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Keep Linux Open and Free–We Can’t Afford Not To

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Re: Keep Linux Open and Free–We Can’t Afford Not To

#111

Post by BeefWellington »

gunapologist99 wrote: post #64

> Finally, to IBM, here’s a big idea for you. You say that you don’t want to pay all those RHEL developers? Here’s how you can save money: just pull from us. Become a downstream distributor of Oracle Linux. We will happily take on the burden. Not only is this a brilliant troll, it's also true. Oracle could easily take this on if it's such a burden for IBM.

They really couldn't. If you've ever worked with OEL in any technical capacity you can kinda tell Oracle doesn't have a shred of the Linux expertise that Red Hat does. They can report to upstream (RHEL) but that's about it. It's trite and funny of them to troll IBM but it's a laughable idea. If Red Hat were to take them up on it it would be a disaster within probably weeks.

The decision by Red Hat/IBM here is incredibly shortsighted and stupid.

Re: Keep Linux Open and Free–We Can’t Afford Not To

#112

Post by BeefWellington »

helsinkiandrew wrote: post #13

Hopefully this is a wake up call for IBM - Oracle is shaming you for not acting in the public good. Oracle!

They don't care. Some accountant somewhere probably did a really simple calculation and figured they'd sell more into their captive clients than they'd lose to other distributions this way and they called the shot.

IBM has been run by the accountants for forever.

Re: Keep Linux Open and Free–We Can’t Afford Not To

#113

Post by SauciestGNU »

unmole wrote: post #106
chasil wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oracle does care about open source, to the extent that they have been the top Linux kernel contributor several times. https://blogs.oracle.com/linux/post/oracle-is-the-1-contribu... Oracle actually does not undercut the least expensive Red Hat support offerings. Oracle Linux support is $499/year for basic, and $1,399/year for premier. Both tiers allow 24x7 access to file service requests (SRs). https://www.oracle.com…

> Oracle does care about open source, to the extent that they have been the top Linux kernel contributor several times. Back when I worked for Huawei, we regularly figured in the list of top contributors to the Linux kernel each cycle. I never got the impression that Huawei cares about open source. It was just a pragmatic, disinterested business decision. Also, you shouldn't anthropomorphize Oracle.

It's easier to anthropomorphize Oracle if you consider it as One Rich Asshole Called Larry Ellison.

Re: Keep Linux Open and Free–We Can’t Afford Not To

#114

Post by nubinetwork »

unmole wrote: post #107
chasil wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oracle does maintain Solaris, which would seem to me to entail a much larger support burden than Red Hat's stewardship of their enterprise Linux distribution. Oracle also ships a few Linux userspace utilities outside of the main yum repos; the btrfs utilities come to mind. There really isn't any obvious btrfs performance need within Oracle or its products, which runs contrary to the spirit of your observations; in fa…

> Oracle does maintain Solaris, which would seem to me to entail a much larger support burden than Red Hat's stewardship of their enterprise Linux distribution. Solaris was effectively killed off in 2017 when Oracle laid off most people working on it. And Open Solaris is dead too.

Illumos also effectively died when most of their corporate support switched to Linux. Had nothing to do with Oracle.

That said, I believe OpenIndiana is still being maintained, but their release cycle is rather slow.

Re: Keep Linux Open and Free–We Can’t Afford Not To

#115

Post by sangnoir »

chasil wrote: post #22
evan1107 wrote: post #8

Yeah this is just opportunistic PR. Oracle cares less about Open Source than even the most brain dead Red Hatter. As with all things Oracle, they are taking the angle that potentially creates a revenue opportunity for themselves. This is fine. I get it but doing it under the guise of higher open source ideals is comically transparent. Their OEL market share mostly consists of them targeting specific Red Hat accounts…

Oracle does care about open source, to the extent that they have been the top Linux kernel contributor several times. https://blogs.oracle.com/linux/post/oracle-is-the-1-contribu... Oracle actually does not undercut the least expensive Red Hat support offerings. Oracle Linux support is $499/year for basic, and $1,399/year for premier. Both tiers allow 24x7 access to file service requests (SRs). https://www.oracle.com…

> Oracle does care about open source

Counterpoints:

* Oracle killed OpenSolaris.

* Oracle killed OpenOffice (after refusing to hand grant trademarks & related IP to the community until it was too late - well after LibreOffice replaced it on most distros, then dumped it on the Apache Project).

