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Oracle Embraces Mozilla
kiggs writes "According to this article from eWeek, Oracle Corp. is ready to extend its 'Linux Everywhere' campaign to client systems. At next week's LinuxWorld in New York, Oracle will announce that it will enable the Mozilla open-source Web browser to run Oracle applications in the coming year.
Dave Dargo, vice president of Oracle's Linux Program Office and the Performance Engineering team within its Platform Technologies Division, says that Oracle will look to expand its 1.5-year-old Linux support program by supporting Linux not just as a server but as a client."
Oh good fucking lord. Would you stop with the shit already? I use KDE, and I use Mozilla. Not only is Mozilla cross platform, but it runs on Gnome and KDE, which means that it will work on SUN Java Desktop. That right there is a big reason to use Mozilla.
KHTML applications are great, if you can silence the fanboyisms. In short, you're not coding it, so shut the fuck up!
I work there and would bet it will be a long time before this works as planned. Way too many internal sights require IE to work at all. We are still at a point where you can NOT have a purely Linux desktop and still get your daily work completed.
I would not say Oracle Apps works on standards like the poster above was explaining either - it requires a Java plugin (very similar to - and based on Sun's Java Plugin) called JInitiator. JInitiator has to be loaded and used by the browser so it it not like any browser can be a client... unless Jinit is ported to the platform and plugin architecture.
It will be a happy day when we can actually USE Linux on the desktop at work though.
Oralce's apps are an entire suite of Business applications.
Order Entry, Accounts Receivable/Payable, Inventory, HR.
While not perfect, for the most part its good stuff.
These apps are currently launched as applets through a custom JVM plugin called Jinitiator launched through IE.
"If they have both, tell them we use Linux. And if they have that, tell them the computers are down." -Dave Chapelle
I guess I don't like the fact that they just work on one distribution and getting it to work elsewhere is a bit of a pain sometimes.
Though last time I ran the newest oracle application server on linux (based on Apache), it seemed they went out of their way to make it a daunting task. There are about 30 other things that start up with the app server and apache.
I guess I think of it as simple - client attaches to apache, apache module connects to oracle, but they are going gung-ho on having all the java stuff, and god knows what else built in. Way to much complexity and it caused nothing but trouble...actually had to back down a release.
It's saturday morning and I'm just ranting, but it seems to me that outside of the database server, which they do well, they do a terrible job of everything else.
Oracle Enterprise Manager is a good example. Used to ba an app that would connect to the database, let you manage it, etc... Now it's this huge Java thing, requires it's own database just to manage other databases, etc... and doesn't seem to work half the time.
I guess I've just had terrible luck with anything java based on Linux (or windows for that matter) - well, anything that goes beyond a simple app.
Oracle has a complete end-to-end ERP/CRM application called Applicaitons 11i which uses a combination of java applets (delivered through Forms Server 6i) JSP's (delivered through apache) etc. The problem is that some of their HTML code makes windows IE only calls (even though they officially support the Mac running IE) using the object tag instead of applet tags, etc. Also, they have a ton of other web apps (Discoverer, their iAS application server and portal server, etc.) all with IE only stuff in them.
-- Chris Martin, System Administrator
A web page that requires some specific browser is hopelessly broken by my definition.
Oracle's web pages do not require a specific browser, their applications do.
The article was not very clear on this.
Oracle does have some web applications (server-side code generating dynamic html pages), like their self-serivce stuff and the e-commerce iStores product.
However, what most of us that use Oracle applications consider to be the "applictions" are the business applictions.
These are things like accounting AR/AP, orders, inventory, HR, GL, etc. This stuff already uses client side Java/swing, presumably to make it a cross-platform product.
The problem is that up until now these applications use a custom Java virtual machine called Jinitiator to launch, and it only works on IE.
If they intend to have this stuff run on Linux, then they need to either port Jinitiator, of fix the apps so they can use a standard JVM.
The article was rather vague on which route they are taking.
"If they have both, tell them we use Linux. And if they have that, tell them the computers are down." -Dave Chapelle
Due to netscape and mozilla being (for the most part) plug-in compatible, I've been using Oracle Apps via Mozilla (and Phoenix/Firebird) for at least 3-4 years now.
.dll into the Mozilla plugins folder. Restart Mozilla and get to work... this may require a pre-existing netscape installation, not too sure. Everywhere I've worked pre-installed netscape for their users. If you have to go that route, it's not too hard to uninstall netscape once you have Jinitiator and Mozilla/Firebird playing nice with each other.
