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."

Comments

Don't they get it?

[Anonymous Coward]

It should have had worked since beginning (unless there's some catastrophic bug in mozilla). A web page that requires some specific browser is hopelessly broken by my definition.

Re:Don't they get it?

[PierceLabs]

Actually I think they get it more than you do I'm afraid. We're entering a period where the industry is about to jump start is previously dot-bomb aborted attempt to create platforms for rich client applications that work in internet browsers. For all the good that HTML is, developers and corporations alike want to do more.... a WHOLE lot more. Even Macromedia is realizing that it was in the ballpark with their Generator product and is coming out with Flex.

This migration to rich internet UIs would have happened a long time ago, but when the bubble burst - all of the companies doing anything innovative in that space died and took all their ideas with them and scattered the talent to the four winds. As the tech industry recovers, expect them to start where they left off - just with a business plan that wasn't written by underpants gnomes.

Obvious?

[ultrabot]

Shouldn't supporting Mozilla be obvious? Web applications should adhere to standards, if they don't, well, they are crappy web applications in the first place. I don't consider this "generous", rather than just fixing their broken applications to work like they should have worked in the first place.

Re:Obvious?

[Anonymous Coward]

"Supporting Mozilla" does not necesarily have anything to do with Web applications. Mozilla is more than just a web browser. It's a cross-platform GUI toolkit, and applications can be written using it. I seem to recall that Nokia was once considering using Mozilla as the UI for their Linux-based operating system on a set-top box or kiosk type device.

I'd be surprised if any web applications that Oracle have don't already work in Mozilla. Running in normal web browsers is, after all, the whole point of having web applications, otherwise people could write Java Applications (not applets) or normal non-portable executables instead.

The enemy of my enemy...

[Trigun]

From the Article:

It is widely believed that another primary motivation behind Oracle's embrace of Linux is to push archrival Microsoft Corp. out of its position of power. In pursuit of that goal, Oracle will enable its customers to opt for Mozilla over Microsoft's Internet Explorer browser, just as they have enabled customers to opt out of Microsoft operating systems in favor of Linux.

So they're backing free software, something laughed at by most corporate bodies up until this time, to beat Bill. Capitalists using communists to fight fascists. Neat!

Oracle

[Anonymous Coward]

Oracle is the MS of the database world. Clueless managers insist on using it because they're the biggest DB company, and us geeks are the ones who have to live with the consequences.

Case in point, my company's got to use Oracle 9i/9iAS for a project, and we must have spent weeks just getting the thing to install properly. We upgraded our developers machines to XP last week, and it won't even install on clean machines.

Don't get me started on their idea of supporting open standards. JAZN (their implementation of JAAS) anyone?

Maybe it is not about browsing..

[GerardM]

When you want to do some clever stuff, you do not want to restrict yourself to HTML so you do not necessaraly want to use *any* browser. With the Mozilla technology they have a platform that has implementations on many platforms.

So I think they get it and it is less browser technology than presentation technology that they find in Mozilla

I don't get it

[Get Behind the Mule]

A database is a database, which should have nothing to do with user interaction. A web browser is at the presentation level, which is all about user interaction and should have nothing to do with the database.

If Oracle has been writing software that entangles database code with the presentation level, then they are mixing layers and producing appallingly unmaintainable code, and should stop doing that no later than immediately. On the other hand, if they are writing code that produces HTTP/HTML content in the presentation layer, then it doesn't matter which web browser is used to view it.

So why would anyone write software that is specifically "for Mozilla", especially a database vendor? They should just adhere to the HTTP/HTML standards in the presentation layer, so that anyone using a standards-compliant browser can view their content.

Of course, we are talking about Oracle, who has produced PL/SQL packages for generating HTML right out of the database, insist on using their own, outdated JRE's, and perhaps have generated M$-dependent web content. So maybe Oracle is just trying to tell us that they will start doing a couple of things a little bit less stupidly.

Mozilla isn't Linux-exclusive

[Xpilot]

It works on many other operating systems too, including the proprietary Windows. But it is still a success for Linux and open source in general, because any technology that does not allow Microsoft to lock in its customers is a win for freedom, and a loss for Microsoft. Microsoft values one thing more than money, that is the guarantee of making more money (marketshare strangehold). So as Linux and other open source operating systems gains widespread acceptance not just in the server space but with clients too, Microsoft loses out. Microsoft isn't left out or locked out, it is just forced to play on an level playing field.

So victory for open source is not the complete desctruction of the towers of Barad-dur in Redmond, but the creation of a fair and competitive server and desktop market and the neutralization of Microsoft's monopoly power. Once we have that, we have already won. Marketshare numbers will be meaningless, since you are not forced to adopt the platform with the highest market share to get the software solutions that you need.