* Oracle killed Hudson (after refusing to hand grant trademarks & related IP to the community until it was too late - well after Jenkins had replaced it on the market, then dumped it on the Apache Project).

* Oracle attempted to make case law such that APIs fall under copyright. Oracle appealed Google v. Oracle all the way up to SCOTUS. Since countless open source projects are re-implement proprietary APIs (e.g. S3 protocol, Wine/Proton), and adverse ruling would have been catastrophic.

Re: Keep Linux Open and Free–We Can’t Afford Not To

#116

Post by beckingz »

SauciestGNU wrote: post #113
unmole wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Oracle does care about open source, to the extent that they have been the top Linux kernel contributor several times. Back when I worked for Huawei, we regularly figured in the list of top contributors to the Linux kernel each cycle. I never got the impression that Huawei cares about open source. It was just a pragmatic, disinterested business decision. Also, you shouldn't anthropomorphize Oracle.

It's easier to anthropomorphize Oracle if you consider it as One Rich Asshole Called Larry Ellison.

Yeah but the dude is like a lawnmower

Re: Keep Linux Open and Free–We Can’t Afford Not To

#117

Post by klooney »

Hamcha wrote: post #38
chasil wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oracle does care about open source, to the extent that they have been the top Linux kernel contributor several times. https://blogs.oracle.com/linux/post/oracle-is-the-1-contribu... Oracle actually does not undercut the least expensive Red Hat support offerings. Oracle Linux support is $499/year for basic, and $1,399/year for premier. Both tiers allow 24x7 access to file service requests (SRs). https://www.oracle.com…

They care so much for open source that they instantly killed OpenSolaris even if that led to much of the team quitting. They also very much care to create an open and competitive environment, that's why their reps repeatedly refused to sell us licenses to have Solaris run under VMWare ESXi, demanding we replace our ESXi deployments with... VirtualBox (no, really).

Honestly, what was the point of continuing to fund OpenSolaris? Tiny market share, no prospects for improvement. They're already funding a different open source operating system.

Caring about open source isn't about funding infinite options everywhere.

Re: Keep Linux Open and Free–We Can’t Afford Not To

#118

Post by Hamcha »

klooney wrote: post #117
Hamcha wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They care so much for open source that they instantly killed OpenSolaris even if that led to much of the team quitting. They also very much care to create an open and competitive environment, that's why their reps repeatedly refused to sell us licenses to have Solaris run under VMWare ESXi, demanding we replace our ESXi deployments with... VirtualBox (no, really).

Honestly, what was the point of continuing to fund OpenSolaris? Tiny market share, no prospects for improvement. They're already funding a different open source operating system. Caring about open source isn't about funding infinite options everywhere.

They kept developing and selling Solaris and OpenSolaris kept the team happy. I doubt it was going to be that expensive on their part, especially if they could use Solaris sales to fund it.

Also part of OpenSolaris was OpenZFS, used in many NAS systems worldwide. When they killed OpenSolaris the ZFS people also left Oracle.

Re: Keep Linux Open and Free–We Can’t Afford Not To

#119

Post by vram22 »

josephcsible wrote: post #57
whartung wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And to be fair, Oracle has been a remarkably good steward of Java. It's truly amazing how fast and far Java has come since the Java 7 and Java 8 days. It's been on a rocket sled of development, while still being shockingly well behaved for earlier code. If there's any critique, it's "too fast". But that's nonsense, since the LTS work helps maintain stability. And it's pretty wide open. They keep some things close to…

> Oracle has been a remarkably good steward of Java Well, other than ramming through modules and the --add-opens fiasco from Java 9.

What was the issue about modules?

Re: Keep Linux Open and Free–We Can’t Afford Not To

#120

Post by stuaxo »

unmole wrote: post #106
chasil wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oracle does care about open source, to the extent that they have been the top Linux kernel contributor several times. https://blogs.oracle.com/linux/post/oracle-is-the-1-contribu... Oracle actually does not undercut the least expensive Red Hat support offerings. Oracle Linux support is $499/year for basic, and $1,399/year for premier. Both tiers allow 24x7 access to file service requests (SRs). https://www.oracle.com…

> Oracle does care about open source, to the extent that they have been the top Linux kernel contributor several times. Back when I worked for Huawei, we regularly figured in the list of top contributors to the Linux kernel each cycle. I never got the impression that Huawei cares about open source. It was just a pragmatic, disinterested business decision. Also, you shouldn't anthropomorphize Oracle.

We should always remember companies are just groups of humans who are accountable for their actions.
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