of its development. Sun itself sued [Microsoft] over Java.

This acquisition makes sense to them, since linux is a key part of their vertical offering. If no one else can offer it (because patented), it makes even more sense.

I agree that their IP department would analyze the patent for value in other areas - but how could that be the "real prize", when its final form and very existence is unknown?

That said, hot swapping code has been around for a while e.g. a PhD supervisor of mine had another student working in it around 2005, and these are dated 2009. They might very well have a new technique, applied in a specific area, but would be necessarily limited by prior art.

---

QUESTION: how much value would this patent application be worth as part of this acquisition?

Clearly, it depends on the base value of the company; the contribution of the technology (e.g. acquisitions also acquire customers and talent); the competitive advantage of blocking it (e.g. do customers care about this - is it an important factor in purchasing decisions?); how well this patent blocks it; and how likely it is to be granted in a useful form.

Re: Oracle Buys Ksplice

#15

Post by koenigdavidmj »

tzs wrote: post #10

The old Unix hacker in me likes Ksplice, from a hacker point of view. However, I wouldn't use it, except in exceptional circumstances (e.g., there is a patch we have to apply now but we can't do scheduled down time). I want to reboot after an update--even an update that does not technically require it--because I want to know my system is in a state that can boot. It is very annoying to do some update, not reboot, and…

> A few minutes planned downtime now in much better than hours of unplanned downtime at some indeterminate future time.

This reminds me of something that OpenSolaris did that I really liked. When you updated packages, it would take a ZFS snapshot. It only took up space for the changed bits, and happened almost instantly. If things stopped working after the reboot, then you could select a GRUB menu option to boot into the old snapshot again and everything would work.

Re: Oracle Buys Ksplice

#16

Post by VanL »

6ren wrote: post #14
VanL wrote: post #11

Given Oracle's recent activities, I would guess that Ksplice's patent applications are the real prize. There are two that are published: The first is "Method of finding a safe time to modify code of a running computer program": http://bit.ly/ksplice-1 The second is "Method of determining which computer program functions are changed by an arbitrary source code modification": http://bit.ly/ksplice-2 These are just appl…

> Given Oracle's recent activities What do you mean? Sure, Oracle is an aggressive company, but they are clearly doing business, and not a non-practicing patent troll. Even in suing Google over Java in Android, they not only use Java but are the center of its development. Sun itself sued [Microsoft] over Java. This acquisition makes sense to them, since linux is a key part of their vertical offering. If no one else c…

Oracle is extremely aggressive about IP enforcement - and just because you haven't heard about it in court, doesn't mean that it isn't happening. Ninety-nine percent of these issues are settled quietly. I have been on the other side of licensing discussions twice this year alone.

It is not just patents - they are actively trying to monetize their IP, including changing license terms (see the evolution of the license for the JDK/JRE download, particularly the "Definitions" and "Commercial Features" sections), modifying support structures (see the modification of MySQL or OpenSolaris support prices and terms) to drive more revenue from what they bought from Sun.

I understand why they are doing this - Larry Ellison being a billionaire and all - and I am not calling them a troll (unlike, say, Intellectual Ventures).

Nevertheless, I would not shake Larry Ellison's hand without checking my pockets afterward to see if I had just incurred a licensing fee.

As to your question: There is a substantial difference in value between a patent family that is closed and a patent family that is open. An open family can have continuations that contain claims specifically modified to read on work-arounds, whereas a closed family can only be interpreted to read on work-arounds through broader claim interpretation or the doctrine of equivalents.

Re: Oracle Buys Ksplice

#18

Post by blhack »

Dobbs wrote: post #13
tzs wrote: post #10

The old Unix hacker in me likes Ksplice, from a hacker point of view. However, I wouldn't use it, except in exceptional circumstances (e.g., there is a patch we have to apply now but we can't do scheduled down time). I want to reboot after an update--even an update that does not technically require it--because I want to know my system is in a state that can boot. It is very annoying to do some update, not reboot, and…

This is why I can't stand Gentoo. We had a dude who was the Sysadmin before me who loved it. He upgraded the kernel deleted the old one and didn't reboot. Several months later the server had to be shutdown and didn't come backup. I spent several hours fighting to get the machine to a point where I could rebuild a working kernel. Within a week I prepared and migrated the system to something more reasonable.

What does this have to do with gentoo?

Re: Oracle Buys Ksplice

#19

Post by mjdwitt »

Dobbs wrote: post #13
tzs wrote: post #10

The old Unix hacker in me likes Ksplice, from a hacker point of view. However, I wouldn't use it, except in exceptional circumstances (e.g., there is a patch we have to apply now but we can't do scheduled down time). I want to reboot after an update--even an update that does not technically require it--because I want to know my system is in a state that can boot. It is very annoying to do some update, not reboot, and…

This is why I can't stand Gentoo. We had a dude who was the Sysadmin before me who loved it. He upgraded the kernel deleted the old one and didn't reboot. Several months later the server had to be shutdown and didn't come backup. I spent several hours fighting to get the machine to a point where I could rebuild a working kernel. Within a week I prepared and migrated the system to something more reasonable.

It seems to me that your kernel issues are more related to your predecessor's failures as an admin than to Gentoo. Nothing you can do on Gentoo can't be done on most distributions, including poorly-done kernel upgrades.

Re: Oracle Buys Ksplice

#20

Post by prolepunk »

mjdwitt wrote: post #19
Dobbs wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is why I can't stand Gentoo. We had a dude who was the Sysadmin before me who loved it. He upgraded the kernel deleted the old one and didn't reboot. Several months later the server had to be shutdown and didn't come backup. I spent several hours fighting to get the machine to a point where I could rebuild a working kernel. Within a week I prepared and migrated the system to something more reasonable.

It seems to me that your kernel issues are more related to your predecessor's failures as an admin than to Gentoo. Nothing you can do on Gentoo can't be done on most distributions, including poorly-done kernel upgrades.

Nah, it's gentoo that sucks. I don't see anything like that happening in binary distributions, or assembling anything from ports in FreeBSD.

I've administered a few gentoo machines a few years ago and can attest that it's a major PIA. Or let me elaborate a bit, system failures that happened on gentoo didn't seem to happen on other systems, system failures that also happened on other system took significantly more time to resolve and required much deeper knowledge of system internals than debian, centos or whatnot.

When I finally moved everything to debian and my time spent on system administration tasks went down dramatically.

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