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Oracle finally targets Java non-payers – six years after plucking Sun

theregister.co.uk

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Re: Oracle finally targets Java non-payers – six years after plucking Sun

#21

Post by xenadu02 »

krylon wrote: post #5

Bryan Cantrill has called Oracle the North Star of Rage - whenever you are confused or lost, you can realign your coordinate system relative to Oracle. I have never had to deal with Oracle, but every time I read something about them in the news, I think of of that nice quote and tend to agree a little more with Mr. Cantrill. On the other hand, I wonder why they do this? This can only hurt Java. I would imagine some c…

Let me tell you... my company got acquired by Oracle. We thought things would be OK. Nothing changed immediately. Slowly but surely they turned the screws. 5 year laptop replacement policy. You get the corporate standard laptop and you'll like it. Sales? Oh those guys can buy new Macs every two years, they get whatever they want. Then you understand where Software Engineers rank in the company hierarchy. Oracle took the average price of our product from $100k to $5 million for the same size deals. Our sales went from $5-7m to more than $40m with no increasing in engineering headcount (team of 15). Didn't matter when bonus time came, we all got stack-ranked and some people got nothing. As a top performer I got a few options, worth maybe $5k.

Oracle exists to extract the maximum amount of money possible from the Fortune 1000. Everyone else can fuck off. Your impotent internet rage is meaningless. If it doesn't piss off the CTO of $X then it doesn't matter. If it gets that CTO to cut a bigger check then it will be embraced with extreme enthusiasm.

The culture wears down a lot (but not all) of the good people, who then leave. What's left is a lot of mediocrity and architecture astronauts. The more complex the product the better - it means extra consulting dollars!

My relative works at a business dependent on Micros. When Oracle announced the acquisition I told them to start on the backup plan immediately because Oracle was going to screw them sooner or later. A few years on and that is proving true: Oracle is slowly excising the Micros dealers and ISVs out of the picture, gobbling up all the revenue while hiking prices.

tl;dr: If your company is getting acquired by Oracle run away. I wish I had followed my instincts and bailed out much sooner. The place is horrible as a matter of policy to drive down the cost of software engineers so they don't have to make as many layoffs from their constant stream of acquisitions.

Re: Oracle finally targets Java non-payers – six years after plucking Sun

#22

Post by tluyben2 »

xenadu02 wrote: post #21
krylon wrote: post #5

Bryan Cantrill has called Oracle the North Star of Rage - whenever you are confused or lost, you can realign your coordinate system relative to Oracle. I have never had to deal with Oracle, but every time I read something about them in the news, I think of of that nice quote and tend to agree a little more with Mr. Cantrill. On the other hand, I wonder why they do this? This can only hurt Java. I would imagine some c…

Let me tell you... my company got acquired by Oracle. We thought things would be OK. Nothing changed immediately. Slowly but surely they turned the screws. 5 year laptop replacement policy. You get the corporate standard laptop and you'll like it. Sales? Oh those guys can buy new Macs every two years, they get whatever they want. Then you understand where Software Engineers rank in the company hierarchy. Oracle took…

I even ran away when Oracle acquired our main partner (BEA). My colleagues didn't understand (ramblings of a paranoid CTO or whatever) but sure enough Oracle basically cut all deals we had and made our business worthless after all that investment. A few (techies) got out in time and they managed to pivot after that successfully. I left Java completely; never used it after that.

Re: Oracle finally targets Java non-payers – six years after plucking Sun

#23

Post by krylon »

Sanddancer wrote: post #11
tmd83 wrote: post #7

The article was very confusing to me. Does it really mean if I get the standard download that might have some licensed components (Flight recorder for example) I'm on the hook even if I don't enable/use those features? The VM even has flag for unlocking commercial feature so that doesn't make sense. Or is it the fact that people are using commercial features thinking that all the free downloaded bits are free, that s…

Your best bet is probably to use the OpenJDK build for Windows. It's an MSI file and it doesn't have any of the Oracle crap attached to it. https://developers.redhat.com/products/openjdk/overview/

Thank you! I did not even know that existed!

Re: Oracle finally targets Java non-payers – six years after plucking Sun

#24

Post by chris_wot »

I guess I'd like to know what features are used that activate the licensing conditions? i.e. the specific software or libraries that are part of Java SE Advanced & Suite

I have to say that I'm entirely unsurprised though. Oracle has been doing this across their database space for many years: they are kings of the dodgy shakedown. Anyone who decides to go with Oracle on any new venture or as part of any new development are absolutely insane to do so...