All you have to do is download oajinit.exe (yes, this is windows) and install it. Then, you need to find the dll that's installed (the name contains the version number of Jinitiator, but I'm not at work so I can't say for sure what it is) and drop the
Now, I'd love to see more linux support as a client machine. The only reason I have to use windows at work is the lack of a supported solution to running oracle apps client from linux. The developer apps are pretty crappy compared to the windows ports, but they do work.
Not only do I play an Oracle apps developer on TV, I am one in real life, too!
In fact, it does currently work, and there are alot of people currently using it under Linux.
The problem is that for windows, they have created a n installation package which automatically installs a java applet and signs it with a downloaded certificate. They don't have package so far for Linux, so the only people using Linux are the more technical users who can manually install the correct Sun jdk bits and certificate manually.
Pointy haried bosses, even if they allow Linux, don't like custom, unsupported installs.
"The best part? I became an ordained minister while not wearing pants." -- CleverNickName
I work on Oracle's HTML technologies (don't want to say more).
Much of the problem involves bugs and different behaviors in Javascript and CSS implementations across browsers. Sometimes the standards are interpreted differently, or areas of a standard aren't supported. None of the problems are insurmountable, but the sad reality is that anyone doing advanced DHTML and CSS is forced to use different code paths in at least a few places. Web application authors will know what I mean.
The applications have generally worked well already because the developers inside Oracle often prefer to use Mozilla as their day-to-day browser.
The important point of the announcement (at least as far as the HTML apps are concerned) is support; committing to testing those various browsers across such a large set of projects is no trivial cost, even for a large company.
And it's not like Mozilla doesn't come out with a new version every three months or so, with it's own new regressions.
This is just another step in helping to give Mozilla corporate acceptance, and that will be good for everyone.
JInitiator (even the pre-Mozilla versions) work like a charm on Mozilla - I use it day in and day out. Ofcourse the old installers don't recognize Mozilla (they only recognize IE and Netscape 4.x) but on Windows you can copy the plugin DLLs to your Mozilla plugins directory. Obviously we don't want to suggest these "hacks" to customers and so this would be an example where we improve the installer to do the right thing and place the seal of Oracle support. This is true even on Linux and Solaris because at it's core JInitiator is Java-based.
The newer self-service applications built in the past three years all work on Mozilla. They are built with UIX which elminates all the raw HTML coding from our Apps developers. The core technology team ensures compliance across all browsers including Mozilla. Just FYI this also helps us support a host of PDAs and smartphones. The same is true for ADF which is simply the next generation of UIX and related tools.
Disclaimer: I work at Oracle in the applications technologies division but these statements are mine and do not reflect Oracle's position. Posting anonymously for obvious reasons.
Mozilla stomps KHTML/Konq for usage share. Mozilla and Mozilla based browsers have about a 68% share compared to KHTML.
Also, wait about a year and see how KDE usage drops considerably in numbers compared to Gnome, or how Gnome usage surges past KDE. Why? Because Novell purchased Ximian's XD2 which is Gnome based and Novell WILL leverage that investment. Evolution is critical for an Enterprise roll-out, since many Enterpriese use MS Exchange. KDE has nothing that can connect and use and MS Exchange server, while Novell/Ximian Evolution with Novell/Ximian Connector works great. And no, Enterprises are not going to be doing a large scale replacement of MS Exchange for KGroupware. With Novell buying SuSE, you may see some using Novell/SuSE MS Exchange replacement, again with is integragted and supported by Evolution.
Also, Sun's Linux desktop uses GNome and Solairs 9 now uses Gnome as well. Sun also just did that 1,000,000 Linux desktop deal with China, that will be a LOT of new Gnome desktops out there.
One other point, KHTML is no where near as standards compliant and ready for the web as Mozilla is. I have been to tons of sites that just don't work with KHTML/Konq that work fine with Moz. I am a developer for a fortune 500, we have a lot of Oracle and People Soft Enterprise apps that are now web enabled. Most of them work perfect with Moz 1.5/1.6 and puke with KHTML, though as this topics suggest, there are still some that require IE only : (
If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land,
it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy. -James Madison
As someone else pointed out, the Mozilla Application Suite will continue to exist, even as MozillaFirebird emerges as the premier product of the Mozilla Organization.
they can start by making a cros platform xforms extension for mozilla, roaming profiles, intergrate their implimentation of jabber into mozilla as a extension.
instantly mozilla would be ready for business in a serious way versus ie.
oracle would have a full featured desktop client.
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