"No one saw this coming. People talked about Oracle making its own Linux, or buying a Linux company (Ubuntu?). But, the news that Oracle is erasing Red Hat's trademarks from Unbreakable Linux and supporting it for less than Red Hat is a bolt from the blue. Or, perhaps, I should say that Oracle is firing a shot at the heart of Red Hat, and commercial Linux? This really, really ticks me off." Apparently, Oracle announced that they will provide full enterprise support for Linux and so it competes with RH.
To read all comments associated with this story, please click here.
Member since:2005-07-07
What a kick in the nads...but like the previous poster said. It is a free market, and this is how opensource works.
Not really, and yes this is how OSS works.
Now a few serious questions.
...
How many of RH deployments are running Oracle? Not many. Nope, their gonads won't suffer.
Would you buy a web/mail... server and count on support for those from Oracle? I know I wouldn't.
Would you prefer Oracle DB would come in its own distro? Yes, I would. It would make it much easier to deploy and maintain (which was pain in the ass for now).
Now the final word from me. Linux was and it will be in thousand flavors. Sometimes it is just a basic router, sometimes SBS server and sometimes a full fledged distro. Redhat doesn't own the market and controls the brand. And just as Oracle is now using their work, they use a lot of work from others. It is just how ordinary OSS coexistence and cooperation works. And if RH wouldn't like this model, they wouldn't be in this business.
Member since:2006-02-17
How many of RH deployments are running Oracle?
I'd venture to say quite a few. It's an immensely popular platform for Oracle and a primary cause for Oracle's interest.
Would you buy a web/mail... server and count on support for those from Oracle?
Hell no! Moreover, I've dealt with Oracle support before for Oracle, and I'm sure I'd be better off with a third-party over Oracle to support their own product.
I don't think RedHat has too much to worry about. If there's one thing that bothers me about this is that my experience with Oracle thus far (as a client and as a once prospective employee that was turned off by what I learned on my visit) is pretty negative. They are a company built founded on a solid database product and have tried to branch out with dubious results. In my estimation, Oracle will get huge attention for this, do a half-assed job of it, and give nothing back to the community.
Member since:2005-08-26
The thing is, they say they're going to provide support for people who are also NOT running Oracle.
"Oracle will offer "full support" for Red Hat's Linux distribution to both Oracle and non-Oracle customers, Larry Ellison, chief executive officer of Oracle Corp., said Wednesday. He was giving the closing keynote at his company's OpenWorld conference in San Francisco."
That's interesting but it makes things a little confusing. You can't download RHEL without a subscription for updates, not that I'm aware of anyway. So how would this work at all?
Member since:2006-10-26
Member since:2006-01-25
The real one who is going to suffer here is Microsoft.
Linux now has another big name supporting it... the more big names that are supporting it, the fact is it means big businesses are going to feel more comfortable switching to it. Also, as its still under the GPL, this can help RedHat fix bugs faster if Oracle does it first, and if they are supporting older RHEL releases, thats going to make it a lot easier for RHEL to begin supporting their older releases for longer, which will make corporations even more comfortable to use Linux.
Finally, the last blow to Microsoft is if this has any level of success, its going to start to cause some price wars in the Linux enterprise support community, so prices of Linux support are about to drop fast, which is a huge part of what Microsoft uses to claim that Windows has a lower TCO then Linux. If this helps drop the TCO of Linux, and it will, Microsoft is going to suffer even more. This is just pure good news.
Member since:
2005-08-12
What a kick in the nads...but like the previous poster said. It is a free market, and this is how opensource works. I always thought Red Hat prices were a bit steep as it stood. They have been enjoying the premium pricing for some time now, I guess this will shake things up a bit.