"Yesterday Oracle announced the release of their own version of Red Hat Enterprise Linux, simply called Enterprise Linux or 'Unbreakable Linux'. In a remarkably similar move to such projects as CentOS, Oracle have decided to remove all Red Hat specific trademarks and brand it as their own (all quite legit, of course). They will be supplying bugfixes for this new version, and will also be synchronising it with future releases of Red Hat Enterprise Linux. We decided to take a peek at what Oracle had come up with. Read on for a first-look, and the Linux Format team's opinions." In the meantime, Mark Shuttleworth said a partnership with Oracle is no longer a matter of if, but when.
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Member since:2005-07-06
So what if IBM, HP and everyone else under the sun releases a linux distro?
If the support is good and the price(s) are right then more power to them!
Thats quite a short and narrow view. Redhat has proven to be an OSS advocate and has put a lot of their own resources into developing the 'Linux platform'. Oracle on the other hand may just take the money, which will likely be a net loss to Redhat, and not use it to develop the 'linux platform' in needed areas. Therefore 'ceteris paribus' the 'Linux platform' will have fewer resources developing it than if the money had gone to Redhat.
But there are a lot of factors and how it all ends up I don't pretend to know.
Member since:2005-07-24
"Oracle on the other hand may just take the money, which will likely be a net loss to Redhat, and not use it to develop the 'linux platform' in needed areas. Therefore 'ceteris paribus' the 'Linux platform' will have fewer resources developing it than if the money had gone to Redhat."
You're assuming a zero-sum game, that overall Linux usage is stagnant. That's not the case. Linux usage is growing. If Oracle actively promotes its own version, Linux may grow even more.
Oracle is a lot more likely to bring in new customers from outside the current Linux market than it is to steal existing customers from Red Hat. There's a lot of untapped wealth out there. If Oracle can bring some of it in, it should help ALL of the Linux distributions.
Member since:2005-11-13
Thats quite a short and narrow view. Redhat has proven to be an OSS advocate and has put a lot of their own resources into developing the 'Linux platform'. Oracle on the other hand may just take the money, which will likely be a net loss to Redhat, and not use it to develop the 'linux platform' in needed areas. Therefore 'ceteris paribus' the 'Linux platform' will have fewer resources developing it than if the money had gone to Redhat.
Any company that is going to get serious about enterprise linux and sell the operating system is going to end up being an advocate of OSS on some level, there is no way to avoid it once you start making money and people are calling you for support.
If a company never gives back or devotes any resources to making the product better (even a free product they rebadged) then I doubt they will be there for the long haul.
Member since:2006-04-21
Thats quite a short and narrow view. Redhat has proven to be an OSS advocate and has put a lot of their own resources into developing the 'Linux platform'. Oracle on the other hand may just take the money, which will likely be a net loss to Redhat, and not use it to develop the 'linux platform' in needed areas. Therefore 'ceteris paribus' the 'Linux platform' will have fewer resources developing it than if the money had gone to Redhat.
Any company that makes a serious effort at selling a FOSS product is going to be "an open source advocate"; if it doesn't, their FOSS efforts will be ignored. I'm all for truth in advertising, but no company is going to sell a FOSS product and be anti-FOSS; that'd be like saying "Don't buy this, it's crap; in fact don't buy from us, because we sell crap". No company is or should be doing that.
EDIT: Well, ok, apart from SCO. But we're not talking about pathological cases, here. Normally the inmates don't run the asylum.
Edited 2006-10-26 21:49
Member since:
2005-11-13
Oracle is acting against the general goodwill of open source.
Oracle is operating within the licensing rights granted in the GPL.
Last thing we want is IBM, Sun, HP and everyone else to have their version of Linux.
Who exactly is *we*?
So what if IBM, HP and everyone else under the sun releases a linux distro?
If the support is good and the price(s) are right then more power to them!