I'm genuinely waiting (or at least, I was waiting before Trump was voted in as President) for the U.S. Government to litigate against Oracle.

Re: Oracle finally targets Java non-payers – six years after plucking Sun

#25

Post by drvdevd »

oceante wrote: post #13

This entire article is bullshit clickbait designed to appeal to select baseless biases. It offers no meaningful content except for this single sentence: "The Register has learned of one customer in retail with 80,000 PCs which was informed by Oracle it was in breach on Java." There are no further details about why this customer was "targeted" or the nature of their licensing deal with Oracle. I would think after all…

Yeah I'm not in love with Java, but let's also not forget that Google has successfully extracted Java from Oracle's hands at this point, to a billion-or-so installation extent.

Re: Oracle finally targets Java non-payers – six years after plucking Sun

#26

Post by donatj »

bitmapbrother wrote: post #16
DoctorNick wrote: post #4

Java cannot die soon enough.

Java isn't going anywhere. C#, though, does seem to be dying.

I have literally no idea what would lead you to that conclusion. C# has been growing by leaps and bounds.

Re: Oracle finally targets Java non-payers – six years after plucking Sun

#27

Post by paulstovell »

xenadu02 wrote: post #21
krylon wrote: post #5

Bryan Cantrill has called Oracle the North Star of Rage - whenever you are confused or lost, you can realign your coordinate system relative to Oracle. I have never had to deal with Oracle, but every time I read something about them in the news, I think of of that nice quote and tend to agree a little more with Mr. Cantrill. On the other hand, I wonder why they do this? This can only hurt Java. I would imagine some c…

Let me tell you... my company got acquired by Oracle. We thought things would be OK. Nothing changed immediately. Slowly but surely they turned the screws. 5 year laptop replacement policy. You get the corporate standard laptop and you'll like it. Sales? Oh those guys can buy new Macs every two years, they get whatever they want. Then you understand where Software Engineers rank in the company hierarchy. Oracle took…

> Oracle took the average price of our product from $100k to $5 million for the same size deals. Our sales went from $5-7m to more than $40m with no increasing in engineering headcount (team of 15)

Not that I like the Oracle sales model, but that is impressive. Playing devils advocate, perhaps they are justified to treat sales so well.

Re: Oracle finally targets Java non-payers – six years after plucking Sun

#28

Post by Bombthecat »

random3 wrote: post #10

Oracle will become the new SCO :) That said, the article is a bit fuzzy. For example, if you want to use Flight Recorder you have to explicitly enable commercial features UnlockCommercialFeatures. This is however free for non-production use. That is "designing, developing and testing" http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/java/javase/terms/license/... > A. COMMERCIAL FEATURES. You may not use the Commercial Features for…

Oracle won't die anytime soon.the database from oracle is just too good for big data.

Re: Oracle finally targets Java non-payers – six years after plucking Sun

#29

Post by smonff »

krylon wrote: post #23
Sanddancer wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your best bet is probably to use the OpenJDK build for Windows. It's an MSI file and it doesn't have any of the Oracle crap attached to it. https://developers.redhat.com/products/openjdk/overview/

Thank you! I did not even know that existed!

Also, OpenJDKs packages exists for various GNU/Linux distributions.

Re: Oracle finally targets Java non-payers – six years after plucking Sun

#30

Post by Bombthecat »

xenadu02 wrote: post #21
krylon wrote: post #5

Bryan Cantrill has called Oracle the North Star of Rage - whenever you are confused or lost, you can realign your coordinate system relative to Oracle. I have never had to deal with Oracle, but every time I read something about them in the news, I think of of that nice quote and tend to agree a little more with Mr. Cantrill. On the other hand, I wonder why they do this? This can only hurt Java. I would imagine some c…

Let me tell you... my company got acquired by Oracle. We thought things would be OK. Nothing changed immediately. Slowly but surely they turned the screws. 5 year laptop replacement policy. You get the corporate standard laptop and you'll like it. Sales? Oh those guys can buy new Macs every two years, they get whatever they want. Then you understand where Software Engineers rank in the company hierarchy. Oracle took…

IBM is doing the same thing.axway too. And I bet a ton of others too.

Making money is no soooo easy: hire sales,drain the engeneers.

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